Hot air hit me as the bay doors opened; ETA 10 mins.
I looked down on nothing but jungle for miles, nothing like home. It was humid and smelled of shit- I almost missed the cold of Moscow. I took a long drag.
"Will be on the drop sight in 8!" Yelled Sarge, "Activate your skeletal reinforcers before you hit the ground." He laughed, "I don't wanna see poke-a-dots this time 'round."
"Why the long face?" Asked Luca, "After this? We go to America, get citizenship!"
"...That's "if" we make it back." I replied.
He pulled up his mask, "Psh, this joker- When I go, I will buy big land! With lots of cows! Eh?"
"The fuck you want cows for you italian hick-?" replied Hatori. "Women, some American women is my first stop!"
"Tch- Bastards are drunk on hope and promises…" I thought, "Citizenship. That's what they told us when we signed up; couldn't risk tracing it back to the states so they hired a few global specs from Militech to do their dirty work." I stamped out my cig, "Tupitsa*…" (Dumbasses…)*
"Hey, you can think about whores and cows once we're done with the OP!" Yelled Sarge, "We're coming up on the site now. Prepare to jump."
I slowly stood up, taking a deep breath.
"Go! Go! Go!"
And dropped; wind rushed past me like a cool breeze, woke me up.
I fell towards the earth some 1000 feet up; no parachute though, didn't need it; cyberware took care of the job. We hit the ground 40 clicks from the base: Kang Tao installation.
Top brass had heard rumblings of Rache Bartmoss in China; high level netrunner turned cyber terrorist. Heard he was cooking up something big too. Had to check it out, stop it, so they sent us in. 20-something's with nothing to our names and everything to gain.
Outfitted with an advanced new Militech prototype dubbed "Prometheus"; a full body endoskeleton that mixed the enhancements of the Berserker implant and the Sandevistan together. It was a homunculus of an implant; a straight ticket to cyberpsychosis. But they always have a failsafe… thermal charges implanted in the spine, said to blow up half a city block if we go psycho.
We walked in our own coffins.
10 clicks away we turned on our optical camo, blending in with the jungle around us. Invisible to all but each other.
"Oi, amico~" Said Luca, "You don't care about the citizenship? Eh? Why?"
"...Not interested." I replied.
"Oh? Not fan of America?" He snickered, "I see you from Moscow, yes?"
"How could you tell?"
"Your voice- it sound funny. Like smoke to much-"
"Tch-"
"I heard Russia trade weapons with countries, yes?" He spoke, "I also heard it trade children as well…this true?"
"I wouldn't know anything about that…" I replied, my fist tightening.
"Inhuman soldiers it makes them, sells them to corps for pro-"
I spun around grabbing him by the neck. "Gah!" he struggled in my hand, clawing and banging.
"Shut it." cold like ice I spoke.
"Drop him." Said Sarge with his PLS* engaged, pointed directly at my head. (Projectile Launch System)*
"'Fore I blow your brains out."
I glared at him as Luca gasped for air.
"We're here on direct orders to find Bartmoss and take him out." He scowled, "I don't need some commy fucker messing up this OP. So, fall in line or…"
He pulled out a remote trigger, in case of capture or disobedience. "I cook you from the inside out."
"Tch…" I dropped him, he vomited vile as he slithered away, muttering profanities.
"Good…Now." He turned to the group disengaging his camo. "Just over that ridge is the facility. We get in and get out. No one seen and no bodies found, it's like we weren't even there. Once Bartmoss is confirmed dead we leave.
Extraction is in T-0300 hours. If you are not back by extract, we will leave you, and you will be neutralized. We can't have Kang Tao getting their hands on our toys, can we?" He said with a smile.
He then reengaged his camo, jumping off the ridge; we all followed suit. Sliding down we saw the facility; scans showed a three-level compound with two below ground. Security was low topside to avoid suspicion, but they ran thermal scans around the building every 5-seconds.
Before we hit the base, we kicked up dirt, to make it look like we were a side of the ridge; then, we engaged our sandevistans.
The world went still for us; clouds hung motionless in the sky, the dust and dirt slowly fell like leaves. We moved through the field like lightning, leaving echoes of footsteps in our wake; we appeared as nothing more than heatwaves.
Arriving at the base we disengaged the sandevistan; the world continued; it was always a strange feeling using the sandy, like you had just woken up from a dream.
Sarge motioned for us to split up, going back into camo.
I made my way past the comms tower that lay in the center of the facility; opening up a vent I silently slid inside. The hallways were long and wide, guards placed at the edge of every hallway. If I could get into the security room, I could get schematics of the compound.
I crawled through the vents, over a multitude of different rooms. Finally coming to security; a single guard sat at the computer watching the monitors.
Quietly, I opened the vent, hanging from my feet I grabbed his head. "Mgh!" he screamed as I dragged him up, "Snap!"
I jumped down taking out my neural link; plugging in I scanned their database on any holding cells or special rooms. "Nothing..." I thought, "Where could he be? I've checked all the listed rooms unless..." I searched the building's construction documents.
"Hm." There was an addition built at the beginning, a hollow space inside the foundational supports that wasn't listed. "Found you."
"Oh? You have him?" Said an all too familiar voice. "Click!"
"Luca..." I said, turning to find a gun pointed at me. "Seems the States aren't the only one after Rache..."
"Hm, what's the word...?" He smiled, "Da-"