I'd reached the window, and stood into a low crouch. The lights were on in the warehouse. Strewn about the place, I could see cots, grills, water coolers. Among the supplies, I easily noted that there was about twenty longshoremen, and there addressing them all, was Vernan Roost. He was standing in a modified squat rack, his arms being replaced by four workers. Two were lowering heavy machine guns, old M2's, into position, while two more were fitting them into his arm sockets..

  We had him dead to rights.

  “Open fire! Kill him while he's vulnerable!”, shouted Max.

  I got Vernan into my sights, and squeezed the trigger. Once, twice, thrice I pulled.

  Crack! Cr-Crack! Cr-Cr-crAK!

  The glass shattered, bullets flied, people scattered. We shot wildly, trying to take Vernan down blaze of violence.

  Two of the workers that were helping Vernan out were shot dead on the spot. One was lowering the weapon on his right, and one was attaching the other on his left. There were several holes in the Vernan's chest, out of which oozed a bloody and oily ichor. Vernan only laughed and slammed his left side into one of the poles of the squat rack, locking the weapon mount in place.

  “And, FINALLY, the OCP dogs show themselves!”, he said, laughing at us. “Wish to concede to union demands now, or at your funerals?”

  Vernan's voice echoed through the warehouse below, rising up in a booming chorus.

  I was reloading as fast as I could, trying to move before Vernan could bring those old heavy machine guns to bare. My hands were shaking and I was having difficulty getting a new magazine into the mag well, unlike Alex and Max who had been able to keep a continuous spray of fire with alternating reloads.

  RATATATATATAATATAT!

  Bullets tore through the roof, beams of light pouring through the newly created holes that raised into the night sky like miniature searchlights.

  “Come on down, dogs! Come down and play!” Vernan shouted at us as he sprayed machine gun fire at us.

  “Come get us your fucking self, asshole”, James shouted back, before squeezing a few more shots off as punctuation.

  I finally got the magazine in, and hit the bolt release to send the bolt forward. Bullets were flying every which way. More longshoremen joined in on the fighting, having ran to collect weapons. Others had started to arrive at the building. I dove to the side, overwhelmed with the gunfire. My right leg screamed in pain. I could hear the whiz of bullets flying around me. Sparks were flying where bullets hit the roof. The cacophony of noise would have been unbearable had we not had our cybernetics.

  I ran to another side of the roof, trying to get a better shot while not being hit.

  I aimed back through the window, getting a group of three in my sights. I squeezed the trigger, switched aim, squeezed again, repeat. Glass shattered once more, falling to the ground. The targets dropped.

  I ran to another window, keeping myself scarce.

  RATATATATATATATATATATA!

  The spray of bullets caused me to turn my head back. Bullets had ripped through the roof where I was just standing. In the back of my mind, a crusty drill sergeant that had been seared into my mind those few weeks ago whispered something to me.

  “Keep moving or keep dying, recruit.”

  I got to a new window, and got Vernan in my sights. His back was to me. I took aim at his right leg, and fired. I kept firing, bringing my aim up as I shot. Bullets ripped through his leg, back and shoulder. Vernan fell, his machine gun firing as he fell. Bullets ripped through the roof in a dotted line, cutting the roof in two.

  Vernan rolled back onto his back, screaming, swearing. He'd gone feral, an embodiment of rage and anger. He started firing wildly toward the roof. I saw several dock workers running off, retreating from the battle. Some of the retreating workers were shot as they ran, falling and bleeding. Vernan started firing again, his bullets transitioning to tracers.

  I shot twice more, then started running. I saw it before I heard the scream. A tracer pierced the roof and hit James' chest at a sharp angle, bouncing off of his armor like a firework. The bullet had dug a massive trench into his armor. The piece of torn metal was jagged and rough. The next shot pierced into his chest and was trapped inside by the backplate. James began to scream as he fell. The final one went through his jaw bone, sending part of it flying, and bisecting it. James hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, leaking blood from multiple place.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I could do nothing.

  I turned back and ran to the window I was just at, and just dumped bullet after bullet after bullet into that fucking freak. I reloaded and dumped another mag, again and again. Soon there were no magazines left. Vernan was left lying on the ground. His “arm” was left twitching, electronics taking over where the body failed.

  I was livid, cursing them all. The workers had hurt one of us, and I was on the warpath. I pulled my pistol out, and brought it to bare on fleeing workers. I continued to shoot shot after shot, until I felt a hand hit my shoulder.

  I turned and saw Max. He needed assistance moving James.

  Throughout the chaos I hardly noticed the helicopter's rotors growing louder. It was arriving to pick us up. It lowered and hovered above the roof. The rotor wash made it hard to get onto, but I had managed. Max and Alex raised James onto the helicopter, I dragged him in, and the two climbed in after.

  The helicopter's back ramp raised and we flew off into the night. Max asked for a flashlight to get a better view. Someone pulled their phone out, and turned the flashlight on with that. The gunmetal gray floor of the bird was turning red from Jame's blood.

  “Valencia, give me a hand here”, Max said

  I got down onto the floor, following Max's lead.

  Max had applied quick-clot to the jaw wounds, as well as stuffing the chest wound. James' armor had a massive gash running up the chest plate from the tracer that bounce and a massive hole from the one that went through.

  Max and I struggled to take the front plate off.We needed access to his chest to try to get the wound to stop bleeding. I put a finger to his neck. The pulse was weak. I gave the information to Max.

  “I'm going to hit him with a syrette of morphine, then epinephrine!”, Max shouted back at me. “The morphine will alleviate the pain, then the epinephrine should raise his blood pressure. He's dangerously low as is. He got shot with two .50 bmg's!”

  Max took two syrettes from James's med kit. He injected both at the same time, then wrote an 'M' and 'E' on James' forehead.

  It felt like forever before we hit the hospital. There was a bed waiting for us when we arrived on the rooftop helipad. The three of us, and an EMT loaded him up onto the bed. He was rushed into the building from the roof, and taken directly to the surgery hall. We were escorted to a waiting room.

  We were in the waiting room, silent, for what felt like forever.

  “I'm sorry”, Alex spoke softly, breaking the silence, “I fucked it up for us. I used the pistol to kill that one dock worker.”

  Alex began crying into his hands.

  “No, they had to have heard our shots from the start”, Max replied, “Suppressors don't kill the noise completely.”

  Max spent the rest of the morning talking Alex through this, while I just sat there, running the night through my head again and again and again. Before the three of us knew, it was 10 am and we were barely awake. A nurse came into the waiting room.

  “James is stable. He is barely alive, but he should live”, She said.

  The tension fell from the room. We called into dispatch, and let them know the situation fully. We got the go ahead to get off duty, and with how much longer we were on duty, to just bring the armor in tomorrow. We weren't expected to stay at work tomorrow though, one of ours almost died.

  I left first, saying my goodbyes to Max and Alex. I left the hospital, and grabbed an L train back to Naperville. I was dead on my feet and needed sleep. Everyone on the L was giving me side eye, which was fair. I was, after all, an up armored ant, bruised to hell, with scratches along my armor, riding a commuter train. I simply didn't belong here.

  I soon made it to the stop near my parents' house. I slowly made my way home, every step burning my right leg.

  I crossed the threshold of my parents' house, when my mother exclaimed, “OH MY GOD VALENCIA! I HEARD THE MORNING NEWS AND THOUGHT YOU WERE SHOT!”

  “The morning news was more correct than you thought. I was just lucky”, I replied.

  “Meow”, interjected Miss Seuse.

  I rolled into my bedroom, and took everything off, changing into pajamas. My mother insisted I come back down for food, and I obliged. She made some scrambled eggs and toast for me. Miss Seuse decided she needed to lay on my shoulders during my dinner before sleeping.

  My mother noticed the massive bruise running down my right leg, and started worrying about me.

  The entire time I was off in my own world, worrying about James.

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  ????????????????????????????? another hard day in the "thank you for reading" factory