Virtually Existent

Chapter Fifteen - Staring Into The Sun

Lex wandered for some time, moving through buildings to stay out of a sniper's scope and throw off any followers, until she came to a small building nestled behind several others and unseen from the street, filled with crates loaded with pickups. Lex lifted with her legs, tipping one of the crates in the room onto it's side and spilling it's stash of discs over the floor.

Taking a deep breath, Lex knelt down and began sweeping her vision across the discs on the ground as she had practiced so many times before to perfect. By imagining a rectangle around the egdes of the words used to describe pickups, and a lot of practice, Lex was able to narrow down her search by ignoring the majority of useless pickups entirely. In no time at all she had gathered several discs.

A sniper rifle, machete, two heals, three holsters a portable , and as much ammunition as she could fit in the holster pouches. Lex adjusted the straps on the holster for her sniper rifle, moving it to a comfortable position to grasp quickly from her back before tightening the SMG belt at her side and outright removing the machete strap from her other. She carefully replaced the machete in it's sheathe once she had firmly fastened it on her left bicep.

Minutes later, Lex pulled herself through the hatch and rolled onto the roof. She sat up and retrieved her sniper rifle from it's position at her back and chambered a round before setting up on the side of the roof. Just as she looked through the scope, a face popped into view like a wooden duck and she couldn't stop herself from firing reflexively.

She certainly didn't kill them, but she had taken a chunk out by the look of the blood splattered on the ground behind where she had shot. She frowned as a knife blade ventured out of cover, and it took her a few seconds too long to realise it's owner was viewing her reflection with it's shining steel. It was too late anyway, and neither of them were going anywhere. So, she waited for him to lose patience.

He spent almost ten minutes just sitting there until a metal sphere bounced into the middle of the road. A grenade? No, Lex knew what it was and reacted just in time by ripping her head away from the ledge and curling up into the fetal position, which was still not enough to do away with the burst of light that overcame the roof.

When she blinked away the pain in her retinas, Lex could not longer see the knife or it's owner. Occasionally a flash of movement would come into her view as the two people below fought, but never long enough to enter her sights properly. 

After a time of inaction, Lex was ready to assume her target had slunk off when another flash bomb bounded onto the street. Lex simply raised her elbow and firmly covered her eyes with her arm until there was a brief flash before looking back down the scope.

He'd come out onto the street and was half way to her already when Lex had returned to the scope. She was determined to take him out right there and then, and turned up the magnification on her scope as she tracked his head "Oh sh-"

Lex's eyes felt like they were being gouged out, she tried to avoid moving should she be on the roof's ledge but even when pressing her hands onto her eyes and growling she couldn't help but squirm with the pain.

She heard the movement below her as the man forced some furniture around to gather a better stance. Lex ripped her machete free with enough force to snap the sheathe off of the holster and knelt slightly to the right of the hatch in waiting. Ideally she would cut that bastard's hand off. The hatch popped up, and Lex was like a coiled snake with her strike when she neatly cleaved through the opening before the hatch even fell shut again. Okay, this time then.

Lex saw the hatch opening and her machete swung half  way through the opening before suddenly and unexpectedly slamming against something. Before her wrist had even recovered from that, the machete was pulled violently from her grip as if the hatch was entry to a black hole. Lex invented several new words as a half cooked flash grenade was rested on the hatch's edge.