Phantom Bullet

Always fear an old man in a game where men die young.

He sat in the corner of the office covered in a tan cloak as he awaited the courier who had his payments, it was only a small payday this time but that was all he needed for now. A young man walked up and plopped a credstick on the table. “Are you Kiso?” She said as she looked around as if she thought there was no way this old man could be a Runner. He smirked as he pocketed the credstick and pulled his hood up over his head as he walked towards the door “You're damn right I am.”

As he stepped out the door into the sandy wasteland of Los Demonios where the ancient city of Los Angeles had once stood. He walked out to his runner and jumped into the driver’s seat, he then turned on the engine and the runner began to hover as he took off heading towards his home neighborhood along the coast. When he pulled into his small house up on a ridge above the water he parked his car inside of his garage before walking out onto the back porch with a smile on his face. Even after the world had ended he had managed to carve out his slice of paradise.

About an hour later as he was sitting on his back porch having a beer a call began to come through on his tele-monitor, he sighed and then clicked a button allowing the call to come through. “Good to see you’re doing well Kiso,” said a beautiful woman with dark blue hair coming down over her right eye that complimented her tanned skin very well. “Well you know, times been good to me Zee, now let’s get down to business. I wanna finish this beer.” She chuckled and smiled before threading her fingers together before a serious look came over her face “Alright you and three other Runners are going to be hitting a Tiki Gang hideout, you’ll meet with them at 0800 hours tomorrow morning.” He nodded and took a sip of his beer as he leaned back in his chair “So how much is it paying Zee? You know I don’t come cheap anymore.” She smiled and pressed a button on her desk, at that moment a small ding went off on his tele-monitor showing that 1.5 million credits had just been wired into his account. “Your clients must be very confident to pay that much in advance, I guess I’m in.” Zee nodded before signing off of the call.

The next morning Kiso was standing in front of his closet with a smile on his face as he typed in his code onto a keypad and then opened the door to reveal a room filled with different types of firearms. He quickly grabbed a pistol and put it in his holster before grabbing a Gatling SMG slinging it under his arm, he then through on his tan cloak covering his weapons as he closed up the house and headed off in his runner heading for this new contract.

As he approached he drove his runner into a nearby safehouse leaving it there as he headed towards the meeting point on foot. When he arrived there was a tall young man with bleach blonde hair carrying a large assault rifle in his arms, his body looked riddled with all sort of advanced cybernetics, he chuckled as he looked over the young man cybernetics could only do so much to augment one’s skills. The second person standing there was a woman with long black hair with stripes of dark purple. Across her back was a massive Odachi blade, that along his her military-grade armor marked her out as a Runner who specialized in close combat over anything else. As he approached the young man spoke up “I take it your Kiso? You sure you’re going to be able to keep up old man?” he chuckled before responding to the young man “Don’t worry kid your back never been safer.” The woman rolled her eyes before speaking “Shut the hell up Kaiden! If the boss trusts him then were in good hands. Besides Kiso’s got a pretty crazy rep as one of the oldest Runners around. Sorry about him.” she said as she looked over to Kiso and reached out her hand to shake his, Kiso shook her hand with a smile. “No worries, I’ve dealt with plenty of his type before. Once we’re done he’ll know why I’m still around,” he said with a wink as the three of them began advancing towards the Tiki Gang’s tiki bar headquarters.

The plan was pretty simple, Kiso would use his rep to push his way inside of the bar while Kaiden set up on a boat a little way out to sea so that he could open fire when things kicked off. As he set up his assault rifle on its mount on the back of his boat he pressed on his comm “Shien, Kiso, I’m in position. Operation is a go.” They both of them responded affirmatively as Kiso approached the bouncer at the door, he pulled back his hood revealing his thinning grey hair and a massive scar across his left eye. The bouncer stepped aside “No problems here Mr. Kiso welcome to the Tiki Bar.” he nodded with a smirk as he walked inside of the building. As he approached the bar and sat down at the bar he placed a small credstick on the table “I’d like to speak to Sebetha,” the bartender nodded as he picked up the credstick and headed up the stairs into the back office. A moment later he returned and beckoned him to head back. Kiso nodded his head and headed then headed up the stairs into the back office. In the back office, there was a large wooden desk and a thatched fake bamboo walling. “Welcome, what can I do for a Runner like you Mr. Kiso?” said a handsome young man with short brown hair, clearly he was the boss of this operation. Without a word, Kiso drew his pistol out from within his holster and put a single bullet between the young man’s eyes causing him to slump back into his chair. He then tapped his comm “Sebetha is down move to phase two.”

Having gotten the go-ahead from Kiso, Kaiden opened fire riddling the bar with automatic gunfire as the gang members drew out there firearms and attempted to return fire on his position. Shein entered through the back door descending into the basement, once she got down there she encountered a large steel door. As she noticed it was locked she drew out her Odachi and its blade began to vibrate with an electric energy, she then slashed across the door causing it to collapse in half as she entered the vault. As she looked around all that was in the vault was a large computer monitor and a bank of computers, she tapped her comm “Vaults open, awaiting the key.”

Kiso tapped his comm “On my way.” A pair of gangsters wielding shotguns were coming up the stairs towards the office as Kiso stepped out the door and open fire with his Gatling SMG blasting the two of them back onto the ground in a bloody mess as he sprinted towards the basement. Once down in the basement he pulled a small device out his cloak and pushed it into the computer, it quickly began downloading the data as Kaiden spoke through the comms “Retreating for now, will cover exfiltration.” The two of them responded in the affirmative as they prepared for the gangsters to begin heading down here now that they weren’t fighting Kaiden.

“I’ll take them out, grab the datastick when it’s ready,” Kiso said as he pulled aside his cloak and held his Gatling SMG in his hands as he ascended the stairs “Are you sure about this? I know your good but there’s a lot of them up there,” she asked as she held out her blade with a worried look on her face. “Oh don’t worry about me kid,” he said with a smile as he waved dismissively and stepped out of sight as the sound of a large gunfight began to ring out. Moments later there was silence, seconds later Shien grabbed the datastick and sprinted upstairs to see Kiso standing in the center of the room surrounded by what looked about a hundred gangster corpses. “Holy shit,” she said as she looked around the room, she had seen some crazy shit as a Runner but one man slaughtering a hundred armed gangsters in a matter of seconds was something else entirely. “It’s time for us to move out, there are Heavies on the way. We’ll need to take them out on the way to extraction but I’m nearly out of ammo,” he said as steam poured out from his Gatling SMG as once again covered it with his cloak and began walking towards the front door. Shein smirked and stepped in front of the old man as large explosion detonates bringing down the front wall of the building. As the smoke cleared there were two incredibly large cyborgs wielding large machine guns with grenade launchers mounted on the bottoms of them. Shein smirked as she launched forward slashing through the cyborg’s mechanical torso slicing him in half before turning to face his partner and driving the blade into the chest of the guard. She then pulled the blade free spewing blood as she threw the blood off the blade before replacing it in her sheath. “Let’s move and fast!” Kiso shouted as he quickly began sprinting towards the exfiltration point where they would be meeting back up with Kaiden.

Moments later they approached the exfiltration site to the sight of Kaiden holding off a small squadron of gangsters with his assault rifle before seeing his approaching comrades and launching a small green flare into the air. He then smirked and stepped back unleashing a hail of machine-gun fire bringing down the horde of gangsters around him before he began ascending the building. The two of them quickly ascended the building after him, as they reached the top a gunship swung in next to the building and the side door slides open and the three of them stepped in. Just another day as a Runner.