060: Slumped in the Driver's Seat

[Mission Objective Updated]
[Kill the Electric Eel. (Failed)]

John yanked the bolt.
Snake-scale-like pressure release valves expanded outward, venting a stream of high-temperature gas.
Even a smart sniper rifle required a bolt pull to give the chip and ballistics a slight calibration window. Continuous firing was possible, but the accuracy would suffer.
John’s shot had been aimed squarely at the head.
To his surprise, it only grazed the back of the Electric Eel’s skull, and the bastard was still jumping around like nothing happened—heaven only knew how many illegal implants had been crammed into him.
He let out a crazed, inhuman screech.
A single blow snapped the machine gun handle directly, smashing into the middle of Thalia’s raised forearm.
The forearm bent at a visibly sickening angle.
Even though the insulation coating did its job, Thalia still felt half her body go numb from the shock, accompanied by searing pain and a burning sensation.
She curled inward and tumbled off the machine gun seat.
The Electric Eel crawled into the cockpit the very next second, flailing and striking wildly. Raw muscle power erupted from his arms, tearing the twisted guardrail metal away.
He loomed over Thalia, howling down at her.
Bang, bang-bang.
"Eat shit, you freak!"
Thalia drew her revolver and fired rapid shots. The situation was far too urgent; the first two bullets struck the Electric Eel’s torso.
The final shot drove straight into his eye socket, bursting out the side of his head.
The Electric Eel let out a hoarse roar.
Blue electricity erupted all over his body, arcs spreading like a spiderweb, with dense tendrils anchoring into the turret and the ground.
Cracking sounds echoed everywhere.
Numerous black scorch marks dotted the concrete floor.
Thalia cursed continuously, but she was smart enough to run first. Her internal cyberware was screaming alarms, and her exposed skin tingled with static.
"Dammit!"
John couldn't see a thing.
His scope was scrambled into a static blur, forcing him to switch back to optical aiming. He scanned the chaos for his target once more, but—
The Electric Eel beside the turret had vanished.
Bzzz~
John heard the hum of electrical interference. His optical cyberware refocused, and every implant in his body flashed warnings...
Metallic objects were heating up within the abnormal magnetic field.
Messiah’s cyberware was fighting against physical limits.
He instinctively sidestepped, only to see:
The Electric Eel had sprinted from the stairwell right up to him, leaping into the air and swinging an iron rod down at his face.
Bang—
John raised his weapon to block, instantly feeling a blinding, numbing pain in his arm, followed by a crushing tightness in his chest.
His entire body was lifted off the ground.
As he tumbled backward off the platform, the muzzle of his gun instinctively tracked the oncoming Electric Eel. The scarred, charred cheek expanded rapidly in John’s field of vision.
John forced his finger to pull the trigger—the bullet punched through the Electric Eel’s ballistic vest, lodging deep in his sub-dermal armor and flesh, while fragments of ribs mixed with bloody foam spurted from both ends of the wound.
He and the Electric Eel crashed down rigidly to opposite sides.
A drop of over four meters.
Unprotected, heavy impact fall.
"Cough... huff... huff."
John landed squarely on top of a corpse.
It must have been that Outcast whose throat he had slit while climbing the stairs to open the door.
Ignoring his obstructed breathing, he hurriedly pulled out a high-grade medical injector and slammed it into his neck, suppressing the agony rippling through his body.
The snake-skin casing was slightly warped.
The point-blank shot he had just fired was already the absolute limit of this smart sniper rifle. His optical cyberware was linked to the weapon system, flashing wall-to-wall red warnings. Forcing it any further risked a catastrophic chamber explosion.
Shouts of alarm filled the team comms.
John’s eardrums throbbed violently.
He dropped out of the channel, skirted around the heaviest gunfire, and reached the front of the transport station.

***

The Electric Eel was still out there, goddamn slaughtering!
Thalia and the remaining camp members were dead set against the Outcasts. Having survived in the wasteland for so long and frequently dealing with rogue cyberware threats, they all possessed extensive experience in hunting cyberpsychos.
They formed a crossfire.
The Eel was a blur, blinking continuously via his Sandevistan cyberware, moving like a giant ball of lightning that could instantly cover vast distances.
He closed the distance in a flash, his high-strength alloy prosthetic limbs whipping out a charged rod.
The reaction window was razor-thin.
A brush meant a broken bone.
Take a few hits head-on without paying attention, and the insulation plating would blow out entirely, leaving the victim instantly overloaded by electricity or beaten flat by his rod.
The gunfire never stopped.
Yet members of the camp kept falling one by one.
John and Thalia stood staunchly, bearing the brunt of the primary firepower and critical cover fire, their two electromagnetic rifles riddling the Electric Eel with sparks.
His movements, however, were growing increasingly sluggish.
John was mainly surviving on sheer stubbornness and a surplus of injectors; various synthetic hormones coursed through his system, beating back pain and injuries to keep him conscious.
Thalia relied purely on the thickness of her sub-dermal armor.
Aside from temporary surface insulation, her internal implants possessed built-in current resistance.
The Electric Eel suddenly blinked right into John’s face.
"Fuc—"
John gritted his teeth, raising his rifle to absorb the force of a swinging rod.
[Scope: Damaged]
Ignoring the weapon warning flashing across his vision, he used the rifle as a makeshift block to deflect the enemy's momentum, then spun the weapon around to smash the buttstock directly into the Electric Eel’s face.
"Die, you bastard!"
Electric arcs snapped and spat.
Sparks showered over John, leaving scorched marks near the data ports on his arms and neck.
The Electric Eel stumbled back two steps.
Having soaked in electrical currents for far too long, not a single patch of skin on his body was intact; his artificial dermal layers were charred black and fused directly to his flesh.
His tactical visor had been crushed deep into his skull by John’s savage blow.
With a raspy, distorted voice, he let out a freakish howl, swinging his rod blindly.
Bzz, bzzz-bzz.
The Electric Eel’s optical cyberware appeared to have shorted out completely.
He began blinking erratically in random directions, driving his already failing operating system past the absolute brink of meltdown.
Boom!
With a deafening blast, the Electric Eel burst into raging flames.
"John!"
Thalia shouted at the top of her lungs, warning him to get clear.
Then, the Russian woman braced a salvaged machine gun against her broken arm and blasted mercilessly into the center of the fire.
"Go fuck yourself, scumbag!"
She looked as though she wanted to jam the gun barrel right down the Electric Eel’s throat, firing until that corpse collapsed heavily to the ground and the blinding arcs of electricity finally faded away...
Click, click, click.
The magazine was completely emptied.
John brushed aside the smoke and approached the charred, stinking corpse.
Aside from Thalia’s heavy breathing and the groans of the wounded scattered across the ground, the only sound left was the sizzle of boiling grease evaporating from flesh.
The Electric Eel did not die a peaceful death.
Kelp Ironfoot had subjected him to unspeakable, inhumane experiments, and all his cyberware was fried beyond repair.
As he looked right now, even a ghoul would take one look and say...
Impressive, what a waste.
[Retrieve Loot. (Failed)]

Thalia pulled up an injured comrade.
Those still able to move had no time to rest; they scrambled up and headed deep into the warehouse.
The intelligence was spot on.
The Outcasts had already packed up the goods, cramming everything into a massive black transport truck.
There was no time to divvy up the loot on-site.
With their driver count drastically depleted and wounded personnel needing to be squeezed into remaining vehicles, resources were stretched to the absolute limit.
This truck was military-grade, featuring a steering wheel alongside a dizzying array of buttons and control systems.
John proved to be the most viable driver, forcing himself to climb into the driver's seat, load up the arm-injured Thalia, floor the accelerator, and smash through the remaining half of the iron gate to make their escape.
The rest of the camp members piled into their respective vehicles.
They fled across the dust-choked wasteland. No sooner had they cleared the industrial assembly area than two rows of armored vehicles lunged out from a derelict farm in the distance.
Heavy machine guns mounted on top opened fire relentlessly.
[Eliminate Pursuing Enemies. (Failed)]
[Escape Pursuit. (Failed)]

"Bunch of mangy dogs, won't let go once you bite, huh? I'm gonna shatter your damn teeth..."
Thalia sat in the passenger seat, frantically adjusting her weapon.
John, however, could no longer hear her clearly.
His clothes were drenched in sweat, his spine felt ice-cold and aching, and with multiple fractures combined with internal bleeding, every breath felt like swallowing boiling water—he could only manage shallow, agonizing gasps.
"John, John! This goddamn well isn't the time to pass out and sleep! You're still holding the steering wheel!"
John regained a shred of clarity.
He realized the entire truck was swerving violently, the massive weight of the cargo causing the tires to briefly lift off the ground, threatening to flip them over at any second.
The companion vehicles escorting their flanks were forced off the main road by his erratic driving, compelled to battle the Outcasts in the deep sand.
Just as he steadied the chassis, his vision began to blur once more.
"My meds... give me a shot, hurry."
John threw his weight onto the steering wheel, glancing down as he dipped his head:
Two of his fingers were snapped, and his cybernetic limbs—including the thunder-grip system—were glitching out, the neural-to-alloy skeletal connection demanding recalibration.
"Urgh, ah!"
John abruptly jerked his neck back.
"Huff... huff... Oh shit!"
He had no idea when Thalia had snagged the injector, only feeling a slight prick near his neck, immediately followed by tingling scalp and a sudden shift in lighting.
"Hah, I'm... I'm much better."
John forced his focus onto the road ahead.
He slammed the accelerator all the way to the floorboard.
Yet a deep sense of dread welled up inside John: his body was too severely damaged to be fooled by emergency stimulants any longer.
His consciousness drifted into chaos, and everything happening around him fractured into stuttering, disconnected fragments.
Thalia had been holding the syringe just a moment ago.
The next second, she was leaning out the window, rifle raised.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Don't you dare pass out, just keep driving straight!"
"Fu—ck—you—scumbags!"
...
A chain of explosions erupted along the road.
Bullets slammed against the windshield.
Flash after flash of hazardous imagery swam across John’s eyes, and every time he snapped back to awareness, he was hovering on the knife-edge of rolling the vehicle or slamming into obstacles.
Using pure muscle memory and instinct, he dodged one barrier after another, wrestling the heavy box truck in a brutal game of chicken with the desert armored cars...
Debris rained down around his feet.
Someone else took over the steering wheel.
Thalia hauled him out of the driver's seat, and as her scarf tore away, he vomited a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
A gray, hazy sky.
A roar of noise.
Nando appeared in his field of vision, weapon in hand.
"Damn it, he's flatlining!"