Misdirection

Prologue (Part 3)

ANTONIDAS

Shit, shit, shit.

The windows exploded. Flurries of broken glass were strewn across the entire room, followed by the blazing thunder of light machine gun fire.

 I dived for cover, peeking out from what used to be the window.

Hovering in the air were two autopiloted helicopters, flashing their bright searchlights all around the mess they just made.  

...Just how important was this guy? And why  did he have autopiloted helicopters?

Beep...beep. Oh, just my luck, I told myself. It's the dog again.

"Antonidas, are you okay?"

"I'm just peachy," I answered rhetorically while taking up a kneeling stance, returning fire with my pistols. Each shot barely did anything to those annoying metal buzzards.

"Listen, just who is this man?"

"William Lazzari, CEO of Myna. You weren't briefed this already?"

"...Well, shit."

 Two targeted missiles homed in on my position, ready to blow me back to Cobalt.

There was no other choice but to leap from the building. As I fell to my doom, I willed the suit to activate.

Within less than a second, my body was now completely encased in projection-based body armor. A six-thruster jetpack manifested itself on my back, allowing me to catch my fall.

 The two missiles nearly hit their mark, whooshing past me with speed faster than my eyes could even follow. The only thing I felt was the violent explosion behind me, propelling me forward and nearly making me lose my balance. I gained some momentum and launched myself back up into the air, prepared to take out the trash.

I soared, easily maneuvering through the gunfire being dealt by the ground forces.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," the employer yapped. "Meet me downtown. I have a plan."

"I'm a little tied up right now," I barked as bullets ricocheted all over my body. I was maneuvering, performing barrel rolls, dodging missiles and picking off each groundie one by one with my rifle. 

BANG. One down. BANG. Another down. BANG. Two in a row. This was too easy.

But it was those damn copters and their damn missiles. They were starting to get on my nerves.

I dipped and then soared up between them, tossing an EMP grenade in midair. A neon blue flash of light burst from the grenade, rendering the copters ineffective and flightless. 

The angelic scene of those copters crashing onto the city freeway would have brought a tear to my eye if I wasn't already so damn pissed at this clustermess of a job.

While there was a brief halt in gunfire, I decided to make my escape.

I boosted the throttle up a few notches, and zoomed out of there before things could get worse.

. . .

Soaring over the freeway downtown was a nightmare. Crowds of people were running amuck in the streets, pointing and shouting as they saw me fly overhead. Police cars were in the middle of it all, shouting through megaphones, telling me to stop or whatever. Transport ships flew from the city en masse, like school fish in the sky.

The only thing that really irked me was that I had missed my chance.

In every situation I've ever been in - every assassination, every firefight, every bounty - I've never missed one. Ever since my infantry days back in Cobalt, I was trained 'shoot-to-kill' not 'shoot-to-alert-the-local-law-enforcement.