When she’d fired off the last Spritzer, she tossed the launcher over the wall into Bedford’s yard and lobed the Basebombs at the windows across the side of the house by hand. They exploded instantly with a louder pop, still quiet enough to keep the noise within the perimeter wall, and sprayed dangerous dissolving liquids over the glass, giving her a choice of entrances. Thirty seconds after landing, the Spritzers began going off with a soft hiss. They were as spectacular as Bruno had promised, sort of a combination of sustained low-key, sizzling fireworks that confounded infrared and motion detectors, and copious thick smoke that not only enclosed the entire two floors of the house, but billowed across the yard with the slight breeze.
It was time to move. She threw her armored tarp over the sharp hazards, tossed her pack after the launcher and jumped, briefly settling on top of the wall. From there, she grasped the lower edge of the tarp hanging inside the wall and swung down into Bedford’s home territory. Her grip on the tarp was enough to let her hang for a second and then she dropped with a soft thump, rolled, and got to her feet in one continuous, unforgiving move.
There was no phalanx of gunmen rushing like apparitions out of the engulfing smoke and the sustained flaring of the Spritzers, so she wouldn’t need to drop her pack, throw hands in the air and pretend she’d made a wrong turn. They hadn’t spotted her approach, and now, the acueyes had to be in a three-way daze. Cloaked in the sensory confusion, she should be essentially invisible.
First Louie. Since she was as blind as they were, it was a matter of vectors of planned movement, using the house for orientation. A 50 meter rush to the house through drifting smoke and the sparkling light show she’d created, then a turn towards the gate, tossing some pure Smokes through the dissolved windows as she picked up speed passing along the side of the house. Her advantage approaching the gate was that she knew where the gatekeeper had been standing. She ran towards that spot out of the smoke, already aiming, and hit him with two duoloads without slowing down. He went down like an axed tree.
Louie was there before her, bouncing on his forefeet with pent-up urgency. The lock plate for the pedestrian gate was conveniently labeled so she hit it with her Masterkey and had the satisfaction of watching Louie wiggle through while it was still opening. With her faceplate down, she couldn’t talk to him without shouting, but he fell in at her side and they ran back together into the smoke and erupting flares towards the house.
It was a strange sensation after so many years doing only investigative work, to have her world narrow down to her weapons and the house, with whatever remaining guards it held, and her firm objective. In Tactical, she’d been part of a team. Tonight, she had Louie.
She wanted no one at her back, so she chose the last set of French doors at the back of the house and paused only long enough on the outside to lean close to Louie’s ear and say distinctly “Find McGregor. Louie, find Chris.” He leapt in over the ruined glass and wood smoothly and disappeared into the smoke-filled room as Livvy scrambled through after him. Immediately, she sidestepped to brace up against the adjacent wall. A small table went over with the loud crash of what was probably a priceless Chinese vase. The smoke still made normal vision impossible so with her back now to the Spritzers, she toggled her faceplate to infrared and looked around. There was Louie, crouching with his head down on the other side of the room just as a human figure appeared at what had to be a door. It was embarrassingly easy to eliminate the man with two Stinger shots but she didn’t delude herself into thinking that they would all be so simple. Quickly groping her way through the room, she used her hips and knees to locate the obstacles so that she could have her hands free for her Stinger. She’d have bruises tomorrow.
Louie was waiting for her when she got to the door. She tossed one of her Smokes through but couldn’t wait for full dispersal because Louie was picking up speed as though he had picked up a scent and was half way down what was apparently a long, wide hall when she went through. There were two men running towards her at the other end of the hall, and she barely had time to scream “Louie, down” before she dropped and rolled, aiming and firing as she moved. She got the first man as she went down, before he got off a shot, but the second sent two missiles – silenced bullets she thought from the sound – that impacted a wall above and behind her before her duoloads caught him. Four. How many more guards did the old man have?
Louie was already up and moving again – a dog on a mission now – and Livvy pushed herself to her feet to follow. He stopped in front of a door under a stairway. Livvy had time to register that they were standing beside a grand stairway that lead up out of an impressively marbled and chandeliered entryway when the fifth man poked his gun around the corner of a doorway across the room and started spraying her with more bullets. Most of them ricocheted off the lovely oak balusters but one of them hit her shoulder, above her sore arm, before she could duck.
“Hell,” she said. Despite the armor, it hurt.
Louie, sensible Louie, crouched at the side of the door, keeping his head down.
Livvy decided she couldn’t wait. She opened the door and followed Louie through, with a quick command to him to wait. This stairwell went down between more oak-paneled walls to a broad landing, then turned towards the front of the house at a ninety degree angle. Two stairs down Livvy turned, toggling back to photopic. Very little of her smoke had wafted down the stairwell. She was a highly visible target at this point and she couldn’t go past the corner with Guard Five at her back. Feeling trapped, she’d whispered “wait” seven more times to herself inside her helmet, when the fool opened the door just above her and she shot him twice at point blank range. Five fell forward down the stairs.
Louie was waiting for her just above the landing, staring straight down towards the lower floor. She bobbed her head to check and saw Guard Six crouching behind the Newell. He shot at her but she’d already ducked back and the bullets dug into the paneling behind her. Okay, I’m in armor, she thought. She stepped out and fired twice. One of her darts caught him in the face just below the eye. Possible permanent nerve damage, they always warned, but she couldn’t summon any regrets. Six went over and she took the lower stairs at a two-at-a-time plunge and put a second duoload in his chest.
Even down here the floor was smooth marble so Louie scrambled doing a hairpin turn at the base of the stairs until he found his traction again and took off down another long hall towards the back of the house. As Louie went passed it, a door near the base of the stairs opened. Guard Seven had certainly heard all of the prior shooting and must’ve heard and glimpsed Louie dashing by, because he came all of the way through the door and leveled his gun at Louie’s backside. Livvy got him with two duoloads in the back before he could shoot. The easiest yet. She did a quick sweep of the room before she moved on. There were no windows down here, but the walls and ceiling had numerous small light sources. All of the other five doors behind her stayed closed and she left them alone for now.
The sixth door, the one that had attracted Louie’s attention, was at the end of the hall. Superficially, it looked like any other of the heavy wooden doors on this level, but when she got closer she saw that it had been retrofitted with a simple palm lock. She pulled out her Masterkey and pressed it against the lock just as Guard Eight, who had apparently bided his time before come out from behind one of those other doors, started firing at her from behind the same damn Newel. The door swung open to a cacophony of falling metal and Louie yelped, then darted passed her. This man’s aim wasn’t any better than any of the others but she was standing still and neatly outlined against the door. As Livvy turned to face the shooter the repeated painful impacts basically propelled her through the door and into the room. Just inside the door, she stumbled then fell over a chair and what appeared to be a collection of pots and pans.