Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

The pistol felt much heavier than when I had examined it upstairs. Finster looked flatly at me and tapped his forehead with his finger. Forty-five seconds. I remembered the layout of the massive building’s lobby from the day I was brought in two years before. It was just as oppressive and needlessly large as all the other buildings in Commonwealth Prime. The elevator doors were fifty meters from the street exit. There was a reception desk, a guard station, and a security aisle with metal, pathogen, and explosive detectors. Thirty seconds. The doors could be immediately secured from the inside and out at the push of a button. Patrol vehicles went past the front of the building at five minute intervals. Fifteen seconds. Cameras covered both the elevator and main doors. Four guards, one receptionist, one security officer. Eight shots in the clip. Ten seconds. The elevator doors open and close in two seconds each way. The main entrance doors swing out towards the street. Five seconds.

The shot went cleanly through Finster’s head and he fell atop the other guards on the ground just as the doors to the main lobby opened. Luckily, nobody was standing there waiting for the elevator to arrive, giving me a few extra seconds I wasn’t sure I was going to have. Kneeling and reaching out only up to my shoulder, exposing nothing else to the hallway view of the camera, I aimed diagonally and shattered it with my second bullet. The ATI detonator was right where Finster left it in his shirt pocket.

Before the guards in the area could respond, I had sprinted from the lift and began shooting. One guard in the chest. Another guard in the head. The camera over the reception desk. Sliding up behind one of the massive columns that supported the one hundred and fifty stories above us, I avoided a few scattered shots of return fire from the remaining two guards. Leaning out, I carefully lined up and fired off a round straight into the plastic arch that detected pathogens near the building’s entrance. More gunshots chipped away at the column.

Ducking out on the opposite side, I caught the third guard in the neck, spinning him wildly back over the desk behind him. When the last soldier peeked up from behind the counter, I was halfway there, my weapon raised and waiting just for him to do so. His helmet shattered under the impact of the bullet right before I dove over behind the counter. Rolling and coming up running, I raced through down security aisle.

By that time, I could hear the screams and shouts of more people approaching from within the building. Heavy footsteps echoed down the two main hallways leading to the lobby, but I was at the door by that time, shouldering it open and dashing out into the crowded street. Between the rushing wind, drone of people talking, and the hum of traffic racing by above, nobody had heard the gunfight inside the government building.

I took a moment to judge the distance, then threw the gun sidelong across the street, where it skipped twice before clattering down into a sewer chute in the curb at the other side. I was certain that a camera somewhere had caught the maneuver, but at least it would buy me a few hours before anyone found the weapon, giving me time to vanish into the crowded city before the CPSD could distribute my genetic identity. Even then, their review of my escape would not reveal the ATI device in my head, for they always registered as pathogens on scanners.

Despite all the surveillance and regulations, it was easier to blend into the choking overpopulation of the world’s largest city than one would imagine. I didn’t know if they were still alive or in business, but there were people in the embassy district that could help me get a new face, fresh papers, and a ride out of Commonwealth Prime.

Global Agenda Fiction © 2009, Hi-Rez Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved
GLOBAL AGENDA and HI-REZ STUDIOS are trademarks of Hi-Rez Studios, Inc.
www.globalagendagame.com