Thinking she would be hard to capture alive, Carl fired again without hesitation. The shot aimed at the seam between the metal plates bounced off with another clear clang.
The sound snapped the remaining Maelstrom member back to her senses. Her eyes glowed red as she looked at Carl, and a line from Jack Welles flashed through his mind.
The Militech Lexington cannot punch through even the cheapest Subdermal Armor when fired straight on.
Madhead locked her eyes on the black-haired young man who appeared at the corner and raised the Crusher Shotgun without hesitation. She squeezed the trigger and the blast echoed down the steel passage. The shot slammed into the metal corridor, sending a sharp ringing vibration through the structure.
Steel carried the sound far, and the shudder rolled through the entire factory. Everyone heard it clearly, including Carl, who realized his handgun was useless and turned to run the moment the shot went off. He cursed under his breath as the footsteps behind the corner grew louder.
"Damn it, was that a shotgun just now? I should have aimed at that thing," Carl muttered.
He felt the steps closing in and hated that he was not running faster. He had only meant to finish someone off, but it turned into a frontal encounter in a narrow passage with a Maelstrom member carrying a shotgun and wearing Subdermal Armor. He even pictured how he might die.
Earlier, Oliver had set the traps and used all the grenades. Carl regretted not keeping one, since it would have given him at least some way to fight back. The place where they had paused earlier was not far from the corridor.
After just a few strides, Carl saw Jack Welles and Oliver supporting him. They had clearly heard the metal impacts traveling through the passage and realized something had gone wrong. The moment Carl saw them, he shouted a single word.
"Run!"
He braked hard, shoved the Militech Lexington back into its holster, and slid forward. With one smooth motion, he grabbed the Copperhead he had left leaning against the wall, the rifle he had complained was too long for a narrow passage. He took back every bad word he had said about it.
At a corner, an assault rifle was awkward, but on a straight line it only needed a clear lane to fire. Hearing Carl's shout, Jack Welles and Oliver did not hesitate. One supported the other as they turned and fled, while Carl opened fire and poured bullets down the passage behind them.
With her Subdermal Armor, Madhead could ignore the bullets from the Militech Lexington. Facing the Copperhead, she was not that arrogant. She had almost chased close enough for the shotgun to be lethal, but the incoming fire forced her back around the corner.
She watched the blond who had killed her brother retreat while supporting another man. The one who had killed her subordinates kept firing without pause, pinning her in place. The shame made her grind her teeth.
"I do not believe you have endless ammo, kid. You and that bastard Oliver can wait to die."
Madhead glanced back and picked up a discontinued Arasaka Yukimura from beside one of her dead underlings. With the pistol in one hand and the Crusher in the other, she waited for the moment the Copperhead fell silent so she could tear the man apart.
"Why did she call your name back there? Does she know you?" Jack Welles asked, confused, glancing at Oliver as they ran.
"How would I know," Oliver said. "Yesterday was my first time in the Watson District. Who knows what happened."
"Both of you shut up and run faster," Carl shouted from behind them. "I am down to short bursts and almost out. Move."
Hearing the urgency in his voice, Oliver and Jack Welles fell silent and focused on running. They did not know the details, but if Carl was this pressed, whatever was chasing them was no small threat.
He filed away his first lesson from this merc job and stopped firing. The gunfire cut off, and Madhead's first thought was that the rifle was empty. She leaned out from the corner, showing half her body.
The gunfire exploded again at once. Three rounds tore into that half from top to bottom, ripping open three huge wounds. As Carl watched the body get shredded, his heart sank.
A body with Subdermal Armor would not be torn apart like that, even by the Copperhead. That meant the target was not her body at all. He noted the second lesson to himself.
He tossed aside the empty Copperhead, drew the Militech Lexington from his waist, and fired a few more shots while running back. Behind the corner, Madhead froze mid-charge when the gunfire started again. She stopped dead.
She realized he had tried to trick her a second time. Still, something felt wrong. She had used the Copperhead before, and without heavy modification it should have hit its limit after that much firing.
The sound now was off. After another second, a nameless rage surged up in her chest. That sound was far too familiar.
Before joining Maelstrom, when she and her brother lived at the bottom and relied on each other, their lifeline had been a gun that made exactly that sound. Just moments ago, that same sound had made her head ring.
"Damn it, Militech Lexington. You used the sound of a Militech Lexington to fool me."
Madhead burst out from the corner with the Yukimura and the Crusher. All she saw was a figure disappearing at the far end of the passage. She spat another curse as her fury finally broke loose.
Her optical implants glowed red, turning the dim corridor bright. She had been cautious before to avoid getting hurt before killing Oliver, but now she wanted the black-haired bastard dead too. Even if the Copperhead fired at her again, she would charge straight through and tank the hits with her Subdermal Armor.
Killing intent filled her thoughts. The operating system linked to her spine and skull whined with the strain of overdrive, and her speed increased again as she rushed forward.
After Carl ran past the corner at the end of the corridor, he saw a huge storage hall packed with various machines. It looked like a factory floor for canned food, with metal tables and conveyors spread out in rows. Oliver and Jack Welles were already in the distance, using a steel workbench as cover, and when they spotted Carl, they waved at him hard to come over.
Oliver was gripping his Nova, while Jack Welles held the Copperhead that originally belonged to Oliver. Both of them aimed their guns at the corner behind Carl, waiting for someone from Maelstrom to show her head so they could open fire. Even though they were ready, neither Oliver nor Jack Welles knew what Carl had just faced.
"That woman has Subdermal Armor. My Militech Lexington can't do anything to her."
Still some distance away, Carl shouted as he explained why he had failed to deal with the Maelstrom member chasing him. After hearing this, Jack Welles answered in a loud, steady voice.
"I told you to switch guns earlier."
"I'm regretting it right now!"
This was a clear case of learning the hard way. The Copperhead had far more power than the Militech Lexington, but in some situations a handgun was irreplaceable, and accuracy alone could not make up for the gap in firepower. Today, Carl had paid for that lesson himself.
Before Carl could run more than a few steps toward Oliver and Jack Welles, heavy footsteps thundered out of the corridor behind him. The person from Maelstrom had already caught up.
"Damn it, does she have to be this fast? I ran two seconds earlier than her!"
Realizing he still needed time to reach their position, Carl gave up on squeezing into the same cover with them. He quickly scanned his surroundings and found something he could hide behind. It was a large trash container piled high with discarded steel and broken machines.
He really did seem to have a connection with garbage.