Ignoring the other feeds, she locked onto Oliver's position and burst out of the room, charging straight toward him. She wanted him dead.
Unaware that he had already been marked, Oliver was crouched behind cover, leaning out now and then to fire his Copperhead at members of Maelstrom across the factory floor. The firepower here was far heavier than what he had seen on the streets, and under near constant gunfire he barely found any chances to shoot back. Sweat ran down his face as bullets chewed at the cover around him.
"KK, think of something," he shouted toward Carl. "If they push us close enough to throw grenades, we are done."
"I am calm," Carl replied. Since he had chosen a direct assault, he was not doing it without preparation, and he had already planned for heavy resistance. "I have locked down the Copperhead's data."
After four shots, Carl had fully adjusted to the weapon. What he needed now was a window. "Jack Welles, make me an opening."
"Leave it to me," Jack Welles answered.
Without hesitation, Jack Welles did something neither Carl nor Oliver expected. He burst out from cover and lunged toward Oliver's position, exposing himself completely. The Maelstrom gunners snapped their aim toward him, and bullets ripped through the air, two of them punching through his arm and thigh in that brief moment.
"Using your body as bait, are you insane?" Oliver yelled.
"Now, Carl!" Jack Welles shouted back through clenched teeth.
"You really are crazy, Jack Welles," Carl muttered as he rose from cover, the Copperhead already lined up on the enemies who had just shifted their aim. "Seven targets. Fourteen rounds is more than enough."
The Nokota D5 Copperhead with a firing rate of up to 640 rounds per minute showed deadly precision in Carl's hands. Every round that burst from the muzzle found the target it was meant for, clean and exact. Head, then heart, each of the seven Maelstrom members received two bullets in less than two seconds.
When it was over, there was no one left in front of the three of them who could stand up again. The bodies lay scattered across the floor, weapons slipping from lifeless hands. The sudden quiet made the space feel wider than before.
"That was insane, mano, your shooting is unreal!"
Jack Welles did not seem to care that he was still bleeding from a gunshot wound. He even tried to get up to check if any Maelstrom members were still alive so he could finish them off.
"Jack Welles, you should rest first."
Oliver pulled him back and checked his injuries, only relaxing after confirming that neither bullet had hit anything vital. "With the way you act, a few lives still would not be enough for you, Jack Welles."
"I am fine."
Jack Welles grinned. "And the result was good, so it is all good. You were the one hyping up Carl's shooting the whole way here, right? I just trusted your judgment."
"Bullshit judgment."
Carl had never seen someone laugh after taking two bullets. "If their aim had been just a bit better, you would be dead, Jack Welles."
"Relax, KK, I knew what I was doing. I covered my head the moment I rushed in, and I was wearing armor. If I was not sure, I would not gamble my life like that."
"After this job, even if we all chip in, we really need to get you a new Subdermal Armor."
Oliver sounded helpless, and a little ashamed that he had not been much help earlier. "I should get some implants too. I need to pull my weight, or I will feel bad taking a cut when I am just watching you two work."
"Your shooting is not bad, Oliver. Later you could try using a sniper rifle with some support implants and cover us from a distance."
"But my aim is not as good as yours, KK."
"That is why you use a sniper rifle."
Carl shook the Copperhead in his hand. "I am more suited to using this kind of thing to end fights fast."
"I actually think Oliver could be our medic."
Jack Welles glanced at his own body while Oliver talked with Carl and treated his wounds at the same time. That level of skill was rare to see.
"My sister is a ripperdoc, so I picked up a few things."
Not thinking it was anything special, Oliver scanned the area and noticed the surveillance cameras. "We need to move fast. This place is full of cameras. Once the other Maelstrom members in the factory react, they will surround us."
"Let us change spots and deal with a few more waves. When the numbers are low enough, we leave one alive and ask where the stuff is."
Carl walked over to the fallen Maelstrom members and picked up several grenades. "I really need to learn some hacking, or find a way to hire a hacker. If we had one this time, we would not even need a prisoner. Just block the cameras, fight straight to the client's stash, toss a grenade, take a photo, and we are done."
"So all this thinking is still about charging in more easily."
Oliver felt like he was the only half normal person in the team. He supported the injured Jack Welles with one arm while raising his pistol with the other to shoot out the cameras watching them. No matter what, these two were his partners now, so he would go along with it.
When Maelstrom's Madhead arrived at the location she had seen on the cameras, all that remained were seven corpses. There was nothing else left behind, not even usable gear. The place was silent except for distant machinery.
"Useless. You could not even stall them for a few minutes?"
Madhead wanted to put another bullet into each head on the ground.
"Boss, there is blood here."
One of the Maelstrom members beside her spotted a pool of blood not far from the bodies.
"This way!"
Seeing blood stains appear every few steps, the Maelstrom members raised their guns and looked at Madhead, waiting for her order. The trail was obvious and led deeper into the factory.
"At least they managed to hurt someone."
Hatred filled her thoughts, and Madhead did not think much before leading her people along the blood trail.
A few seconds later, as they turned a corner inside the factory corridor, the explosion hit.
With a loud blast, the Maelstrom member at the front was swallowed by fire. Those a bit farther back were thrown by the shockwave, landing in pieces right in front of Madhead.
"Damn it, it is a trap!"
"They set us up!"
Hearing the explosion behind him, Carl turned at once. He tightened his grip on the Militech Lexington, which worked better in the narrow corridor, and moved back carefully.
Jack Welles's wounds had already been treated by Oliver, so there was no way he could be bleeding all over the floor. The blood trail had been made by Carl when he grabbed grenades from the Maelstrom bodies. He had torn off a strip of cloth, soaked it in blood, and squeezed out drops every few steps as they walked.
The trap itself was Oliver's work. As a former 6th Street member, he still remembered some basic battlefield tricks for turning grenades into simple booby traps.
"Oliver, protect Jack Welles. I will check on the Maelstrom behind us."
Carl did not know how many people were still in the factory and only planned to delay them. When he rounded the corner, he realized there were not many left.
Madhead was only a low level officer in Maelstrom with a bit over twenty people under her. Some were out drinking and robbing elsewhere. Seven had already been killed by Carl, and several more were dead or crippled by the grenade trap, leaving only four including her.
Carl was fast with his gun. By the time he realized he should leave someone alive, three were already down. The last one survived not because he missed her head, but because the bullet struck her skull with a sharp metallic clang and failed to go through.
Damn it, just like the guy yesterday with metal eyes in front and a steel plate in the back of his head.