We heard boots on concrete. Nearly surrounded, we quickly rose to our feet and darted towards a door leading to the entrance to a warehouse. Alex was first too the door. He pulled the door open, we all darted inside. James attempted to bar the door shut, but to be honest, it was dark, and we could barely see anything.

  The inside was unnervingly quiet, with boxes and shelves keeping absorbing all noise that entered the building. All we could hear as we crossed was the muffled sounds of longshoremen, but from which direction, we couldn't tell. The interior was blindingly dark, and the only light in the room was from windows on the ceiling.

  It was slow going on the crossing, but we somehow managed. I was on point, followed by Alex and Max, and once more bringing up rear security was James. Somehow, The ones without enhanced night vision were the ones breathing calmly, but that could have been the adrenaline affecting James and I more than those two.

  Somehow we managed to get across without anyone tripping, and we'd stacked onto the door leading back outside. I opened the door just enough to steal a peek of the outside. We had found a loading dock. I'd spotted four longshoremen between us and the camp they had set up in warehouse 17.

  “They have to be here somewhere! They didn’t just disappear”, I heard a woman’s

  voice yell from outside.

  “Well, what are the chances they’re inside?”, another worker replied, hastily.

  “Not zero”, the first said.

  I turned back to the team.

  “They think we’re in here. Not much choice but to fight them here and now. At least we can break through them and get to Vernan”, I whispered to them.

  “Alright, everyone, we move fast, and maybe we catch them by surprise. Valencia, go right out of the door, then everyone go opposite of the person in front of you”, Alex ordered, making a plan on the fly.

  Max and James nodded in acknowledgement. One by one, everyone stacked up behind me. I reached out with my left arm, ready to rip the door open. I breathed in and out, before forcing the door open and nearly ripping it off its hinges.

  The world seemed to slow down as I poured through the doorway. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I moved my rifle like it was an extension of my arm. I swept the muzzle like I was rotating on a point, before squeezing the trigger as a longshoreman came into my sights.

  Crack!

  A single shot came out, hitting the closest worker square in the gut. She screamed out in pain.

  Crack!

  A second shot echoed through the loading bay. This time the worker went quiet. A flurry of gunfire erupted around me. Bullets where flying every which way, none of which were mine. Before I succumbed to terror, I felt Max tap my shoulder.

  “Keep moving, we have another truck to our right to clear. Don't stop just because what's immediately in front of you is over. The enemy could be anywhere”, he said, moving past me.

  I heard more shots behind me, followed by screams. Following Max, I moved the truck to my right. I passed max, and was now in the right most dock of the loading bay, and a truck now separated myself and my allies. I turned left, and my eyes met a longshoreman's. He was holding a rifle my direction. I paused, unable to move.

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  BOOM!

  The shot rang out, and thanks to my enhanced ears, I cut most of the noise from the shot, Regardless, the audio peaked, and it hit me like a concussion. I was falling. Pain radiated from my legs, like electricity.

  A notification appeared, letting me know what had happened.

  I hit the ground with a terrible screech as the metallic plates scraped the concrete. The fall fully knocked whatever wind was left in me after being shot. I stared at the roof, and corrigated steel stared back. Soon a boot moved past my eyes. Max had stepped over me after I had fallen, like he'd done this before.

  Crack! Cr-Crack!

  Max took three shots. I heard the worker scream from the first shot, and fall silently from the second and third ones.

  My HUD showed the location of the hit. Reached down and checked myself. I found a screaming hot piece of copper and steel. The bodysuit managed to stop it, but now it was bouncing around the inside of my coveralls. I returned to life, trying my damnedest to reach down and rip that screaming hot piece of copper away from my damned skin before I received a major burn. After writhing in pain for a moment, I managed to grab the fucker and tossed it to the side.

  “You good??, Max asked looking me over.

  “Yeah, the armor slowed it down enough to not pen the bodysuit”, I replied, staring up at him. “I’m afraid to see the bruise once finish.”

  “First we gotta get out alive”, he said, holding his hand out.

  Max helped me to my feet, and checked for any more damage. The back plate was scraped up pretty badly, with part of the bottom dented inward. From behind, I heard two more shots, followed by James and Alex giving the all clear on their side. We made it through another fight without any major injury, and for that I was thankful.

  “Clear!”, Max called back.

  We regrouped in the center, swapped to fresh magazines, then hopped down, into the

  bay. We carefully crossed the road, checking for any workers that could be running about. They knew where we were and we needed to not get surrounded.

  We checked the drone footage, and learned we were only four buildings away from warehouse 17. Using the drone footage, we got a mental map of the building. It was rectangular, with a sliding door on each side of the shorter ends. There was an outside mezzanine on our side, with a ladder going to ground level, and next was a ladder going to the flat roof. The roof itself had several skylights, allowing for natural light to enter during the day.

  “Team, I have an idea”, James spoke up.

  We all looked at him. At this point, I think even Alex was jonesing for an actual idea, and not something hastily put together from microseconds of minimal thought.

  “So, the warehouse has a flat roof with windows, right? We can just get up there and get the jump on Vernan and his crew”, James continued, sapping all of our attention.

  We paused for a second. We couldn't seriously be thinking this was the best idea.... right?

  “Well, let’s call up dispatch and see if we can’t at least get an aerial extract. No way we get out on that boat, if it’s even there.” Max replied.

  After some deliberation, we did agree that the roof was the best idea. Biggest reason was that well... We expected to be fucking blasted the second we tried to go through any doors, and we hadn't been given any breaching charges to make our own. So,We called up dispatch and gave Daniels the run down of the situation. He seemed incredulous as to how badly we fumbled the bag here. After a short back and forth, he told us a bird was in the air, and we should be able to get picked up shortly.

  That was all we needed to hear. We quickly moved towards Vernan’s location, stopping every so often to make sure we hadn’t been spotted. We had almost gotten to the warehouse, when I spotted movement ahead. Three figures had moved out of the warehouse from a side door. The four of us quickly dropped, getting underneath semi trick that was parked next to a building. We all squeezed as close to the wall as possible, allowing the darkness to keep us invisible in the night.

  The three workers jogged past us, toward the entrance.

  “They fucking killed seven of us. I hope we find them and Vern rips them the fuck apart”, one said as they passed.

  “Yeah, well we need to find them first. Let's find somewhere to hole up and keep an eye out for em for Vern.”

  We hornets really chose the worng nest to invade, and the warrior bees were now swarming with rage. With any luck they wouldn't surround us and rapidly vibrate, causing us to overheat and cook in our armor. We let the longshoremen pass, and we rolled out from underneath the truck. We kept low and hurried to the ladder on the side of the warehouse. I got to the ladder and started to climb.

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  We got to the mezzanine. There was no turning back. We grabbed the ladder on the far end of the mezzanine, and began to climb once more.

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  We were now on the roof, where we slowly crawled to the windows, each taking a different one. My heart was pounding. My breaths were shallow and rapid. While my cybernetic hand was steady, my left hand was shaking. This was the final moment before we either lived or died.