The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 67

They had been standing still for too long, Ellie thought. They had been in the same place for far too long. She was a little worried that the militia would organize themselves enough to counterattack cohesively, or that they would begin fighting back in other ways, perhaps launching countermeasures drones against Ellie and Sameh’s sensor net, causing false imaging or jamming the net completely.

Ellie threw another smoke grenade behind them, and one randomly towards the middle of the compound, and then she moved forwards again.

There was more movement around them now. The militia might already have worked out approximately where they were. On the display in her glasses Ellie could see one militia member ahead of them, about to come into view next to the building in front of her, and two more about to round a corner behind her, as well.

Ellie’s target, the one up ahead of her, was slightly quicker than the other two, and came into view first. She shot him cleanly, with three rounds into his chest, and then turned, and aimed backwards, in case Sameh needed help with either of hers.

Sameh didn’t.

As Ellie looked backwards, Sameh fired, a full-auto submachine gun burst across both militia member’s chests which probably killed them immediately, and then, a few seconds later, as they fell, two more shots from her sidearm, one into each of their heads.

They had probably both been dead before Sameh used her sidearm, though. Sameh’s quirky ammo loadouts did horrible things to people. As far as Ellie had seen, in the moment she had to glimpse it, those two people had been sliced apart by Sameh’s flechette rounds in much the same way as a detonating fragmentation grenade would have sliced them, and then they had been set on fire, too, almost at the same time. Both bodies were actually burning, as they lay there, with Sameh’s phosphorous rounds still inside them.

They were burning, but Sameh shot them both with her sidearm anyway, being careful, making sure.

Sameh was doing the same thing as Ellie, using the submachine gun as her main weapon, but keeping her sidearm tagged to a velcro patch on the armour in the middle of her chest so she could rip it off and fire quickly if she had to.

Sameh was taking her kill-shots with the sidearm, saving her quirky ammo. She was efficient, and ruthless, and Ellie looked away as Sameh killed those two people, a little unsettled by just how gleeful Sameh’s face had been. Ellie was unsettled for a moment, but then she made herself not care. This was their job, what they did, and if Sameh needed to take a little too much pleasure in killing so as not to be upset by doing it, then it wasn’t Ellie’s place to judge her.

Ellie kept moving. She could see two more people one building over from her, slowly moving closer. She went forward, carefully, up to the next corner. She was about to lean out and shoot, when suddenly the two people ahead of her disappeared.

Ellie was confused for a moment.

She had thought she was creeping up on two unsuspecting militia members, but when she glanced around the corner, there was nothing there. Just a charred patch of earth, and dirt splattered onto the nearest wall, and a haze of dust and smoke hanging in the air. Ellie stopped, confused, and then realized what had happened. She had been watching her targets in her glasses, watching those people’s sensor image, not actually them. She had been watching, forgetting a building was between her and them, and that her earpiece cut loud sounds, and while she watched, Sameh’s drone had come along and shot at the two people Ellie was watching with some kind of explosive, and killed them, and Ellie’s glasses, seeing the life-signs stop, had removed those two from Ellie’s display.

Now Ellie was thinking properly, looking properly, she could see two crumpled bodies on the ground. They were half-hidden by the smoke and torn-up earth, but they were there.

She watched them for a moment, cautiously, making sure both were dead, in case all her technology had got something wrong. They seemed to be dead. They weren’t moving, and the sensors couldn’t see movement, which meant no breathing and no heartbeat.

Ellie decided they were dead, and kept moving.

Behind her, Sameh shot them anyway.