Fortunately for me, my legs and arms are used to these kinds of situations. Although when you think about it, my life must be pretty rough if I’m having to get myself out of jams by pulling my gun out, running away, and firing rapidly behind me as I try and keep my pursuers at a good distance. This is exactly what I was doing. Or rather I had pulled my gun and was running. The pursuit hadn’t started in earnest yet so I wasn’t shooting. I find that if you are not being pursued yet, but there is a potential of people chasing after you, that if you fire off a gun it will cause the people to chase you no matter what. Maybe, just maybe I’d get out this without being chased.
“GET ‘EM BOYS!” I hear bellowed by one of the bosses and I make it around a bend in the tunnels. Damn, no luck today. I hear the howls, crashing of stolen merchandise, and the stomping of large angry feet heading my direction. I pick the pace up a bit. The horde bounds around the corner and I fire off my first “warning shot”. Berth, my gun, is a modified Beretta M9A. “Modified?” I hear you asking. Yes, modified and I’m not giving you any particulars, the patent in still lying in pieces around my office. Let’s just say it makes a slightly larger hole in things than the standard M9A.
No time to check to see if I hit anything, but the explosion sound combined with screams of surprise and possibly pain makes me smile a little. I get to the manhole I had climbed down and start the long assent up. And by long assent I don’t mean a couple of stories. The sewers of most sectors, this one included, lies below several other underground facilities. Waste treatment plants, power plants, jails, mutant cities, all standard stuff. But the sewer lies below everything else, so the ladder climb down from street level can sometimes be an utter bitch. The one good thing was that the ladder would force everyone into a single file line so shooting them would be easy. The really bad thing was that the orcs would know where I was going once I start climbing. Here’s hoping there aren’t any smartboys with them.
A couple pot shots down the ladder and the orcs seem to be warded off from climbing after me. Now it’s just a matter of me getting to the top before they do. The climb sucked. I mean climbing sucks no matter what, but climbing fast sucks worse. Huffing and puffing I spill out onto the street and look around. It doesn’t look like anyone is after me, although I’m getting a lot of strange looks. You’ve thing they’d never seen a pinko covered in green slim crawl out of the sewer before. Did I mention the Druggart Zone wasn’t exactly the worst part of town. I mean, seriously, who displays ancient fossils anymore anyways? Uppity rich people that’s who. Luckily I’m able to grab a taxi to the train station without running into another orc. I tipped the cab extra to make up for the smell I had left behind in his car, he still didn’t look too happy about it.
Neither were the people on the train, but I got home eventually. There was a small manila envelope sitting on the door step with my name on it. Opening it I found 5k and a note. It was from Miley.
“Dear Bernie,
Here’s 5k for your trouble. Just send me a bill for the expenses. Sorry to steal the kill but I needed to dispose of him myself. Thanks again for the help and if you ever need some spell craft done don’t hesitate to ask, I’ll even give ya a discount.
– Miley”
Well at least I got 5k and expenses out of it. Also no potential murder charges, which is always a plus. I guess I’ll have to use some of this to buy the wife something nice. I have a feeling that I’m in for a lecture when I walk in smelling like I do.
