Trump Card Pt 22 (Patreon)

Relatively few of the patrons of the Ruby Dreams casino had been standing and walking around; most were sitting and attempting to win money in one way or another. A few had gotten up when the lights went out, but not so many as to be a problem by the time we teleported into the building. Any real problems, we knew, would come from in-house security.

With the assistance of the spy-eye, I had a good view of the large room, so I was able to place us on a temporary vacant area of floor space. The spy-eye registered a multi-spectrum flash of light as we arrived, which actually had the useful effect of causing everyone to momentarily freeze, outlined in the actinic glare.

I already had my holocloak up when we appeared; a moment later, I activated the Cortana hologram around the spy-eye. It felt a little weird to be processing data input on a third level, but I had found that I could manage it, so long as neither 'Cortana' nor Alibi spoke too much. Fortunately, Alibi did a lot of her own processing.

“United Nations Space Command!” I shouted, the suit's speakers transforming my not-so-deep voice into the gravelly timbre of an adult male. As I spoke, I hefted the stun rifle menacingly. The main lights were off, given that the EMP grenade had likely popped the breakers, but the emergency lighting had come on, and we were visible to the crowd. “On the floor, Covenant scum!”

I was extra visible, of course, as was Cortana; both the spy-eye's full-body hologram and my holocloak naturally emitted light. By normal standards it wasn't bright, but in the darkened room, we looked as though we were standing in bright sunlight. Which of course made the stun rifle in my hands very obvious indeed.

The 'EMP grenade' I had given Lisa had been based on our needs, not on the strict physics of a real electromagnetic pulse. After all, Tinkers were just as able as any parahuman to tell ordinary physics to go away and stop bothering them. The 'hockey-puck' was specifically designed to send a surge through any electronics that were actively operating at the time, overloading them and shorting out things such as phones and security cameras. More robust systems, such as the power switchboard for the whole building, would be be unharmed; once the breakers were reset, we would get lights back. Not security cameras though; if I'd done it right, they would be well and truly fried.

I had limited it to a range of twenty yards for obvious reasons; I didn't want to black out more than the building plus the phones of any mooks standing around outside. It would also ignore any electronics that were on standby, such as phones that had been turned off – thus my warning to Lisa – and I had ensured that delicate electronics, such as those belonging to heart pacemakers, would be unaffected by it. This had taken a little extra work, but after all, bullshit Tinkertech physics are bullshit. And I may have been a supervillain but I wasn't a murderer.

“Down on the floor!” That was Über; he brandished his energy rifle as he repeated my order. “Now now now!” A single shot, triggered from the rifle, scorched its way across the room and punched a fist-sized hole in the concrete wall. People screamed and fell away from us, scrambling for cover under tables and behind machines. The Snitch, released as soon as we had arrived, hovered in the air nearby, recording the scene, while L33t headed for the doors and slammed them shut. Before the guards outside had the chance to realise what was going on, we'd locked them out.

Out of the line of sight of the Snitch, I spotted the three Undersiders low-crawling toward the stairs down; we had identified the main cash storage as being in the basement. Grue's darkness flowed outward, subtly enhancing the shadows around him, but nobody was looking at them. We were the attraction of the hour.

<><>

“Boss.”

Lung looked around. His Japanese was better than his Chinese, but he understood that word in both languages. One of his lieutenants – this one was Chinese – was standing a respectful distance away, holding out his mobile phone.

“What is it?” he asked, getting to his feet.

“I was checking in with the Ruby Dreams casino, and the call dropped out.”

Lung shrugged. “This is Brockton Bay. Cell phones are cell phones. It happens.”

The man shook his head. “I tried calling back. No answer.”

“His phone could have died.” He took a step closer to the man. “Brockton Bay's underworld knows that the Ruby Dreams is mine. Nobody would dare attack it.”

There was sweat on the man's brow. “I-I tried calling other guys. Guys I know are there. None of them are answering. None of them.”

Lung stopped, glowering at the man. “You are saying that not one single man at that casino is answering his phone?”

A frantic nod. “That's what I'm saying, boss. I even tried the landline. No dice.”

“Get me a car. I'm going over there.” Lung strode from his base, his fingers already flexing.

If my holdings have been attacked, then somebody is going to get hurt.

<><>

“If nobody moves, nobody gets hurt!” shouted 'Cortana'; almost inevitably, someone decided to challenge her. Someone, either internal security or a gang member with more balls than brains, popped up from behind a table and took a shot at her; the bullet passed straight through the hologram, but I brought the stun rifle around anyway. This sort of behaviour could not be encouraged. Even as I lined up on him, he fired another shot; this one hit me in the ribs.

Or rather, it hit my armour; it felt as though someone had punched me there, and not gently. But it didn't penetrate, and I wasn't knocked over backward, Hollywood hype to the contrary. Instead, I braced myself and fired back; the stun rifle let out a deep-throated BZORCH and released a shot of its own. The energy bolt, looking big and nasty enough to punch a hole right through the wall, smashed into him, rendering him instantly unconscious.

There was a brief pause, during which time I put the light-spot on to Tattletale. My goggles had light-intensification built in, of course, and so I was able to observe what was going on in the room with relative ease. Nearly everyone was behind cover of some sort, but that was what Lisa's power was for. Almost casually, I turned and aimed the muzzle of the stun rifle in through the bars of the cashier's cage; that man cowered back, dropping the sawn-off shotgun he had been in the process of bringing up from under the counter.

“Open up,” I ordered, rapping on the cage door with my metal-clad knuckles.

Still cowering back, he shook his head convulsively. I couldn't blame him, exactly; he was terrified that if he was seen to be cooperating, he would be in for a gruesome death afterward. But this was slowing things down just a little.

With a sigh, I took hold of the cage door and braced myself. I didn't have Blockade boosting my strength this time, but then, neither was the cage door anywhere near as sturdy as the truck door had been. With a shriek of tearing metal, the lock gave way, and I had access to the interior of the cage. The cashier cowered back some more, and at that moment, some more of the people in the room opened fire. These were, I suspected, the in-house security grown bold. They'd gotten into cover and now they were fighting back.

Most of it was aimed at Über and L33t this time; Cortana had 'proven' herself to be immune to bullets, and so had I. However, there was still such a thing as a lucky shot, and so I didn't play around. Between the spy-eye's point of view and my own eyes, I was able to pinpoint most of the shooters in seconds; lining up the stun rifle, I triggered blast after blast into the attackers. I didn't even have to be careful; no matter who it hit, the stun rifle was guaranteed to deliver non-lethal attacks. I had designed it that way.

More fist-blows struck my armour. It flexed very slightly with each impact; not enough to bruise me, I hoped, but definitely enough for me to feel, and be very glad that I was wearing it.

Über and L33t were also returning fire; Über with his energy rifle dialled down (I hoped) to merely stunning levels, while L33t picked off foes with the wireless taser I had started out using. I had hopes that they would quickly surrender once they realised that they were failing to take us down, but apparently logical thinking was not big with these people. Then again, I had to admit, they were employed by Lung; he didn't have the best reputation for being a reasonable boss. Also, they were working in an illegal casino, so I couldn't exactly blame them for trusting in blind luck.

That trust was borne out a moment later, as a bullet clipped the spy-eye. The Cortana holo blinked out, and the little grey ball fell to the floor, disabled, no longer sending data. Crap. I sent the self-destruct command; there was a brief, fierce glare of light, then all that was left was a scorched spot on the floor and a bunch of slagged components. I knew that I'd be able to rebuild it afterward, but losing it hurt our tactical awareness.

Über and L33t kept shooting, against dwindling return fire. They were serving well to keep the bad guys' heads down, but I was doing the most accurate shooting, given that I still had the best sensory equipment there. Only a few of the bodyguards and gangsters were still shooting, but they were proving elusive; they would pop up and shoot, then move to a different spot. I concentrated, letting Tattletale's power go to work. That guy's going to come up … there. Even as he raised his head, I fired the shot; the stun bolt took him directly in the face.

Too late, I heard the double click-click from right beside me; I had temporarily forgotten that the cashier had a damn sawn-off shotgun. Turning, I tried to bring the stun rifle up as he fired both barrels directly at my face. There was a tremendous BOOM and I felt a smashing impact to my face; my left eye was on fire as I stumbled backward. I couldn't see, couldn't hear, could barely stand. I've been shot. He shot me.

More fist-blows hammered into me as I staggered; I couldn't see out of my left eye at all, although my right was clearing. Gradually, I became aware of someone shouting at me over the radio.

“-ax! Hax! HAX! Are you all right?”

“'m here,” I mumbled, aware of a trickle of warmth down the side of my face. The left side of my face. From my left eye. I tried blinking that eye, got movement. Moving any of the muscles on that side of my face, however, elicited pain from the region of the eye. Shaking my head, I could hear something rattling in the left-hand goggle socket, leaning forward, I brought my free hand up, and caught fragments of glass as they fell out.

With my right eye, I squinted at them; they seemed free of blood. And while I still couldn't see properly out of my left eye, I was getting a blurry darkness with vague blobs of light, which was definitely better than nothing at all. I'm not blind in that eye. Thank god.

Which then drew my attention to the HUD on that side; I blinked up the menu and checked the flaring red error messages. Goggles, left lens, out of commission. Armour, minor stress, nothing serious. Stun rifle … a whole string of error messages. It had taken, I gathered, the brunt of the shotgun blast – maybe he'd been using slugs – and then been slammed back into my goggles. The rifle was operational, but only just; I skimmed the error messages and came up with 'maybe one shot left'.

Looking around, I tried to focus on the fight; only a few seconds had gone by since I'd been shot, but a few seconds could be a long time in a firefight. Where was the cashier? Was he reloading?

“Hax. Status.” That was Über.

“Cashier … shot me,” I managed. “Hit stun rifle. Stun rifle hit my goggles. Left side gone. Stun rifle damaged. Where is he?”

“He's down,” reported Über. “Friendly fire, I think. You okay to go on, or should we abort?”

Taking a deep breath, I straightened up, blinked tears from my left eye. My head was clearing. “I'm good. How are the Undersiders doing?” As I asked the question, I looked down at the man who had tried to kill me. He was sprawled almost at my feet, several bloody bullet-wounds showing how he had died. And dead he was; Tattletale's power was quite clear on that matter.

Fuck. I didn't want anyone to die. The fact that he'd brought it on himself didn't really help. I swallowed back incipient nausea. Throwing up in the armour would be a very unpleasant experience.

“Hey!” shouted Über, pointing at the body. “That's not on us! That's on you! We're here to rob you, not kill you, and what've you gone and done? Killed one of your own. Seriously, guys. What the fuck?”

Taking a deep breath, trying to clear my head, I unslung the stun rifle. Holding it so that the damage from the shotgun wasn't too obvious, I scanned the crowd. People cowered away from the wide-mouthed muzzle of the weapon.

I was all too aware that I was more or less running a bluff, given the damage to the goggles and the stun rifle. I'd have to repair the damage when we got back to base; the left side of my goggles would have to be almost entirely rebuilt.

I'm probably gonna have a beauty of a black eye, too.

Worse, with the left lens of the goggles gone, I would be able to pick out the direction of an incoming parahuman threat, but not the angle of attack. Of course, about the only parahuman likely to turn up here was Lung, or maybe Oni Lee. They wouldn't exactly be subtle about it.

Looking at the display, I counted five other parahumans, which matched how many there should be.

So far.

Maybe I should see how Lisa and the others are going.

At that moment, the lights came back on.

<><>

They'd made it to the stairs before the firefight broke out behind them. “Move, move!” urged Grue, climbing to his feet and hurrying down the steps. Darkness billowed around him, flowing before him, filling the stairwell.

Lisa got up and followed more carefully, her hand on the rail. She was pretty sure that Regent was following almost directly behind her; there was a vibration from his hand sliding on the rail. Also, from his footsteps on the stairs. And from Brian's. Also from one … no, two, people coming up the stairs. Heavy steps; men.

And then there was a spate of wild, uncontrolled vibration; Lisa interpreted this as 'falling down the stairs'. Both men. Brian had ambushed them in the darkness, and had taken full advantage of the fact that they were halfway up a steep flight of stairs.

They reached the bottom of the steps without incident, even as the darkness cleared. Grue held a small penlight, which he was shining on the door. The two men lay, wrists fastened behind them, a short distance away. For his part, he was hardly breathing fast.

“Dunno how many are inside,” he murmured. “But they've got to be getting antsy.”

“Let me.” Lisa placed her ear to the door, and listened intently. Muffled voices penetrated the wood; she couldn't make out the words, but the intent was clear. “You're right. They're wondering why someone hasn't turned the lights back on yet.” Closing her eyes, she continued to listen. Raising her hand, she held up two fingers. “One thug, one manager.” She kept listening. “The manager sent someone to reset the breaker.”

At that moment, the lights came back on.

<><>

I switched my comms over to cell-phone use and called Lisa's number; she answered almost immediately. “No, that wasn't us,” she informed me before I could ask. “There were four heavies down here; two down, two to go.”

“Need assistance?” I asked.

“Nah, we got it. Hey, you don't sound so good. You okay?”

“Took a hit. I'll be fine.”

I ended the call before she could ask any more prying questions, then turned to L33t; he'd gotten into the cashier's cage and was in the process of filling a bag with the money that they'd been keeping on the casino floor. We had brought several such bags along. “How you going there?”

“Nearly done,” he grunted in reply. “Keep an eye on the door for me?”

“Sure,” I told him, and moved in that direction. “Incidentally, they're doing okay downstairs.”

“Good,” he replied, tying off the bag and attaching it to his belt. “Okay, let's rob these guys too.”

“All right!” Über declared out loud. “No-one else needs to get hurt. But we are seizing assets for the UNSC, so let's have those wallets now. Toss 'em out. Come on now.”

I wasn't too worried about getting all of their cash; as we each knew, our main target was the vault downstairs, being robbed as we pretended to relieve the patrons of their hard-earned lucre upstairs.

“What … what the hell's the UNSC?” demanded someone from behind cover.

“United Nations Space Command, duh,” answered L33t. “It's from Halo, only one of the best video games ever made.” He hooked his thumb in my direction. “Master Chief.” At himself. “Douglas-oh-four-two.” At Über. “Jerome-oh-nine-two.”

“Wait, wait,” someone else called out. “Is that Über and L33t?”

“And Hax,” Über reminded him. “Don't forget Hax.”

“Together, we're Pwnage!” L33t crowed. “And tonight, we're sure as hell pwning you guys.”

“I got told Hax was a chick!” someone else called out, sounding confused.

“Hax … is whatever Hax wants to be,” Über explained, totally misleadingly, though with a grain of accuracy. “Now keep your head down, sucker. And skid your wallet over here.”

<><>

"Which way's the breakers?" asked Grue.

"That way," Lisa told him, pointing down an access passageway. "He'll be coming back really soon."

"Mask up," ordered Grue, holding out his hand; anticipating him, Lisa had already pulled out the domino masks from her handbag. Each of them slipped one on; Lisa leaned down and picked up a discarded handgun. She usually went with a smaller model, but at that moment, beggars could not be choosers.

They heard the mook coming before they saw him; Lisa had the pistol up and aimed as he rounded the corner. He stared at them, opening his mouth to yell; however, this had given Regent time to prepare, and the mook lurched sideways, face-planting the wall and then the floor. Brian stepped over then, picking up the guy and punching him hard in the face; the guy slumped again, limp in his grip.

“My taser would've done it easier,” grumped Regent as they secured him.

“Your taser wouldn't have made it through security,” Brian told him.

“It's not a taser,” Lisa reminded Regent, again. Again, he ignored her. Stun guns and tasers were stupidly named, in his opinion; for something with 'gun' in the title, stun guns didn't even work at range.

“We've still got to get to the vault,” Brian reminded them.

Lisa nodded; she headed over to the door, waited for the others to get into position, and rapped on it; shave-and-a-haircut. After a moment, locks clicked and the door opened slightly. Darkness surged into the room, followed by Brian.

<><>

I stood by the doors, listening to the guards outside thumping on them. My stun rifle was at the ready, but to keep anyone from seeing the holes that had been punched in the underside of it, I kept the barrel pointing at the floor. I figured that there was maybe one shot left in it; the connection between the power source and the capacitor had been severed, and the capacitor hadn't been up to full charge, or anywhere near it. There was other damage also; to be absolutely honest, I didn't want to fire it at all until I got it back to my workshop, but perhaps the threat would be effective enough until it was time to leave.

Escape plan A was to simply walk out the front doors with the money; this presumed that the Undersiders managed to get in and out without being seen as who they were. Plan B was to congregate in the basement and then teleport to a safe location. I liked this one less, as we would be carrying the money as well as the Undersiders, and I didn't know if I could guarantee the range of the teleporter with that sort of load, and with the beating my armour had taken. I could leave behind the stun rifle – again – to give us a little margin of error, but I didn't think it would be enough. Besides, rebuilding that thing was a pain. Next time, armour it.

Plan C was to contact Rachel and have her come in with the dogs; that was the loudest and most obvious one, and guaranteed that everyone knew the part the Undersiders were playing in this heist. All of the Undersiders except Rachel disliked it, and she didn't care either way; after all, she'd been on the run nearly constantly since she got her powers.

Plan D was 'in case of Lung'; I would engage him and hopefully keep him at bay until the others got away, then disengage. I didn't like that one in the least, but I figured that I could do it. Maybe. If I could get off that one good shot with the stun rifle first. Which, now that the stun rifle was damaged, was looking to be a problematic solution.

Essentially, all plans after B involved 'fight our way out', which I didn't particularly like, because the opposition was far more likely to be using lethal attacks, and they'd be all too likely to take this robbery personally. The cashier was dead – I glanced over to where L33t had draped a drop-cloth over his face – having been accidentally gunned down by people shooting at me when he broke cover to attack me with the shotgun. He had been the first person to die tonight; I devoutly hoped that he would be the last.

There was a chime in my helmet. I flicked up the menu option to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, it's Tattletale.”

“What's happening?”

“Opposition is subdued down here.”

“The safe?”

“Open, duh.” I could hear the irritating grin in her voice. “We're filling the sacks now.”

“Excellent. We can start making extraction plans now.”

“I'm thinking Plan B. What do you say?”

I checked the suit's power reserves. “Won't be a long jump, and I'll be about out of power afterward.”

“We can sling you over one of the dogs.” The grin was back.

“Yeah, thanks, no. I think – wait.”

“Wait what?” She was instantly alert.

I was watching a new dot on the right-hand goggle lens, which had just come into view. Unfortunately, whoever it was wasn't within my personal range just yet. “Vehicles just pulled up outside. There's a cape on site. Pretty sure it's Lung.”

“You sure?”

“Your power tells me it's a good bet. Let everyone know. Plan A is out the window, and D is looking more and more likely.”

“Got it.” She cut the call off.

I stepped closer to the doors, ramping up the sensitivity of the armour's auditory sensors. Coupled with Tattletale's power, this gave me a fairly good picture of what was going on outside; unfortunately, it wasn't a very pleasant one.

<><>

Lung climbed out of the lead car. Trailed by the half-dozen mooks he'd brought along, he strode toward the building. His outside guards were clustered around the doors, bashing on them with pieces of wood and metal. Unfortunately, as he had made sure to have the doors solidly reinforced, this wasn't going very far. They turned as he approached, dropping their eyes in respect. Some even went to their knees.

“What's happening?” he demanded. “Why aren't you answering your phones?”

“They're dead,” the closest one ventured. “Here, see.” Pulling out his phone – a cheap model, but it should have been still functional – he offered it to Lung. The supervillain wasn't all that conversant with them – he had people for that – but he could tell when something was working and when it wasn't. This one most definitely wasn't; pressing on the little button that was supposed to make the screen light up did nothing at all. He threw the piece of trash to the ground and addressed the guard.

“Tell me what happened. Why are you locked out?”

The man took a deep breath. “We don't know. The lights went out and our phones went dead, and then there was shouting from inside, and shooting, and sounds like Tinker weaponry. Before we could get inside to find out what was happening, someone locked the doors from the inside. We've been trying to get in ever since.”

“Shooting. Tinkertech weaponry.” Lung spoke the words slowly and clearly. The anger was growing in him. Someone had screwed up, and he was going to have that man's throat in his hand.

The thug wanted to run, he could see it in the man's eyes, but he didn't. Instead, he nodded fearfully. Clearly, he knew what would happen to him if he ran. “Y-yes. Weapons, but not guns.”

“There was also real guns being fired,” ventured another one. Lung glanced at him, and he cowered back.

“Who was on the door?” Lung's voice was a rumble now, and the air around him was beginning to heat up. His hands clenched, then opened to grasp at nothing. “Who missed these Tinker weapons coming in?”

“N-nobody did,” the thug in front of him whimpered. He was sweating heavily now, rivers of perspiration running down his face. “We checked them all. Used the metal detector stick.” Pulling it from his belt, he held it up to illustrate. “Nobody brought gadgets in, no guns. Nothing with metal. Nothing that made sounds like that. They sounded like really big weapons.”

“Hrnnnn.” Lung stared at him a moment longer, trying to decide whether to make an example out of him now, or wait to see if the intruders really had come in another way.

I can always kill him later. “Spread out. Surround the building, cover everything that could be an exit. If they get out, if they get past you, then I'll kill every last one of you.” He paused a beat, then added, “Slowly.”

As they ran to obey his command, Lung stepped forward. The doors to the casino were solid, reinforced, designed to withstand a siege. If you are attacked, lock the doors and hold out until I get there. Those had been his standing orders to the guards on the casino. Unfortunately, these intruders had turned that strategy against him.

I can break the doors, but it will take a little time to get strong enough. Fortunately, I do not have to wait. Turning, he clicked his fingers; one of the mooks he had brought with him approached.

“Get your phone out,” Lung ordered him. “Call Oni Lee. Tell him there is work for him here.”

“Boss.” The man retreated, pulling his phone from his pocket. Despite his anger, Lung allowed himself a feral grin.

Whoever they are, they will regret crossing me this night.

Part 23