The Reluctant Diplomat

Even with the sound dampeners in her headphones the explosive roar of a Panther Assault Cannon not too far in front of her, turned Corrie's world into an extremely high pitched ringing nightmare. The flash off the barrel though, that was fine. Her eyes were closed anyway. And kind of fucked up, truth be told she ruminated. The concussive blast wasn't too bad, either. It actually pushed her immobile body a few feet closer to the doorway they were trying to bug the fuck out of. Twenty eight feet more to go now. Not that it was roses before. No, there was nothing rosy about it all. Unless you count the bleeding wounds left by the tools of both machine and man.

Laying on the ground, paralyzed from whatever toxin coursed through her leg Corrie tried to open her eyes. The retina display across her right eyeball displayed her vitals in a most distressing shade of red in the dark pool of her right eye swollen shut. Only a handful of survivors from the recovery team she was in still lived. Clutched and fought for another minute, another second of life.The yellow icons of the team members turning red for wounded, or black for dead, almost one per second, she notes absentmindedly. Such worries belonged to the living, not the dead to which she felt she would be joining soon enough her self.

A pleasant voice with a distinctly female Elven accent in her mind's ear informed her prior to system reboot PanAidOmega will be dispensed. The default tone and the warmth in her gut started to grow as the internal pumps started their work. Feeling the cocktail mix of pain management and not overly tested stimulants for people with enhanced nervous systems wash over the pain and numbness. Opening her eyes and watching the reboot display go to daytime mode and blend into the background she sits up. The ringing in her ears was still there, so she couldn't hear the gunfire or screams of the dying. She could however see the fire blossoms at the ends of the barrels of the cyberzombies guns. Fierce exchanges of gunfire rattled the corridor. And she could move.

Two more dervishes spinning and whirling dropped from the darkened ceiling in front of the rest of the extraction team, spraying toxic darts into everything in the area. She could see her headware targeting system provided the icons above them in case she wanted to reengage in combat. It was also trying to track the few kangaroo panther something fifth world kinda magic drek animal machine hybrids that killed most of her team.

Corrie most certainly did not want to engage. All she wanted to do now is pull the long metal sliver out of her leg, which she did, tossing it into her DocWagon TraumaKit. And get the hell out of there. Turning sideways to use her arms to help push her to a standing position she noticed the unconscious form of one of their extraction targets.

Staggering the few feet to him she places her hand on his head to check his vitals. Her software responds that he's off in a bad way. Some thing the size of a dinner plate seemed to be attached to his lower back. It was circular and looked like it had long strips of metal across it's body. It reminded Corrie of one of those leeches Mamma Cat Mojo had for occasional spell casting needs. Except this one was much larger. And made of some kind of undulating metal. They can analyze it later, she thinks to her self as she grabs the man by his armpits and starts to drag him towards the exit. With any luck she will be able to get at least one extraction out of this whole mess.

The modified drag and shuffle with her bad leg was exceeding the limits of her pain meds. She could feel the synthetic fibers in her leg muscle fraying and scraping it's way into her 'natural' muscle and bone. About twenty feet left, she realizes her extract's vitals have gone dark. And he seemed stuck on something. Looking down again at the leech she realizes it started extracting some kind of silver liquid under it's belly and into the man himself and the floor below. Whatever it was just fused his lower back to the metal floor under him. She gives one more good pull to verify, but to no avail.

For better or for ill the two closest Cyberzombies realized their plight long before the tiny redhead was impaled in the leg. With blank stares and point to point communications they executed their plan. One stays behind laying down suppression fire with his minigun. The other turns on his movement suite software and heads for the extract.

Corrie could move fast. Well, when there wasn't a hole in her leg and she fired up the move by wire system. The thing that was once a man was much faster. Her software informed her he closed the gap between them in the span of half a blink.
She tries to move out of the way, but it's impossible to dodge his outstretched arms. She sees his mouth moving, trying to tell her something. but she's still deaf from the previous explosions. And now the high pitched whine of the minigun would have made it still impossible to hear.

He picks her up, the lower body of the mans dead form separating from his torso that was still cradled in her arms. The pop of the separation wasn't audible to her, but she could feel the jolt of it in her arms all the way to her shoulders. The viscera oozing out of his chest was making her DocWagon jumpsuit slick. She tosses the remains to the side as he keeps running. The smell was so overpowering she found herself retching on the chest of her savior. His dead eyes paid it no heed. He just stretch his arms out fully and kept running. Corrie muses she might have blacked out then.

There was a brief flash of light. Splinters of pain drove through her brain with the force of a banshee's howl, driving her to her knees. A kaleidoscope of colors cuts through her vision, turning it into a migraine inducing nightmare of colors and shapes. Cradling her head with her hands she screams forcing the palms of her hands into her eyes. Her linguasoft sytem tries to filter through it every language processed and extracted to be spoken at once. She can feel something in her throat tear, her scream changes to a strangled cry as her throat fills up with blood.

Lurching forward she catches herself with her hands. Her stomach heaves and she retches out a mouthful of blood. The bitter taste of metal and saliva threatening to choke her, Corrie vomits again and again. A wave of dizziness sweeps over her and she falls down onto her right side. Curling into a ball she tries to fold herself as small as possible. Blood and mucus coming out of her mouth and nose with every hitching breath and cry. She can feel the rain caressing her face, cleaning up some of the mess she made, as well as the mess of the corpse she was carrying just a moment ago.

For a brief moment, she feels something. A odd fluttering in her chest, and everything stopped. Whatever messed up her Cyberware was gone. Her mind staggers, expecting a never ending cascade of painful stimuli. Sobbing to herself she continues to lay there in a ball on the stretch of ferrocrete sidewalk.