Corpo Age-Chapter 274: Undercurrents

Daniel - Thunder Fangs

Elevate City was bustling, as always. No matter what was going on in the world, for the residents of this supercity, their priority was on surviving. That meant earning enough credits to scrape by another day. That was just how life was for most of the residents in the city residing outside of the vicinity of the corporate towers.

In these less secured parts of the city, gunshots rang out every hour or two, and the passersby were all numbed to it. As long as it wasn’t happening right beside them, they continued on with their day.

Daniel was one of these people who had long been numbed to the daily violence. Despite being only sixteen, he was no stranger to murder. He wore a loose hoody with the emblem of his gang plastered on it, a yellow lightning bolt between some bloodied fangs. His hands were tucked into the kangaroo pocket, where he was fidgeting with a pistol.

He coldly glanced across the street, where a small gunfight was happening between some street rat and a rent-a-cop. They exchanged blind fire while remaining behind cover. Daniel scoffed at the scene. In his eyes, it was apparent they were amateurs.

He quickened his pace while keeping his eyes on the gunfight lest a stray bullet fly his way. It wasn’t long before he turned into a narrow alley, where he entered through one of the small doors on the side of a small rundown building.

Almost immediately, two sets of eyes veered his way. Two menacing men behind a counter glared in his direction. Their gaze softened upon recognizing him. Daniel simply nodded their way as he walked by them. The place was dimly lit, with many doors along the corridor. Daniel knew most of them were just closets filled with cleaning supplies or storage rooms his gang repurposed for themselves.

He entered one of these rooms that was converted into a makeshift hangout. Beside the stained couches, drugs and firearms were strewn about. Three others were currently occupying the room. They looked up expectedly upon Daniel joining them.

“Took you long enough! I thought you were going to ghost us,” the youngest-looking one in the room quipped.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get to the point, all right? I didn’t get enough sleep to entertain you today.”

The lone woman in the room with long curly hair audibly cleared her throat.

“I’ll send you what I got from our QG. It’s another hit on a corpo convoy. We have their route, schedule, and the firepower we need to get in and out before reinforcement arrives.”

Her words made Daniel raise an eyebrow.

“Again? This is like the fifth gig we got to hit the corpos within this month. I thought the war between the suits ended a year ago? Does this mean things are heating up again?”

“No clue. I only ask for details relating to the job. That kind of stuff is for the QGs to think about.”

“The QG, in this case, is just Garry. Stop acting as if you’re some big-time merc. This is an errand for the gang, at best.”

The other two men in the room glanced back and forth between the two parties arguing, not daring to intervene. The bickering lasted half an hour before Daniel sighed.

“Forget it. I’ll ask him myself. Let’s focus on this errand first. According to the info, we need to heat out soon if we’re to ambush them, right?”

The team of four spent the remainder of the hour discussing their plan and gearing up before exiting their lair. Normally, their loadout simply consisted of the few small arms they owned, but they were lugging around a big briefcase this time.

The group went directly to the planned location and began setting up. They split into two groups, one stationed on the roof of a low-rise while the other remained on the street level. Daniel was part of the former, along with the young teenager who criticized his tardiness earlier.

The two of them were carefully assembling the contents of the briefcase. It only required some simple assembling that Daniel could do alone.

“We really should get one of these for ourselves, Daniel! If we don’t invest in ourselves, we’ll never get into the big leagues!”

“Hayden, stop daydreaming, please. We’re in the middle of a job. Where in the world do you think we’d go to buy military-grade heavy weapons even if we had the creds for it?”

“Umm, our employers? They’ve been sending these to us for the gig every single time, so they should be common enough, right?”

“They’re obviously suits, and what is our rule about getting involved with suits?”

“To—minimize contact,” Hayden dejectedly replied.

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“Good. Now enough of that. The target should be coming up. Open up the terminal for me.”

A small screen came to life, projecting the location of their targets as they began driving through the city. Their mark made quick progress despite the constant heavy traffic within Elevate City. It was obvious that were traveling in a corporate convoy, bypassing the local traffic. That meant Daniel had to lift up the anti-armor launcher ahead of time, preparing to shoot before they drove by.

Thankfully, the young mercenaries didn’t have to wait long. A three-vehicle-strong convoy weaved through the streets, making liberal use of the sidewalk as a passing lane.

“Daniel here, is ground team ready?”

“Yes sir, over! Let’s make some money!”

Daniel could only shake his head as he aimed down his weapon. It had a holographic display to guide his aim. It only took him a second to identify the vehicle included in the intel and another one for the targeting system to lock in on his target. As soon as it did, Daniel pulled the trigger.

His eyes couldn’t even track the anti-armor round as it easily penetrated the engines of their target. There weren’t any fancy explosions that followed, as their goal was to steal whatever was in their target vehicle, not to blast them to smithereens. As soon as Daniel confirmed their objective was disabled, he glanced over at Hayden and nodded. The young man instantly loaded another round to his launcher as gunfire erupted from the carnage below.

Their allies had begun their assault. The escort vehicles immediately surrounded their charge, with guards scrambling out toward the wreckage. It was evident they were very protective of whatever cargo it held, but Daniel’s allies didn’t let them have it easy.

The ground team sprung from their hiding place, firing into the backs of the corporate guards. Just as one of the intact vehicles turned its turret toward them, a loud impact noise resounded through the air as Daniel fired off another shot. Unfortunately, they were more alert this time and were able to triangulate his location.

The turret from the only remaining vehicle turned his way and began firing nonstop. The high-caliber rounds easily punched through the parapet, managing to hit Daniel in the arm. He immediately collapsed, dropping the launcher in the process.

“Holy shit, Daniel! That almost tore off your arm! Shit, what do we do?”

Daniel could only grunt in response, but he looked straight into Hayden’s eyes, conveying his meaning. The young teenager breathed heavily in a panic and nodded repeatedly at Daniel’s meaning. He crawled around in a prone position as the bullets continued to fly their way. He soon reached the dropped launcher and began crawling further away with it.

While he was relocating, the gunfire in the background never ceased.

“Daniel, are you okay? Can you still take out the last car?” their comms reverberated. “Shit, if you don’t reply within the next minute, we’re retreating. They haven’t turned their turrets toward us yet, but there’s no way we can get any closer with it still up.”

As if to answer their partner’s question, Hayden managed to reload the launcher and fire it from the other end of the rooftop. The lock-on system made it impossible to miss the stationary vehicle. The rear of the last armored vehicle leaped up for a full second before crashing back down. The turrets became silenced, but the gunfire did not.

“Let’s fucking go, Daniel! Talk to you guys soon.”

Throughout this ordeal, Daniel himself was trying his best to stay conscious. After firing, Hayden threw the launcher aside and rushed to Daniel’s side.

“Shit, are you good? What should I do?”

Daniel’s eyes dropped down toward his left side, where his waist pouch was. His remaining good hand reached out for it, but only managed to move it a few inches before it gave out.

“Shit, you have something to stop the bleeding?” Hayden cried out as he searched his pockets.

He found some first-aid supplies and after some fumbling around, he managed to stabilize his companion’s wound. Daniel couldn’t help but be thankful to the manufacturer of the first-aid kit for making it as idiot-proof as possible.

Having been administered some type of shot, he found himself more alert than before, but the weakness persisted. He struggled to move his limbs or neck, and could only watch as his allies cleaned up the scene.

Hayden packed the launcher back into the briefcase and hastily carried him back to their getaway vehicle. The ground team was already there by the time he managed to carry the heavier man down the rooftop.

“Shit, Daniel was hit?”

“Yeah! I could really use a hand!”

The team quickly helped their injured teammate into the car and drove off without any delays. The two older members were more experienced with dealing with injuries and began jabbing Daniel with more stimulants. It was enough to get him to a talking condition.

“N-No more, you idiots,” he weakly muttered. “I’m going to OD if you keep jabbing me. Take me to the clinic.”

“Umm, you know old John isn’t qualified to patch this up. He isn’t exactly a trained medical professional. The best he can do is install a new arm for you,” the lone female of the group warned.

Thunder Fangs was a street gang. They were lucky to have someone who could install cybernetics for them, but their members had misgivings about trusting their resident doctor with anything else.

“Y-Yeah, that’s fine. I guess I’m long overdue for the upgrade,” Daniel replied.

“You know—we aren’t strapped for cash after all the gigs we’ve been doing this past month. I’ve been hearing about the hospitals that’s been sprouting up in every district. I bet you can get some proper treatment there along with quality upgrades, if that’s what you want. It’ll beat what old John has for sure.”

“And trust some corp with their products? No thanks.”

“I’ve heard good things about them in the grapevines. No excessive gouging or the like.”

“That makes it worse. If they aren’t screwing you over the price, they must be screwing you in other ways.”

“Well, up to you. All I’m saying is even our bosses and the top cadre of the other gangs have been making use of their services, and you know how paranoid they are. I heard they’ve even got fancy new SAIDs with hypnopedia functions there.”

Those words finally got Daniel thinking. He silently deliberated for a few minutes, which almost made Hayden panic from believing he passed out. Pushing back the younger worrywart, Daniel sat up.

“Hmm, that bougie crap? Are they the ones in the rumors, then? The ones selling programming cassettes for cheap?”

“Yep. Should be.”

“Fine. If the higher-ups deal with them, they should’ve vetted them closely already. Take us to this new corpo hospital, then.”