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Chapter 97 c
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 17:00:37 +0000 UTCChapter 97 c
Connor clutched the chunk of flesh torn from his abdomen by a deranged guard and kept sucking in sharp breaths. Even after using a pneumatic injector on himself, he still pressed his fingers tightly to the wound, the blood flowing over them.
“Ugh—damned dogs! Now you know how it feels to lose someone. Once I get out of here, I’ll bring more people and wipe every one of you out!”
From Connor’s perspective, hearing the Eden Gang outside howling in grief over their Holy Father, Joseph Seed, meant they would soon crumble—either fleeing like monkeys when the tree fell or fracturing into infighting as they fought to fill the newly vacant leadership position.
Lightheaded from blood loss, he believed the worst of the danger had passed.
Leo, however, did not see it that way. He listened carefully, and his expression changed in a heartbeat.
“Something’s off! Get down!”
He tackled Lucy, covering her with his body. A few of the officers caught on and dropped to the floor as well, but some did not react in time and were immediately torn to shreds by a hail of rounds that pierced the chapel walls. The Eden Gang, it seemed, had stashed a decent number of tech weapons capable of shooting through barriers.
The barrage lasted who knew how long before finally stopping. That stretch of wall was riddled with holes, resembling a honeycomb with light shining in through every perforation.
Then, mere seconds later—boom! An explosion blew the automatic door into countless fragments of twisted metal. Footsteps thundered toward them, and through the swirling smoke, it was impossible to tell how many people had charged inside.
Still prone, Leo lobbed several flashbangs. Those little spheres clattered into the crowd, and a moment later, blinding light engulfed the chamber. The Eden Gang members who had rushed in staggered around, clutching their eyes and howling in pain. Seizing the opening, Leo grabbed Lucy’s hand, pulled her up, and tossed out more smoke grenades.
A greenish haze spread through the room until visibility dropped to near zero. But Leo had a tactical visor that could switch to a thermal imaging mode, allowing him to see through the smoke as though it were clear air.
His hand gripped his katana’s hilt. In the next instant, several arcs of cold steel flashed, and the wall behind them—already damaged—was sliced like tofu, left teetering ominously. A solid kick from Leo brought it crashing down with a deafening thud, sending dust billowing everywhere. Sunlight streamed in from outside; the smoke-blinded officers stumbled in confusion at first, then bolted for the opening with newfound hope.
Leo and Lucy moved to leave as well when faint cries for help made them pause. Glancing back, they spotted a female officer with an injured leg and Connor, minus a large piece of flesh from his midsection, both left behind in the chaos.
Leo gestured for Lucy to go ahead. “You go first—I’ll catch up.”
Lucy answered with actions rather than words: she hurried back to support the wounded policewoman.
“Wait—help…help me, too…” Connor pleaded. He hadn’t even finished speaking when an Eden Gang member, still half-blind but zeroing in on the sound of his voice, pulled the trigger. The bullet found Connor’s skull, splattering red and white matter everywhere.
Seeing he was beyond saving, Leo made his decision in an instant. “Move!”
He yanked Lucy and the injured officer forward, then flung a few frag grenades into the chapel. The deafening blasts fused with the echoes of agonized screams.
…
Lucy, supporting the wounded policewoman, ran at the front. Leo had slung his Crusher shotgun onto his back again, now gripping an Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen Smart SMG newly fitted with a loaded magazine. The trio stayed behind the other officers, weaving around buildings on their way to the main entrance.
Most of the Eden Gang was concentrated in the chapel interior, so for the moment, there was no one blocking their path. Before long, they reached the courtyard before the gate, only to discover that the police contingent Connor had ordered to guard Channel 54’s news crew were all dead—along with the reporters themselves.
Though they had feared the worst, the officers still felt a pang at seeing it with their own eyes. There was little time for remorse, however. A more pressing crisis faced them:
Just as when they arrived, the main gate was locked down, and a heavy blast door had risen from the ground, sealing the entrance completely.
“The exit’s blocked again. We could climb the wall.”
“The fence is way too high. We don’t have leg implants—nobody can scale it.”
“We could drive a cruiser up to the wall, climb onto the roof, then get over!”
“There’s barbed wire up top marked ‘High Voltage.’ How are we supposed to get across that?”
“Even if we do make it over, then what? You seriously expect to jog from Santo Domingo back to City Center? That’s crazy far. Without wheels, we won’t get away.”
“Better than waiting here to die! Besides, we don’t have to walk all the way back—just far enough to get beyond the jammer’s range. Then we can call the station for backup.”
When the debate among the NCPD officers started sounding like a group of street vendors squabbling over a single eddie, Leo fired a shot into the sky to silence them.
“Enough bickering. I have a plan—we’ll go out the front. Lucy, can you open it?”
Lucy, breathing heavily, placed a hand against her chest. “Give me a moment.”
Leo nodded, then turned to the officers. “You heard her. My partner’s going to hack in and unlock the exit, but we need to buy her time. If you want to get out of here alive, do as I say.”
Under his direction, they used a police cruiser for cover, forming a crude defensive line. Lucy and the injured officer were placed safely at the rear.
Sure enough, as Leo had expected, before Lucy could finish the job, a wave of Eden Gang members poured out of the building.
“They are he—”
The lead gang member never finished the sentence. Leo put a round through his forehead, swiftly followed by bursts of automatic fire from the Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen. One by one, the frontmost attackers dropped.
With the police now behind the cruiser, they returned fire as well. The courtyard became a cacophony of muzzle flashes and explosions. Though the Eden Gang had heavier weapons, Leo leveraged the smart targeting on his SMG to pick off anyone wielding high-caliber gear, knocking them out before they could unleash devastation.
Normally, a Smart weapon required a “Smart Link” implant for targeting. However, Leo’s tactical visor came equipped with a module that not only duplicated a standard Smart Link’s functionality but enhanced it. Where a typical Smart Link locked onto one target at a time, Leo’s visor could track multiple hostiles simultaneously, focusing all headshots in a single magazine volley if necessary.
Because of this advantage, the NCPD officers avoided being pinned down. Instead, they steadily gained the upper hand in the exchange of fire.
“All set!” Lucy’s voice rang out. With a heavy mechanical rumble, the blast door sank into the ground, and the gate locks disengaged, swinging open.
“Great, let’s—” Leo started, but before he could finish, a few nervous officers jumped into one of the patrol cars and floored it. Not everyone in the NCPD had joined up to serve and protect; many were in it purely for the perks. Concepts like honor and duty meant nothing to them.
"Don't you Idiots!"
Ignoring Leo’s warnings, they sped away—only for the cruiser to explode in a massive fireball without warning. The blast wave hurled nearby officers off their feet, a whirlwind of smoke and debris filling the courtyard. The vehicle soared briefly through the air before slamming back down in a fiery wreck.
