Replica (Original Work)

Chapter 4 - Shadows and Assassins

The soft rain of earlier had become a downpour, soaking me through my coat. In the cold, it bit to the bone, and hampered my visibility severely. This was more than enough to make me regret neglecting my umbrella at my apartment before heading out for maintenance. I generally walked to and from work and just took my car from there, due to the free parking, a premium in uptown. Today that was biting me in the ass.

The rain had another, more sinister effect, as well. It took me a full two blocks to figure out I was being followed. Normally I'd have caught on to this guy immediately, despite the decent enough job he was doing of shadowing me.

It was a big guy, long brown overcoat and an old style hat. That was as much as I could make out. He was keeping good distance, but he'd definitely been on my tail a while. I figured I shouldn't head straight home, and ran down the immediate scenarios in my head. A hitman? Hopefully not. I pushed the notion to the back of my mind. Corporate keeping tabs? Perhaps, but they'd have no reason to follow me home now, they could just track my neural chip. I decided some other corps investigator was most likely. Whatever he was, I thought I'd try to lose him in the weaving maze of crossways and fire escapes that made up the uptown backstreet.

I rounded a corner and placed my dominant hand on the nine millimeter pistol I kept holstered in my coat. I picked up my pace too. Not enough to tip him off that I was on to him, but enough to keep him on his toes. I walked to the back corner of the alley and waited. Sure enough, about fifty feet back he rounded the exact same corner I had.

My pulse picked up. Situations like this always evoked a certain dread, especially when I didn't know what I were dealing with. I rounded another two corners, by this point the people around had started to dwindle, and I found an empty alleyway. It also happened to be a dead end. Hand on my gun, I turned and waited. I stood in the rain probably ten or fifteen minutes before I was satisfied he had stopped tailing me. Either my imagination had been running wild or the guy was smarter than I thought.

I weighed my options and decided the best course of action would be to beat a path to my apartment straight away. The walk home was brief, probably another fifteen minutes. I knew the area inside and out. Even as I entered the building I couldn't shake the feeling the guy was still watching me. Paranoia? Maybe. But paranoia had kept me alive before.

I drew my gun and opened my apartment door, checking each corner of the three room suite. I wasn't going to sleep tonight. I'd stay up and see if my mysterious shadow decided to pay me a visit. Sometimes, rival corporations would attempt to "dissuade" an investigation. I'd never had an honest attempt on my life at home, but I'd be damned if I was going to roll over for the first.

I walked back to my bedroom and pulled out the M-Tec 1250 automatic twelve gauge I kept behind my bed. I set up my chair in the living area so that it faced the door, and waited. Anyone coming after me was going to have to come through that door, one way or another, and when they did they'd find themselves on the wrong end of a shotgun shell, or several. It was going to be a long night.

I glanced to my right where my holoscreen was turned off, and decided to see what I could stream for the night. I picked up a live news feed. I wasn't a fan of the news, it was just a general reminder how damn bleak everything was, but at least that would give me some noise while I stayed awake.

Three hours into the vigil, my phone rang. It was nine o' clock. One hand on my shotgun's pistol grip, bracing it against the chair, I reached down and answered.

"Lucy."

"Luce', Eva's got something and wants us in late, like I said. How quick can you get here?" It was Cutter.

"That depends." I hesitated. "I think I was followed. No idea why."

"Thinking it's dangerous to head out alone? Want me to pick you up?"

"That'd probably be good, just as a precaution."

"Alright I'll-"

The phone went dead.

Before I could finish asking if Cutter was still on the line the sound of suppressed gunfire filled my apartment. I dove from the chair just in time to see it get riddled with bullets, scraping my elbows on the hardwood floor as I smashed into it and rolled to the side. I figured my assailant must have a microcam, since he'd seen through my trap. This would give him the distinct advantage of being able to shoot around cover.

I positioned myself behind the counter between the living area and kitchenette, and swung around giving a wide sweep of the apartment entrance with my holographic sight, but the attacker was already in the second room. Two more gunshots screamed out from the darkness, narrowly missing my head. I ran low behind the shot up chair, across the floor, and into my bedroom, calculating it to be my most defensible position.

I crouched in the corner of the room. Heart rate intensified. Adrenaline surged. Three things could happen from here. Either my attacker wasn't serious, and would leave after "warning shots", my attacker was serious and smart and would wait to take me some other time, or my attacker was serious and stupid and would try to take me in the room. This particular assassin proved the last type.

I heard him walk to the doorway, and he pointed the pistol around the corner, using the microcam to try and train the sights on me. I fired first this time. A three shot burst, right through the wall. Flimsy apartment walls might stop a low caliber handgun round, but they did jack shit against the penetrating slugs I used in the 1250. Ears ringing from the sheer noise of the shotgun blasts, I ran low to the edge of the wall, did a sweep of the apartment with my sight, then moved to do a quick check of the body.

Two of the slugs had hit, leaving massive exit wounds and an unfortunate amount of blood flowing onto my poor floor. This wasn't the man who'd been following me. He was shorter in stature and clearly dressed for the job, wearing a tight black outfit. Sure enough he had a microcam fastened to the front of his silenced machine pistol.

I rifled through his pockets, and found the jamming device he'd used to end my call. I threw it to the ground and crushed it before grabbing my phone off the floor.

"Call Cutter."

Cutter answered after two rings. "What the hell happened?"

 "Harlan, I don't know what kind of shit we stepped into this time, but somebody just tried to kill me."