I stopped shoveling snow, and leaned over the shovel to catch my breath. The DNBR was a little too realistic in the most annoying ways. I checked the black ring slowly closing in around the edge of my map. “At least it’s coming in our direction.”
The safety zone where the node was expected to stop collapsing was down toward the southeast. I started in the south, so it’d be a while until it became a problem. “If we can hit a ring console, we can start setting up.”
”Can you mark them?” A moment later, blue lights pulsed across my map. The nearest one was inside the research base proper… but honestly, I didn’t like the idea of going in there.
“Could be higher tier loot there,” Luna said after a moment. “From what I can gather, the Drastovosky Research Base was focused on biological mutations… super soldiers.”
‘Course they were. Corporations, governments, private entities—they were all the same and completely unoriginal. “Think they actually made anything viable?”
”Even if they didn’t in real life, this is a game. There’s probably something down there.” Luna raised a fair point. As realistic as Monarch’s DarkNet Battle Royale was, it was ultimately for entertainment purposes.
“Still.” I shoveled one last mound of snow up onto the spider tank, and finished burying it. Its cover wasn’t perfect, but the snowstorm would take care of that before too long. Probably.
After much debate, I managed to convince Luna it was a bad idea to ride the tank directly into the POI. Although we were like this, I still preferred the stealth approach. Or, at least, wanted to attempt it. ‘Sides, it wasn’t like I could carry it up with me into places.
I shook off the shovel and stored it back on the side of my bag. The moment my hands were free, I shoved them into my pockets to force back the biting cold. “Let’s hit the radar console in the air traffic control tower. I’ll make a decision after that.”
”Roger.” Luna faded away and went back to working on whatever it was she did. Probably fending off all sorts of nasty programs, to be fair. Although it wasn’t as visual as Operators, Netrunners fought a battle of their own across the Net.
I shuffled through the snow toward the airfield. The entire time, I kept my eyes peeled for movement. I could hear gunshots echoing off the mountain somewhere, but that could be coming from anywhere. Although sight wasn’t ideal given the dense snowstorm, it was better than nothing.
Just like the other Points of Interest, the snowstorm lifted ever so slightly when I closed in toward the main airfield of the Drastovosky Research Base. Visibility steadily improved until I could make out the shapes of the base. I could see mostly clear across to the hangars surrounding the base as well as the heavily reinforced cavern entrance to the mountain. It was mostly thanks to my new eyes cutting through the snow.
An explosion lit up one of the hangars, and a scattering of gunshots erupted outward. A moment later, the front half of the hangar groaned and collapsed downward onto the firefight. I really, really wanted to pull out my sniper and start firing, but the console came first.
The sheer concrete walls of the air traffic control tower were frostbitten and whitewashed by the constant snow. Despite the erosion, red lights flickered across the corners of the building just like most places in the research base did.
I skipped the door, and directly cut a hole through the wall. The Warhost’s Unstoppable Saber proved to be as effective of a can opener as ever, and allowed me to slip in through an off-angle.
The moment I got through, I shoved the heavy concrete block I’d cut out back into place and packed in the cracks with snow to mostly cover it up. The cuts were, of course, perfectly smooth. It was all too easy to get it back in place.
I shuffled around the building until I found the front door. Trails of water streaked into the place, though the snow had long melted. A claymore sat just next to the door. If someone so much as pushed it open, the claymore would detect the motion and give them a seriously bad day.
“Give me a sec.” Luna crouched down next to the claymore and waved her hand over it. After a moment, the lasers it used to track movement turned visible and blue. “Think they’re still here?”
”No.” I moved over to the main stairs, and closely inspected the water trails. There was a set going up, and coming back down. Unless they masterfully covered their traces, the person who set the trap was long gone.
Instead of instantly going up the stairs, I rigged a grenade and microwire back at the entrance where I came in. The last thing I wanted was to get ambushed while setting up to fire.
I moved around and set three more while I was at it. I had two claymores from my looting spree, as well as a bunch of other nifty gadgets, but they’d probably be better off elsewhere. I wasn’t planning on camping out down here, anyway.
When I was confident enough that I covered every route, I moved back up to the stairs and flicked out a card I swiped from Summoner. Pixels sprouted, and formed the shape of a Merc program. A blue indicator popped up on my map a moment later. Hopefully, if someone did sneak in, it’d give me enough warning.
Only once everything was ready did I slink up the stairs toward the console with my rifle up. I swept the stairs, and slowly moved up while scanning every angle. The observation platform of the air traffic control tower was clear.
I dropped my rifle back into its strap, and ducked down behind cover. It took a bit of work to get the heavy sleeve of my winter coat up. I pulled out my jack, and slotted it into the console. “Do your thing.”
”Roger.” A minute later, a pulse spread out across the map from where we stood. Red dots scattered all around the map lit up.
There were seven other Operators in this POI, and three more inside the mountain base itself. The ones in the base were right on top of each other, so there was probably a fight going on? The other seven were spread around the place.
I jerked my wrist, and my jack snapped back into place. I did want to try and get into the actual research base before this place was zoned off by the Node. The loot was… it’d be nice, but the ring console was the big thing. Intel would make or break me.
Before that, though, there were way too many Operators grouped up around here for comfort. I pulled a puck out of my bag and slung it toward one of the consoles near the window. A hologram popped up of me as a decoy. Hopefully they’d shoot Decoy Shiro and I’d be able to get by just fine.
With that set, I flicked my sword and cut out a small hole in one of the windows. The cut was so clean that the glass just sat where it was until a stray wind slammed into it and blew it into the tower.
I eyed my map, and pulled my sniper off my back and braced my rifle on a console further into the tower. Light shone down on me, but that was taken care of with a flick of my wrist. A knife arced up through the tower and took out the main lights inside the room. It instantly went dark aside from the glows of monitors.
I pushed my hood back, and leaned on the sniper to check out my targets. Using the map data, it wasn’t that hard to find where each of them were located. I locked onto an Operator perched on the external catwalk of one of the hangars on the opposite side of the air strip. She was, in turn, locked onto someone I couldn’t see from here.
The moment she appeared in my crosshairs, a thin line appeared on the scope thanks to the Vantage-8 Cyberoptics. It perfectly marked the expected bullet trajectory of my rifle as well as an indicator for the travel time, wind, and other factors that could throw off my shot. It was so much information that I had to pause for a moment to take it in.
Is it really this easy? I lined up the expected bullet trajectory with the woman, and hesitated for a moment. My crosshair was way up and to the left, set on the upper wall of the hangar. It didn’t feel like it’d hit at all. Before I could second guess myself more, I squeezed the trigger.
Pwing!
The kick took me by surprise, and I jerked backward slightly. My crosshairs shifted away from her. Dexterity kept things slowed down partially, but bullets traveled quickly. By the time I flicked back onto her, the bullet had already slammed home… and popped uselessly to the ground.
The woman flinched and looked in my direction as a shield made up of flaming scrap code flickered around her. It stayed for a moment before blinking out. The hell? Since when did someone figure out how to make energy shields?! That was my project, dammit!
“Her runner put up a Firewall.” Luna informed me. “Quick, fire again. They’re usually a one and done safety measure.”
“Chek.” Phew, it wasn’t what I thought it was. It’d be kind of crushing for someone to beat me to the punch when I was still stuck trying to make a gravitic superalloy.
Firewall… yeah, I faintly remembered Luna saying something about that during our practice sessions. I lined up the shot just as the woman started to push for cover, and fired again. This time, I watched the bullet slam into her chest—only for the flaming shield to block it once more. “Luna?!”
”The runner’s put up an improved version! Keep firing!” The barrel of my rifle pulsed blue, and pixelated code surrounded the muzzle like a dragon breathing fire. “I loaded a breach protocol.”
My hesitation at the weird effects lasted only a second before I squeezed the trigger again. The Rustek AP-38 wasn’t the strongest rifle out there, but it did have one good thing about it. Aside from reliability, of course. It could fire quickly. That was all I needed in the current situation.
I didn't wait for my next shot to hit before firing again. The bullet trajectory indicator basically did everything but pull the trigger, so I barely had to adjust before sending shot after shot at the woman.
The first bullet was slower than the others, and flashed blue across the airfield. The moment it slammed into her Firewall, the shield shattered and the roaring flames of code abruptly went out. That proved to be all I needed as the rest of my bullets slammed into her one after another.
One caught her in the chest, and made her stagger over the railing of the catwalk. It didn’t do much damage thanks to a heavy plate carrier, but it did buy time for a follow-up round to take her knee out from under her. It was just before she got to cover, too.
I adjusted and fired one more time. The last bullet arced across the space and slammed into her head, making her go entirely still. No kill credit? I put another one into her just to make sure, and three points smoothly deposited into my account.
I ejected the magazine, and slapped another one up into the AP-38 while scanning the rest of the base for other Operators peeking out. This is kinda fun? I should get a sniper rifle when I get back to the city… or making my own kinda sounds cool, too.
Unfortunately, before I could even start to celebrate, the monitors all over the room flashed red. A keening noise broke out across the tower, and lights all over the base flickered violently.
“What’s going on?” I grabbed at my ears and shouted over the blaring alarm.
”I… someone got control of the weather—” The warning alarm grew loud enough to drown out the rest of what Luna was saying.
The alarm abruptly cut off, as did the snowstorm around me. For the first time since this entire thing started, snow stopped falling from the sky. The visibility instantly shot through the roof as my chrome eyes adjusted to the lack of snow. “Any idea who—“
Krrrk!
The heavily reinforced window next to me cracked, and a bullet punched through my holographic decoy. It whizzed through the room and slammed into the upper corner of the room.
I dove to the ground as more bullets rained down shards of glass across me. My heavy clothes kept me mostly protected, and I crawled along the ground back toward the stairs.
With as many shots as I put out for the Firewall Operator, it was only a matter of time before someone returned fire. Too bad it happened to be during the one time I couldn’t use the snow as cover.