by Benjamin Phelps Thompson

"2323, what's your status?" The radio sounded like shit. Probably the high rad level. Hadn't someone detonated a tac mini-nuke around here? 23 checked his monitor. Yeah, high rad levels. Traces of ibola-max and sarin, too.

"23. Mobile to sector 5. I'll call you clean."

"Roger that, 23."

23 checked that all systems were on-line, activated both his motion detector and his star-light vision, and slowly peeked over the top of the overturned car he was using as cover. What was left of California Street was still. The blasted ruin of the B of A building, with its hollow, burned out windows was bathed in the surreal green light of star-light vision. 23 touched the side of his helmet, and the image of the cluttered street zoomed closer, centering on a twisted, burned parking meter up near 650 Cal. There was still fourteen minutes left on the meter. 23 turned his attention back to the triple nickel. If there were any snipers around here, that's where they would be. It was the only structure that still had relatively easy access past the third floor in this part of town. He had once heard a story about a courier that had actually made it up to the thirty-first floor (now the top floor, since the rest was laying in the middle of Montgomery Street). It could have been true, but no one that 23 knew had gotten past the third floor without either falling through the floor, tripping some old booby trap, or falling prey to the scavs that lived in the ruins.

The motion detectors were showing nothing, and there were no figures poking around inside that building showing up on star-light. Still, thought, 23 hadn't survived as a courier for five years by assuming that his defense net systems were always accurate.

He hunkered back down behind the car, opened up his bag, and felt around inside the ammo pouch. He pulled out the M-79 grenade launcher, and a napalm/shrapnel round. After loading the round, 23 stood back up, and aimed the stubby weapon at the dark building. The wind had begun to pick up again, bringing with it the heavy, oily smoke from the dioxin fires that seemed to burn ceaselessly down at the old Hunter's Point shipyards. The star-light vision in 23's helmet was useless in the smoke, so he touched another button, and heard the soft whir as the servo motors switched lenses to infrared mode. Still nothing moving anywhere.
"Shit," he thought. "Maybe I'm getting paranoid." According to his suit monitor, the trace amounts of sarin in the area where enough to kill even the scavs.

He began to relax, and straighten up when his infrared vision and external audio sensors burst to life with bright, flower shaped flashes, and the sound of metal being tortured and ripped apart six inches from his head.

23 dropped to the cracked pavement, hugged his M-79 to his chest, and rolled away from the old Audi he had been behind just as the wreck tipped off its side onto its corroded rims.
He kept rolling as bullets ripped up the cement all around the burned out wreck of the car. When he had rolled about fifteen feet or so, he stopped and took his bearings. The audio filters had adjusted to me hammering of the machine gun, so it was only background noise. The sniper continued to rip apart the car, which meant that whoever it was didn't have infrared.

Low-tech. Excellent.

The machine gun eventually stopped, either because the sniper had run out of ammo, or because they figured that the car was swiss cheese, so 23 probably was as well. Looking at the Audi, 23 figured that the sniper was packing some serious shit. Twin vulcan cannons, maybe. He looked up at the ghost building, and his infrared showed a small, moving flow next to two glowing lines in a window on the north-west die of the second floor. Switching back to star-light, 23 made out the unmistakable shapes of vulcan barrels. Shit. The sniper had no sight-enhancing tech, but two vulcans were nothing to fuck around with. From his current location, 23 knew he had no shot with his M-79. He would have to move about twenty or thirty yards north on Montgomery between Cal and Sacto. Luckily, there was an old MUNI bus parked diagonally across Montgomery at just about the place he needed to be. Now the only problem was getting from where he was, to the bus without attracting the attention of the vulcans. This was really getting to be a pain in the ass, considering that he had told dispatch that he was already mobile to sector 5. He also knew that dispatch didn't really give a rat's ass about a sniper, or radiation, or chemical or biological weapons. Just do the fucking tags, that's what they'd say. Hell, there was no difference between twin vulcans and a flat tire to dispatch. Just do the fucking tags.

23 waiting about three or four minutes, then got up to a low crouch, and started back in the directions of the Audi (or what was left of it). Within about three feet of the car, the vulcans started up again with that whine that 23 could clearly hear now through his audio. Deciding that the shortest route was not always the smartest one, 23 high tailed it back down Montgomery towards Pine. As he turned down Pine, the vulcans fell silent behind him. The silence was now only broken by the sound of his boots hitting the pavement, and his heart pounding in his ears.

He reached Liedesdorf alley, paused briefly, then kept heading towards Sansome. Vulcans have a nasty way of reaching out and touching you if you try and take shortcuts. He got to the corner of Sansome and California, and stopped. His breathing was labored, and he took a second to adjust the environmental controls on his sleeve. Infrared showed nothing moving on the block between himself and the sniper. There had been a massive pile-up in the intersection, so he had ample cover to cross the street.

It took about two minutes to cover the distance to the corner of Sacto and Montgomery. There was still no movement showing up on his radar, but he kept low to the ground as he cautiously approached the bus. When he reached the bus, he got down on his belly, and crawled towards the front, which would give him the best vantage point to zap the sniper.
He slowly, keeping as low as he could, poked his head around the corner until he could see the window where the sniper was. He froze, slightly exposed, and waited. Despite the environmental systems, 23 was sweating. If the sniper saw him, he would be in little bloody chunks before he knew he was dead.

There was just silence. He smiled. This was his game now. Vulcans were badass, but a napalm grenade would fuck shit up just as bad. Worse if the target was in a confined space. Such as the sniper was.

23 slowly shouldered the launcher, and took aim at the window. He touched another button on his helmet, and the window was suddenly framed in a series of overlapping, multicolored cross hairs with trajectory, distance and magnification readings flashing in front of his eyes. He adjusted his angle and aimed until all the cross hairs showed green. The flowing figure on infrared was dead center on his tactical screen, and he softly squeezed the trigger.

It took about one second for the flowing dot to reach the window. 23 watched as the sniper spotted the grenade and moved to aim the vulcans at the bus. Before the sniper could acquire a target lock, the grenade sailed through the window, and detonated. The intense flash of napalm showed up on infrared like an alien flower blooming at high speed. A single burning figure flailed briefly as the jellied gasoline melted the sniper's environmental suit, and began melting flesh underneath. Then, the figure fell from the burning wreckage of the ruin to the chipped and pitted stone walkway before. 23 watched all of this, but stared still, not knowing if there were any more surprises hiding anywhere else. Nothing moved in the area, except for the flames in the building, and the body cooking on the ground.

Slowly, 23 stood up, swung his bag around, and stowed the M-79. He watched the flames for another minute, then headed back to where he had left his bicycle.

"What ever happened to 'Don't kill the messenger,'" he wondered as he saddled up, and headed up the hill on California and took a right on Kearny.

Back at the scene of the fire fight, a dark figure sitting inside the burned-out MUNI bus could clearly make out the "23" on the departing figure's helmet.

"You'd better hope 23's a lucky number," the figure whispered, as he got off the bus. "You're gonna need it."

to be continued...
illustration by Lance Mitchell