They've brought more men than Sidrovich told us they would.

That's the first red flag.

The second one comes from the men themselves. From the way my shitbag of a client was talking I was expecting professionals: Tai Huen Chai, maybe, or private contractors—wiry experts in smart weather gear, perhaps, or old post-war environment suits. These clowns, though? A ragtag half dozen in cold weather suits that barely look functional, weapons proudly displayed like they're at a fucking gun show as they watch us enter the crumbling, half-collapsed warehouse. Mostly Asian, a few Slavic faces interspersed, all of them hidden behind crude weather masks or else open to the elements with nothing but rebreathers to protect them.

The man standing at their head doesn't inspire confidence either. Hunched-over, stocky little shit, his face riddled with pockmarks. Only his environment suit lends him any credibility, and even that is mostly hidden beneath a ratty, worn overcoat. Chinese, if I had to guess. Most of his head hidden by the hood of his suit; what can be seen lies behind a crude layer of smart-glass, a low-tech variation of the helmets my people wear. He smiles, almost apologetically, as we draw closer. The clowns behind him are watching us like hungry animals, gaunt faces barely blinking as they do.

"This feel off to you, Koss?" Levi intones into his mic, the motions of his vocal chords hidden by his neck seal.

"Very," I respond. "Eyes sharp, khorosho?" I can feel our two companions tensing up, no doubt taking in the sight before us and not liking their odds if this goes badly. Bad form for a trade-off, one side spooking the other. I don't know what the hell these guys are playing at, and I sure as shit don't like it.

Coming to a stop in front of him, the Chinese man at the centre of what I'm worryingly starting to think of as the competition gives Levi a nod and a grin.

"Huānyíng. You guys here for Sidrovich?"

"Deal was to come with three others," Levi grumbles back, not bothering to return the hello, "not six." Our contact turns his palms up apologetically, bowing his head again.

"Very true, very true. Wǒ dàoqiàn, there was a... miscommunication, between ourselves and your boss." He smiles again, something simultaneously obsequious yet alarming about the display. "You understand, yeah?"

Levi's voice remains flat, expressionless."No. Not especially."

"Extra backup is your first strike," I interject. "Fact that they're waving their guns around is the second, and you're not getting a third. Lose the weapons."

The spokesman blinks, his gaze snapping over to me with irritation before looking back to Levi. My companion simply shrugs, still expressionless. Eyes narrowing, the spokesman finally deems fit to reply.

"Not all of us got Mr. Sid's budget, nǐ míngbái? Got to make do with who we can find. Dangerous times, yeah?"

"Can't be doing too bad," I retort, "since you brought two extra bodies. Guns away, or this deal's off." His jaw tightens, sickly smile looking more like a grimace for a few seconds. Then his head bows again, and he twists about to motion downwards with one arm at his men as he barks,

"Shōu qǐ tāmen! Xiànzài!" There's a short pause as the enforcers look between themselves and their apparent leader. Then slowly, sullenly, the firearms are holstered or else tucked over shoulders. The spokesman turns back, pointedly ignoring me as he looks again to Levi. "There, no more guns. We can do business now, yeah?"

Levi and I exchange another glance, our shared concerns not needing to be spoken aloud. You survive long enough in a world such as this and you learn to get a read off people, and the spokesman here is already making my skin crawl. Still, he's told his guys to back down and holster their weapons upon request and I suspect that Sidrovich isn't going to accept 'rubbed me the wrong way' as a valid reason for scuppering the deal. Going by the resigned shrug that Levi makes, he's come to a similar conclusion. I return the shrug; no going back now. My partner turns back to the spokesman and gives a brief nod.

"Da. Business, then. You have the payment?" That sycophantic grin is back on our opposition's face as he nods furiously, reaching into his jacket to produce a battered, metal-encased data stick.

"ERC commands and credits, just like Mr. Sid asked for. You can verify, no problem." He's still nodding, his gaze trailing down to the case at Levi's side like a Freudian slip. "You got the goods, yeah?"

I'm frowning now, something about this head-bobbing little shit making me want to inch for the door or start shooting even as Levi shrugs again and brings his payload up to chest height. His gauntlet-clad fingers punch in a passcode and the seals are released, allowing him to pull open the metal device and reveal its contents. Sidrovich has, as usual, overdone things for effect. The case interior has been draped with faux-velvet, the two power cores stored within laid inside carefully shaped hollows. Perhaps it's to try and compensate for how uninspiring the devices look themselves: a pair of battered, weather-stained steel chunks, clearly showing their age.

"Pre-war, as requested. Picked up by licensed requisitions team, thoroughly tested to ensure they are fit for purpose." Levi raises an eyebrow at the spokesman. "They are to your satisfaction?"

There's an intensity to the spokesman's gaze as he nods, something almost akin to a hunger as he speaks the words, "They are, yeah."

That's the moment when the red flags turn into blaring sirens and I know the whole exchange is about to turn into a shitshow.

The guns that were just seconds ago politely holstered and out of sight are suddenly being reached for, half a dozen grubby hands reaching to pull them free. The movements are clean, practised, not the work of bumbling amateurs, but despite that I'm still faster. My arms move on instinct as they reach down to my side and into my jacket, one finger carefully brushing the side of the collapsed VIPER in just the right spot. As I pull it free and bring it to bear, what initially appears to be a gunmetal rectangular package expands outwards into a stocky little instrument of death as internal pneumatics propel the weapon's parts into place. I hold the VIPER at an angle, letting the motion of my draw propel it into a sweeping arc as I send a raking volley of gunfire across the assembled mob of would-be thieves. Through the helmet's filters I hear the guttural rattling of AP rounds going off, the yelps and screams as they meet their mark.

Instinct and training are pitching my rational mind out the driving seat as I lunge to the left out of the path of potential return fire. My two hired hands are pulling on their own weapons, to their credit, and also diving for cover. Plenty of it to be found in a partially collapsed warehouse. Levi, though, is too busy trying to re-seal the case to draw or dive, head no doubt filled with repeated demands by Sidrovich not to let anything happen to the package.

The spokesman of our double-crossers moves with a speed I didn't think possible for someone so small and disheveled, closing the ten metres between himself and Levi before my companion can react. I throw myself forward, hoping to propel myself behind a nearby collapsed section of ceiling as I try to bring the VIPER to bear on the man. Before I can, his right hand darts into the sleeve of his overcoat.

The holdout pistol clears his jacket. He jams it against Levi's neck and pulls the trigger.

The gunshot rings out through the confusion, and Levi drops like someone's just cut the strings that were holding him aloft. I feel a sudden numbness wash over me as I line the spokesman up through my smartlink and squeeze the VIPER's trigger with a sharp twitch of my finger. The impact sends him tumbling across the concrete and scattered metal that makes up the warehouse floor, his other hand clutching at the case he's just ripped from Levi's dying fingers. Don't linger on the dead, echoes the old mantra, as I continue to unload the rifle across the room. Nothing you can do for them now. Focus on the fight, on doing what you have to do to stay alive.

Levi's face gapes blankly up into the ruined ceiling through his mask, as lifeless and empty as doll's eyes.

Screams and the rattle of gunfire blare up behind me, and I twist around to see my two remaining companions go down in a hail of bullets. Before I can react, what feels like a cross between a freight train and a shuttle engine slams into my back, knocking me sprawling and stealing all traces of breath from my lungs. The dizzying pain that rolls across my torso is confirmation that I'm not dead, at least; dead people don't hurt this much. Snarling and gasping for air, I twist about to face this new threat as my helmet's HUD informs me that I just took a blast from some form of automatic rifle and that my armour's integrity is in an even worse state than I am. Struggling for breath as I try to curse and swear, I return fire at the figures advancing through the snowy mists outside the warehouse. New threats, and if they're out here in the snow it's a safe bet that they're not from the City. Which means I'm even more fucked than I thought I was ten seconds ago.

Hauling myself over the collapsed roof to find cover from our new attackers, I reload the VIPER just in time to see a few of the spokesman's grunts pulling him out the doors of the warehouse. It's spite, more than anything, that has me pop up and let loose another stream of automatic fire in their direction, blowing apart the shoulder of one of the spokesman's rescue party and sending the other two diving for cover. A stupid, amateur move—I'm letting my emotions make combat decisions for me, and I quickly pay the price as another two rounds impact against my armour's chest plate.

God snaps the breaker switch to zero, and the world goes dark.

blood pumping in my ears so loud it's making my head hurt and I'm glad of that pain cos it's a distraction from the agony swelling across my chest always knew I was gonna die loud and stupid that's what they said about my kind

Footsteps crunching through frozen snow, coming from very far away. Like I'm hearing an echo rather than the real thing.

survive the end of the fucking world survive the initiation into the regiment and them cutting you up to stitch you back together again stronger make it through all the shit that comes after the collapse of everything humanity once knew to be real only to go out like a common thug you fucking

Voices, muffled like I'm hearing them from underwater.

"The fuck was that?" one of them is exclaiming. "Bitch took a MAG round in the back and kept on coming! Jen-sin said this was gonna be a cakewalk!"

"And you believed him? More fool you, húndàn. Now stop moaning and get her piece, we got wounded to haul back to camp."

The first voice mutters darkly under his breath, and there's the scraping of metal against snow-coated concrete.The footsteps drift away and are lost in the howling of the wind.

always knew you'd die alone in the snow and this was a long time coming dunno why you're acting so surprised...