Chapter 3 // Infiltration

Mocha watched the black car drive into a warehouse. All the windows were blackened from within. She looked at Yoshi and nodded. The bot returned the gesture. She jumped from the rooftop and held onto Yoshi in a slow descent like a paper airplane.

She crouched behind some crates at a distance and examined the structure. Yoshi scanned it and projected a tiny screen for Mocha; a prediction of the interior layout and lifeforms. It read at least 10 individuals. She rapidly analyzed the layout and wasted no time; the mark might be getting mutilated time-now.

Mocha sprinted along the outer concrete wall that surrounded the warehouse. She vaulted over the wall and landed silently to the side of the building. Behind a green storage container was a guard finishing a cigarette. She kicked him in the hamstring, put him in a chokehold and held her tanto to his throat.

She put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Where are your friends?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you shi—” Mocha dug the knife into his throat and sprayed his blood all over the green storage container.

Her bare feet sensed someone approaching before her ears heard their steps. She held the bloody blade behind her back and turned the corner. She smiled at a guard heading to the smoke pit behind the container. He was stricken by her beauty and looked at her thighs underneath the kimono.

She punched him in the throat, shattering his voice box, then kicked his knee and snapped it inwardly, the bone piercing through the back of his leg. The man tried to yell but no noise came out as his leg folded the wrong way and he fell onto his back. She turned him over and debated interrogation but decided against it. She pulled his forehead and slit his throat.

She cleaned the short-sword against the dead guy's pants and sheathed it, then grabbed his stun baton and lit cigarette from the ground. She sprinted toward the rear of the warehouse, her black hair trailing behind. Yoshi was hovering in the sky, watching out for enemies nearby or distant. She slid to a halt and paused at the corner.

Three guards were posted up at the rear, one with a machine gun, two unarmed. One of them chatted about his extravagant hookups with his favorite holographic waifu, Domina. Mocha casually stepped out from around the corner, waiting for the closest guard to turn his head toward the patter of her feet. Before he saw who was approaching, Mocha flicked the lit cigarette into his eyeball.

“AHH!!”

The guard clutched his face. Mocha smashed the stun baton against his skull, frying his brain. The new dent in his head kept the baton in place, continuing to shock him as he landed backward like a ragdoll having a seizure. His head cracked against the concrete, the impact releasing the baton from his flesh.

“What the fu—” before the second guard enunciated his curse, Mocha jumped forward and shattered his jaw against her heel. It made a satisfying cracking sound, followed by agonizing moans that sounded like a special kid talking.

Mocha continued her forward momentum and ran to the guard lifting up his submachine gun. He was far too slow; she threw her left elbow into his nose and shattered it, blood dispersing from his nostrils. She kicked his knee the same way she did the other guard, but the bones did not snap due to his knee pad; instead he stumbled backward and kneeled. Mocha complimented his broken nose with a knee strike, pushing his nose bone into his brain.

Up above, a drone illuminated a red light toward Mocha. Yoshi shot the drone and it fell from the sky and crashed to the ground. Mocha waited in a crouch… No alarms… Their cover was not blown thanks to Yoshi. The bot descended down and showed a reading of 5 lifeforms in the next room. She gave a thumbs-up and listened through the soles of her feet.

Mocha sprinted to the furthest window with Yoshi hovering above her. The drone shot a bullet into the glass to weaken it as Mocha dove through the window elbows-first. She rolled before the shattered glass fell and unsheathed her katana in one swift pull. It was an office room; the wooden door was open, leading into a thin hallway where the 5 enemies resided.

“Intruder!” a rookie guard shouted as he spotted Mocha. The other guards turned their heads toward the sound of shattered glass. The rookie shot his 6-shooter revolver into the office room. The other guards weren’t sure if he was right in the head. 

“Did you see someone?!”

“Yeah! I think it was a woman!”

The rookie’s hands trembled as he reloaded.

A couple of the guards relaxed. Pfft, a woman? Retard. It was probably a stray bird or wind…

“Go check!”

A swole guy who looked in charge pointed with his submachine gun.

The rookie timidly entered the room gun-first. Mocha chopped off both his wrists with a downward swing of her katana. He screamed while his blood shot out like a water-gun. He turned around and squirted some blood on his comrades stupid expressions.

Mocha kicked the man forward and the other guards unloaded bullets into him out of fear. She shut the door with the tip of her sword. She pried the pistol from the rookie’s decapitated hands and checked its ammo as the door was littered with bullet holes. She stuffed the piece in her kimono and waited for a pause in gunfire then jumped out the window.

She sprinted with katana in hand toward another window that Yoshi hovered in front of, letting her know it was the best entry-point. Mocha ran in a wide sweep to keep her speed. Yoshi shot the window right before Mocha dove in.

Mocha kept her eyes open during entry, using that second to track the position of each enemy. One guard was far too slow turning around; Mocha stabbed him in the back, her katana piercing clean through his chest. A guard fired his pistol, intending to hit Mocha but shot his buddies ear off instead; Mocha was using him as a shield. She pushed the stabbed guy forward and lunged the katana through another's chest, making a two-man kabob, then yanked it out of the two bodies.

The swole guard unloaded his submachine gun at Mocha. She dodged by rolling sideways on her shoulders. As soon as her toes touched the ground she lunged forward while spinning clockwise and slashed at his stomach. All his guts, internal organs and protein shake from earlier spilled out on the floor. He collapsed into the puddle of his own stuff.

The handless rookie was unconscious on the ground and would be dead soon. One more guard was left but he was clearly shaken up by the scene. Mocha spared him no mercy and chopped his throat, his mouth gurgling blood and spraying out, covering her face and pretty hair.

She picked the submachine gun off the ground, took a full magazine from the swole guys pocket and reloaded. She put one of the dead guys on a rolling chair. She opened the door leading into the next room and pushed him inside.

Guards in balaclavas were lined-up behind a guardrail atop a 2nd-floor mezzanine. They unloaded their bullets at the figure. Some recognized it was a sham and yelled a cease-fire, but it was unbearably loud and most didn’t stop until their clips were empty. They cursed in confusion as shell casings rolled off and fell to the 1st floor.

Mocha was outside, hanging midair from the drone. She held the submachine gun, the stock tucked under her shoulder for stability. Yoshi gave her an image of where to aim and she unloaded a full clip through the 2nd story window. The guards screamed as their blood splattered all over each other. Mocha dropped the submachine gun and swung backwards, then launched herself inside.

She calmly drew her katana as her pedicured feet stepped confidently atop the broken glass. She stepped over the dead bodies, leaving a trail of red footprints as she approached the guards crawling away in agony. She ended their suffering with a downward stab to the spine, twisting it for good measure, then repeated the technique on two other guards as they pleaded for mercy.

She saw the first floor of the warehouse was divided by black tarps that created makeshift rooms. There were tables stacked with narcotics wrapped in brown paper. Yoshi flew in through the window and scanned the interior, but before it finished, Mocha saw a new round of guards enter through the front door. They open-fired at Mocha and the drone.

The bullets followed to the wall they hid behind. As the guard’s needlessly wasted their ammo, Mocha analyzed the situation. How many goons have they requested for backup? How many can I cut down before I become overwhelmed? What of our escape? She thought of the children she met earlier and hoped the battle wouldn’t lead into any other districts, but at this rate she had no control over that—she was being hunted. A smile formed on her lips at the thought. It had been a while since she felt a rush like this.

Yoshi finished its scan and projected two floors beneath the first. Ahhh, so that’s where the mark is. The gunfire ceased and the guards whispered commands to each other. Yoshi let Mocha know there were 8 of them. Maybe she should sneak past them into the basement levels? That would make escape quite tricky… No, cut them down now. Yes, kill them all!

Four guards ascended the stairs on both sides of Mocha. They branched off to different positions and angles. She needed to relocate before she entered their line-of-sight. The mezzanine provided zero cover except the lucky chance that a bullet would ricochet off the metal bars.

The squad leader pointed with two fingers at one group, then the other, then toward Mocha’s position. 4 guards approached with their guns forward. The one directing stayed back at a fair distance, the other three stared down their iron-sights from the corners of the platform.

Mocha held up her hand as she listened to the approaching footsteps. With a point of her finger, Yoshi released a smoke grenade onto the platform.

“FIRE!” They all shot the cloud of smoke until they had to reload. In that moment of shuffling magazines and racking weapons, the black-haired woman sprinted through the fog and slid underneath the railing, dropping down to the first floor.

“She’s running!” The quick reloaders fired but Mocha sprinted like a zig-zagging cheetah through the black tarps that concealed her position. They fired aimlessly at every tarp, hoping to accidentally strike the target. They repositioned and descended downstairs while a couple of them stayed on the 2nd floor to maintain the high ground advantage.

Mocha and Yoshi hid behind a tarp that had its top covered as well. She quickly checked Yoshi for any injuries. All good. The enemy's boots thumped all around the warehouse in a pathetic attempt at stealth. They may have been clever enough to fool someone else, but every vibration was felt through her feet like a sonar. She picked up a paper-covered square from the nearby table and walked through the tarp and into another one of the makeshift rooms.

“Psst.”

The guard turned his head and shot at the brick thrown toward him. Cocaine dispersed across the air like a bag of flour. Under the concealment of white powder, Mocha ran forward and stabbed him in the groin. His buddies ran toward the gunshot and screams.

Two guards ran through the black tarp and got shot in the face by Mocha’s pistol. The two bodies fell on the still-alive screamer who was terribly upset about his predicament. Mocha shut him up with a stomp through his brain, twisting her sole before stepping off.

It was time to reposition; every guard in the warehouse was closing in on Mocha’s location. She stayed low as she went through the tarps.

“Over there!” A guard fired multiple rounds of his semi-auto rifle. Mocha dodged with a forward dive and landed on her chest behind a stack of wooden crates. The guard felt brave as he rushed toward Mocha.

As the tip of his rifle came into view, Mocha flash-kicked the gun. At the peak of her jump with her spine still arched, she cut his throat. She landed on the man’s shoulders, pushing him down as his blood sprayed all over her legs and feet. Her kimono was drenched in red liquid.

Mocha cut the shoulder strap from the rifle and grabbed it with her left hand. Her soles felt vibrations from behind; she ducked just in time to avoid a bullet in the back. She sprinted low to the floor, zig-zagging through tarps. Gunfire trailed her path from overhead. One bullet nicked her left shoulder as she kept running. She disappeared.

“Where is she?!”

“Last I saw she was there! See her footsteps—AIEEE!” The guard got shot in his chest twice.

“GREGORY! NOOO—” The guard got shot in his open mouth. He gurgled on his own blood and choked to death with a disgusting sound.

Two more left. This mark had better be worth it… That did not matter. Oh how much fun this is… She flashed her fangs and suppressed the urge to laugh.

Mocha picked her katana up from the ground and aimed the rifle with her right hand. Footsteps shuffled above her. She took a few steps back and then threw her sword in an overhead swing. It settled in a guard's inner thigh. Somehow he was still standing and aimed his submachine gun at Mocha, but a bullet went through his eye socket and he fell backward in a mangled position.

One guard left. Mocha checked the ammo on her mag. A couple bullets remaining, plus the 4 bullets of the revolver on her hip. She aimed the rifle and did not rest her eyes on any single spot for too long. She saw the squad leader waiting for her at the center of the  2nd floor platform.

Mocha wasted no time and shot him twice in the chest, but the bullets rippled against his biotic barrier and fell to the ground. This guy was definitely a higher rank; Omega wouldn’t invest any fancy tech on an ordinary grunt. The guard unsheathed his sword and with a button press it was covered in a blue glow that left trails of light as he rolled his wrist, making an infinity symbol in the air. With his free-hand he made a knife-hand and gestured Mocha to approach. An imbecile; she had enough firepower to break those shields… You know what? Let’s play…

Mocha jumped from a crate and slid under the guardrail. Her body left a wet red trail along the floor. She yanked her katana from the dead guy’s thigh and whipped the blood off the blade. They stood 10 meters apart.

“Why are you here, woman? Why did you kill my men? Who do you work for?”

Mocha did not respond.

The man scoffed, spit on the ground then grabbed his crotch.

“You’re pretty hot. I think I’ll play with your dead body after this.”

He cracked his neck on both sides, then pulled a pistol from his hip and fired. A dirty move…

Mocha was unfazed; she dodged the gunfire by diving forward while twisting like a bullet. She landed 2 meters from him. She closed the distance with a dash and her black steel met his. The glowing blade crackled blue electricity as they pushed against each other. He fired the rest of his bullets toward Mocha’s feet. She stepped backward while their blades maintained pressure. Mocha pushed his sword back and threw a spinning low kick.

The man lifted his foot and tried to stomp her ankle. Mocha stabbed his inner thigh with her blade and pushed him back, but was unable to cut due to the biotic shield. An upward slash was met with the same force-field. That rippling barrier was the only reason he still existed. She despised this cowardly technology but knew how to deal with it.

The man went for a counter slash to her throat. She dodged with a back handspring. She poised her stance, clutching the katana with both hands and inhaling deeply…

“Stupid woman. That won’t work. This is the most powerful biotic shielding in all of Omega, you can’t possibly—AHH!!!”

Mocha possibly could and did finally manage to chop off his hand with a simple slash. The glowing blade dropped to the floor. Mocha grinned smugly as she picked up his sword. Clearly this “squad leader” had not been in much combat. The man looked in horror at his own wrist, his hand on the ground, then to the blood-covered woman in front of him.

“Fool. All shields break. And here I thought we were going to play…” Mocha lodged the man's own blade in the top of his skull, splitting it apart so the sword rested permanently on his head. He fell to his knees and perished.

Mocha sheathed the katana on her back. Yoshi flew up and sprayed a first aid chemical on her light shoulder wound. Mocha hadn’t even realized she had been hit and felt a tinge of disappointment. And here I thought it was a flawless victory…