Alex parked the car, and we exited the vehicle. As we got out, a notification pinged on my HUD.

  Tycho had us follow him to one of his apartments, just like the one we'd raided a few months back. It was just a small, studio apartment in the basement of a tower with a bath off to the side. Tycho offered us the seats at the table in the center of the room. Instead of sitting with him, the four of us decided to stand.

  You never know when a scorned man might try and do something fresh.

  “Well”, James began, “What's this about? What do you have for us?”

  Tycho reached into a pocket, causing me to tense up. He'd clocked my reaction and smirked, before pulling his phone out.

  “Alright, Alright, give me a minute. Don't want y'all to get your panties in a twist. Anyway, dickheads, I don't want to be around any of you longer than I need”, he said pushing his phone toward us, showing us his conversation with somebody.

  I started reading the conversation. Someone was trying to get a rifle from Tycho.

  “So here's the deal, I got hit up by a customer last week, and he was looking for a bolt action and some matching ammo. Well there were a few things that hit my 'Bad Times Ahead' alarm.”

  Tycho moved to the conversation window down, showing us a few more details.

  “He wanted a rifle that used a full power cartridges. He also needed a suppressor, but no sights. He made the offer a week ago today, and needs it today. If that don't scream sketch, I don't know what does. Anyway, I got the stuff for him, but my last.... encounter.... with OCP left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but here. This is what I have for you”, Tycho finished, looking away from our eyes.

  “Where's the meet up spot?”, Alex asked, getting clarification.

  “Over in the Senator Hotel on Michigan Ave”, Tycho answered, “Yeah, he gave me the room number and the time. The time is just a bit before Jimmy Psalma's event this afternoon.”

  “Where's the rifle?”, Max asked.

  Tycho pointed to the back corner of the room, where the closet door was. Sticking out of the closet was a black duffel bag, which Max went and grabbed. Pouring through the bag was a disassembled rifle and a box of twenty precision hand loaded cartridges.

  “Nice rifle. Always did wonder why they made a rifle meant for arctic warfare, but only advertised it to the police”, Max said, “Anyway, what were they paying you for this?”

  “Half a milli for the rifle, but they usually include a nice gift with their purchases”, Tycho replied.

  “So, what's his name?”, I asked, you get that in your previous deals with him.

  “I don't think he's given me his real one, but he goes by Carmine.”

  “Huh, alright, so any idea why he'd want to merc Mr. Psalma.

  “Look man, I don't fucking know. I just got asked to fill an order and he wanted to pay me ten times the ammount I'd want normally. I can't not take that deal” Tycho said while freaking out, Shit maybe it's an inter corporation rivalry? Either way, he only shoes up once in a blue moon to order the weirdest shit. Shipping containers of metals, heavy water, fucking coke and pot seeds”, Tycho kept going on until he was near blue in the face.

  He put his head into his hands. His body language screamed nervous.

  “Understood. Everything is too fucking fishy for this. We-”, I said until Alex interrupted me.

  “Tycho, what time is the meeting”, he said with authority.

  “About 12:30, why?”, Tycho answered, looking up with a look of worry.

  “Do you ever have bodyguards at these hand offs?”, Alex continued, guiding the conversation.

  “No... Why?”, Tycho asked, no longer nervous, but confused.

  “Well, we could-”

  “Hell no. No fucking way, I refuse.” Tycho said, shouting.

  “Just listen”, Alex said, trying to explain himself, “One of my associates and I can get into a nice suit, and join in on the hand-off. I can be the one you got the rifle from, whoever joins us can be a hired gun, and the others... Well, we get a couple of breaching charges, and they can blast through the wall and swoop in to save the day.”

  Tycho looked incredulous at him. His mouth was nearly to the floor.

  “I have a suit, so I can join in as the gun”, James said, breaking the ice.

  “Well perfect”, interjected Max, “now that we've got that settled, let's get to stepping. We only have two hours to prepare.”

  “Alright, C'mon Tycho, let's go”, Alex said.

  “What, you're all serious?”, Tycho protested.

  This went back and forth for a few minutes, before Tycho finally caved. He had no defense, having admitted to several felonies to four police officers, each with eye cameras. He was our puppet.

  We all headed out of the apartment, Tycho in tow, and headed back out of the apartment. It was a short walk back to the SUV, and it was a gorgeous morning. We all piled back into the cruiser, sticking Tycho between James and I in the back.

  “God, y'all don't trust easy, do you?”, Tycho asked while putting his seat belt on.

  “Well, with you in the car, there's less of a chance of you just letting Carmine know of our little change of plan, “Alex said, backing up the cruiser and taking off.

  “You really don't”, Tycho muttered.

  I hit up dispatch and let them know of our change of plans, while Alex drove us along. Dispatch green lit our plan, and Daniels began to requisition the charges we'd need to blow through that adjoining wall. Hell, we even got out of running event security. They said they'd send another team.

  Alex took us to get the two of them changed first. It made sense, the headquarters where we'd get the charges was so close to Millennium park in the first place. We stopped by Alex's place, and he swapped his armor for a navy pinstripe suit that fit him snugly. He knew it looked good on him, and he acted accordingly.

  Well, James on the other hand, looked like a little kid wearing his dad's suit. It was black with white pinstripes, the sleeves and legs were unhemmed. I had to use superglue we got at a convenience store to do the shittiest hem in the world. He swore up and down that he'd been meaning to hit up a tailor, but the suit was too big for him anyway. He didn't need to take his armor off in the first place to put the suit on and it was ridiculous.

  The two of them put their armor plates in the back of the vehicle, and now that we were driving to the OCP headquarters, they were rattling up a storm. We pulled into the garage, and parked. I hopped out of the cruiser, and let them know I'd get the charges from the armory.

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  Unbeknownst to any of us, any explosive taken from the armory had to be signed for, and I volunteered for it. I had to then sign the 1149 requisition slip, the 1348-6 single item request slip, the form 67 process initiation slip, the 6059 declaration form, the 91-203 explosive safety form, and of course, the 4391 high risk activity form. It took about thirty minutes to fill every sheet out, but soon I was the proud owner of a brick of breaching charges stuffed into fresh, new duffel bag.

  Only a little worse for wear, I returned to the cruiser and hopped in.

  “What took so long?”, asked Alex, chuckling as he spoke.

  “Shut up”, was my only reply.

  We got back underway, explosives on my lap, and we drove to the meeting place. We hit Michigan Ave. and found a place to park near the hotel. We all huddled up in the SUV, finalizing our plan in on street parking.

  We let Alex pull up the floor plan to the Senator Hotel. The meeting room was in room 916, which was the North-Eastern corner room. There were two rooms touching it, and we were going to come from the south. The door to 916 was on the Northern side of the room, so if we came from south, we'd get Carmine from behind. Alex and James were to leave, get to the room, and start talking him up, at which point we'd go, set the charges up, and charge in to save the day.

  As such, Alex and James stepped off, and Max and I ran to get a Chicago Dog real quick. We sat there munching away in our cruiser after we got them, and we started to shoot the shit to pass the time as we waited.

  “Max, how do you think they get the relish here so damned green?, I asked.

  “Who could say, Valencia? Maybe it's food coloring?”, he said finishing up the dog, “Or maybe they pump it through the reactor down in Dresden?”

  “I'd pay to see that”, I said, laughing.

  We finished up, when a message came upon our HUD's

  “Alright. Let's go”, Max said, slapping the top of his legs before standing.

  I hopped out of the SUV, and the two of us quickly hustled to the Senator Hotel. We went through the revolving entrance into a grand spacious lobby. We ignored the it all and bee-lined to the front desk. At the desk was a young woman, in a red jacket, a white blouse, and a black set of slacks.

  “Good morning, ma'am. We're here from the OCCPD, and we have a reasonable suspicion of something happening in the building at the moment. Could we get a card for room 914?”

  The woman looked at me up and down before responding, “I'm sorry officer, I can't comply. I can get you a manager who could assist you if you'd like.”

  Aleigha turned to a computer terminal next to her and typed a few words into it, before turning back and letting us know a manager would be here soon.

  “Look Aleigha, there's a situation brewing here and we need to be able to get into that-”, I was saying before a new, stern voice joined in.

  “Good morning, officers. What can I assist you with?”, the manager said as we turned to meet him.

  We quickly re-explained ourselves to him, letting him know there was a situation going on on the 9th floor and we needed access to room 914. The manager resisted for a minute, but we informed him that we would either be getting a key to the room, or kicking the door in. The manager, wanting to minimize damages, gave us the key-card.

  We gave them our thanks and asked them to prevent anyone from going to floor 9. We moved to the stairs running along the southern wall of the lobby and entered the stairwell. We now had to climb eight sets of stairs to the 9th floor. We figured that if Carmine had a lookout, they were less likely to be on the stairs, or, at least, that was the hope.

  We climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and climbed. By floor 6, my legs were jellied. When we got to our destination, I was practically crawling. I knew I should have gotten the cybernetic legs with all the added weight on my body.

  We left the stairwell, and entered the hall. It was quiet, the long halls and carpet sapping all noise from the world. We pulled out our pistols and began to move, creeping through the hallway. We came to a turn, and I peered past the corner to see if anything was waiting for us.

  When nothing showed up, we moved into the hall running parallel to Michigan Avenue, and soon we were at room 914. I took a step back from the door, and Max put the key-card to the door and opened it for me. We cleared the room with our guns, and once satisfied, I set the duffel bag down to get to work.

  We ignored the beds and television, and instead went to the closet in the entrance.I flipped the lights on and we entered the closet. I put the duffel bag down, and began to pull out the explosive bricks. Once all five were pulled out, we affixed them all with wires running in series. Max double checked everything, and we ran the wires to the bathroom opposite of the closet.

  Max affixed the explosive wires to the clacker detonator, before he turned to me and asked, “Valencia, ever blow anything up?”

  I looked at him, dumbfounded, and answered, “No... Why do you ask?”

  “It's really fun. Here, you get the honors”, He said, slapping my shoulder and handing me the clacker.

  We both made sure our pistols were armed, and I shot a message to Alex and James.

  I breathed in, held it for a couple of seconds, then released. I clacked the detonator as the last of the air exited my lungs, and the outside world became naught but dust and debris. We lept from the bathroom and rushed through the closet.

  In room 916, we could barely see anything for a few seconds. As the dust cleared the air, a tableau of destruction made itself clear. James was on the flloor, a television fallen on top of him. Tycho was between the couch, the coffee table. Alex was standing tall over everyone else in the room.

  I turned right, and saw three people. Two were laying on the ground, face down. The third looked directly at me, into my soul.

  A notification popped onto my HUD.

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