The Copperhead assault rifle, capable of firing 640 rounds per minute, was wielded by Carl with considerable precision and lethality. Every bullet spat from its muzzle found the guest it was meant to entertain.
One shot to the head, one to the heart. Each of the seven Maelstrom members was gifted two bullets. Two seconds later, not a single Maelstrom member in front of the three of them could stand again.
"Fuck, mano, your shooting is insane!"
Jack paid no attention to the gunshot wounds still bleeding on his body. He even tried to get up and see whether any Maelstrom members were still alive so he could finish them off.
"Jack, you should rest first."
Oliver held Jack back and checked his injuries. Only after confirming that neither bullet had hit anything vital did he breathe a sigh of relief. "At this rate, no number of lives would be enough for you, Jack."
"Isn't it fine?"
Jack grinned. "And since things worked out, it's fine. Weren't you bragging about Carl's shooting all the way here? I was just trusting in what you guys could do."
"What the hell kind of skill was that?"
Carl could only say that this was the first time he had seen someone laugh heartily after taking two bullets. "If their aim had been just a little better, you'd be dead, Jack."
"Relax, relax, KK. I knew what I was doing. The first thing I did when I dove was protect my head, and I'm wearing body armor. If I hadn't been sure, why would I risk my life?"
"I think once this job is done, even if we have to pool our money, we need to get you Subdermal Armor first."
Oliver spoke helplessly, though he also felt a little ashamed that he had been unable to help earlier. "I need to get some cyberware installed too. I have to be useful somehow. Otherwise, if I just stand around watching you two do everything, I'd be too embarrassed to take a cut."
"Your shooting is good, Oliver. Later, you could try getting a sniper rifle and some support cyberware, then provide cover for us from a distance."
"But I'm not as good a shot as you, KK."
"That's why I'm telling you to use a sniper rifle."
Carl shook the Copperhead in his hand. "I'm better suited to using something like this to deal with people quickly."
"I think Oliver could try being our medic."
Jack looked at the wounds on his body, which Oliver had properly treated while talking with Carl. That kind of proficiency was rare.
"My sister's a Ripperdoc, after all. I picked up a thing or two."
Not thinking it was much of a big deal, Oliver swept his gaze around and spotted the surveillance cameras. "We need to move somewhere else quickly. This place is full of cameras. Once the other Maelstrom members in the factory realize what's happening, they'll surround us."
"We'll switch locations and deal with a few more groups. Once there aren't many left, we'll keep one alive and ask where the item is."
Carl walked over to the Maelstrom members and picked up several grenades. "Later, I need to learn something about hacking, or figure out how to hire us a hacker. If we had a hacker for this job, we wouldn't even need to keep anyone alive. We could disable the cameras, fight all the way to the client's crate, toss in a grenade, take a photo as proof, and be done with it. Easy."
"So this idea of yours was still born from wanting to charge in more easily?"
Oliver felt that he was probably the only half-normal person on this team. Supporting the less mobile Jack with one hand, he used the butt of his pistol with the other to smash the camera facing them.
But no matter what, these two were his companions now. He might as well go along with them.
By the time Maelstrom's Devil reached the place she had seen on the surveillance feed, nothing remained there except the corpses of seven Maelstrom members.
"Useless trash. You couldn't even hold them off for a few minutes?"
Devil really wanted to put another bullet in the heads of every person lying on the ground.
"Boss, there's blood here."
A sharp-eyed Maelstrom member following beside her spotted a pool of blood on the ground not far from the corpses.
"This way!"
Seeing bloodstains appearing every few steps, the Maelstrom members raised their guns and looked to Devil, waiting for her orders.
"Looks like they managed to do something after all."
Hatred filled Devil's heart, and without much thought, she led her people after the trail of blood.
A few seconds later, as they rounded a corner in one of the factory corridors—
"Boom!"
Amid the explosion of the grenade, the Maelstrom members at the front were swallowed by fire. Those slightly farther away were blasted into the air by the shockwave, then crashed down in pieces before Devil, who had been walking in the middle.
"Fuck, it's a trap!"
"They fell for the trap."
Hearing the explosion behind them, Carl immediately turned around. He tightly gripped the Lexington pistol, which was more useful in the narrow corridor, and slowly headed back.
Jack's injuries had been bandaged by Oliver earlier, so there was no way he could have bled all along the path. That blood had come from a strip of cloth Carl tore off while taking grenades from the Maelstrom members. He had soaked it in blood and squeezed it every few steps, letting droplets fall all the way along the route.
And Oliver had made the trap. After all, he came from the Sixth Street Gang. He had learned a little about using military grenades to make simple booby traps in the field.
"Oliver, protect Jack. I'll check on the Maelstrom behind us."
Carl had only intended to stall them, since he had no idea how many people remained in the factory. But when he rounded the corner, he discovered that there were not many people left in front of him either.
Devil was only a minor Maelstrom officer, with just over twenty people under her command. Some had gone out to fool around and rob people, seven had been dealt with by Carl in the earlier firefight, and several more had been killed or crippled by the grenade trap in the corridor. Including Devil herself, only four remained by her side now.
Carl's gun was fast. By the time he realized he should keep someone alive, three people had already been taken out. The last one remained not because Carl had missed her head, but because his bullet struck her head with a metallic clang and failed to penetrate.
Damn it, just like that guy from yesterday with metal cybernetic eyes in front and an iron skull in back.
Carl felt that this woman would be difficult to capture alive, so he instantly fired another shot. But even though he aimed at what should have been the joint between the two metal plates, the bullet was still deflected with another clang.
The second sound snapped the Maelstrom member back to her senses. As her red-glowing eyes turned toward Carl, a line Jack had once said flashed through Carl's mind.
The Lexington couldn't even penetrate the cheapest Subdermal Armor with a frontal shot.
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