Contacting Pushman was a good choice. The job broker had several contacts from his days learning to create explosives. After sending a few messages, Trace had several replies with quotes and their current supplies.

  Monroe, who had chosen to wait around, was impatient to hear the information from Trace. “Well, come on, tell me. What did they say?”

  “We can pick them up right now if we want and attack the warehouses tonight.” Trace joked, knowing that Monroe hadn’t finished his recon efforts just yet. “It’ll cost around three thousand credits' worth of explosives per warehouse, and they are only selling to us because Pushman vouched for us.”

  Monroe clicked his tongue at the price. “How much money do you have? Do we need to put together a pool or can you cover it?”

  Trace looked at his account balance and slowly nodded. It had decreased a lot from his recent spending spree, but he hadn’t spent everything. The credits from the reapers had helped a lot as well, though that particular source of income had now dried up.

  “Yeah, I can afford it.”

  Monroe stood up with a groan and began massaging his shoulder. “Let’s try and do it tonight, in the early morning hours. Assuming, of course, that Sonar and I can get all the information we need in time. As soon as Kenshin gets back, take him with you and go pick up the explosives.” He was already sending messages to the rest of the team.

  “You got it,” Trace replied readily.

  Since Monroe had been the one gathering all the intelligence, he was the one running the operation.

  Trace was waiting in his truck when Kenshin arrived with all his equipment. He was dressed in a custom light armor suit that had been covered in an old-style ninja outfit. Together they made four different stops across the Littleton and Southglenn area, picking up all the carefully wrapped explosives. Thankfully, these particular ones were all standardized, and they only needed to be shown once how to set them off.

  By the time they returned to the warehouse, everyone else -save for Monroe and Sonar- was there waiting for them.

  The semi and the trailer were also missing, which was good as Trace’s temporary key had run out for it. If Monroe hadn’t remembered, then he would have had to send Trace another one.

  They loaded the explosives into the trunk of the absolute wreck of a car that SpitFire had shown up in. It was different from the one she had originally arrived with at the warehouse earlier that afternoon. Trace didn’t want to say it was stolen, but if it wasn’t, then she hadn’t paid more than ten credits for it either.

  After loading up all their gear, it was a struggle to get the trunk closed. They didn’t want to take another vehicle that they would simply end up leaving behind. In that same vein, they could have also made multiple trips, except everyone knows real men accomplish everything in one trip. The four guys in the group overrode the more sensible voices of the two women.

  GreaseStain took the front passenger seat next to his ex-wife and current girlfriend. The other four piled into the back seat of the car. Mel-Gear ended up simply awkwardly laying across everyone’s lap while hiding her face in embarrassment.

  Halfway through the trip to the old industrial complex in Wheat Ridge, all the windows in the car were suddenly rolled down. Trace hung his head out the window while trying to strangle GreaseStain.

  “No,” He growled at the man, his voice partially getting lost in the wind. “You don’t get to breathe fresh air. You caused this; you get to enjoy it. At least now we know why she really divorced you, and where your name came from!”

  A sharp knife cut through the roof of the car as Mel-Gear cut herself a breathing hole. “Holy slotted scav doll!” She cursed. “What have you been eating?”

  GreaseStain started laughing as he waved the foul air back at them.

  His girlfriend only looked on in disgust and floored the accelerator.

  “Never again,” Trace muttered, staring distrustfully at GreaseStain as he stumbled out of the car once they arrived.

  Kenshin merely sighed and shook his head, unfortunately used to the man’s antics. They were disgusting, but they also helped to relieve tension before a job.

  Ripping the trunk open, he began pulling his clothes off, revealing the tight one-piece he had chosen to wear beneath the stealth suit. Popping the stealth suit open, he stepped into it and sealed it up, attaching the helmet a moment later.

  Trace stored the clothes in his bag and then double-checked that both guns were in their holsters, along with his knife. Unfortunately, there was no extra ammo for either gun near their holsters, as there wasn’t room inside the thigh panels. Well, not within easy reach, anyway.

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  It was a future modification, possibly to the chest area, though that would be extra painful if he ever got hit there. It would take some thinking. He had quickly placed a couple of extra magazines for the CD-10 along his rear near the vibro-blade. However, he was firmly limited on the number of rounds for the revolver.

  He started up the program and selected night camouflage. The colors of the stealth suit shifted into a variety of greys, navy blues, and light blacks. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the next best thing, outside of using the active stealth mode, which was for when they were actively sneaking in.

  The others whistled in awe at what he had managed to create.

  “You weren’t joking when you said you wanted to be a wraith,” SpitFire muttered. “That almost looks like the real deal.”

  “Thanks, I based it off what I saw them using at the pit. It has another mode, which is even better than this,” Trace bragged, feeling proud of what he had managed to accomplish. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford any decent light armor panels, so I had to repurpose what I had. These are now super light armor panels.” He said with a grimace. “I’ll be lucky if they stop one bullet. Of course, if the suit works properly, and I do my job right, that should never even be an issue.”

  He picked up his bag with the scout rifle strapped to it and looked at the others as they gathered their own gear.

  There were twelve explosives, and they would each be carrying some of them until they met up with Monroe and Sonar. Then everything would get stored in the semi until it was needed at the end.

  By the time they found the duo, Trace was beginning to sweat inside his suit and had to remove the helmet for some cool air. He had seriously underestimated how hot it would get inside the stealth suit. He had been worried about the heat from the control modules and wireless energy receiver, but hadn’t even considered the suit itself. Before he wore this thing again, it needed to have a cooling system installed.

  There was a reason the suits they had worn in the badlands had been even a fraction as comfortable as they had been. It was because they had possessed a fan that circulated the air all throughout the suit and kept the wearer from drowning in sweat. He wouldn’t be able to do the exact same thing due to noise constraints, but it did give him a few ideas.

  Monroe and Sonar were waiting for them next to the semi and its trailer, which had been parked behind a couple of old buildings.

  “What do you have for us?” Trace asked after he put his bag in a closet of the RV portion of the semi.

  “We found where they are keeping all their trucks, and they have enough for everyone here to drive one,” Sonar told the group slowly.

  “But?” RapidStrike prompted his teammate.

  “The location is in-between here and their headquarters, and pretty well guarded.” Monroe finished for him.

  “Right, sooo, I’m assuming we’re not going after the extra trucks still then, right?” Trace guessed, looking from person to person and only seeing determination. “Oh, come on guys, attacking two warehouses in four hours of night is doable. Loading up the trucks would have been pushing it, but with us all there, we could have probably managed it, as I’m assuming they have loading equipment inside the warehouses. Now you want to add another target to the operation at the last minute?”

  He couldn’t believe that he was being the voice of reason for once. He was the one who had rushed in alone to attack multiple scav dens all in the name of credits. Now he was balking in the face of an even larger payday, one that he himself had initially suggested.

  Trace stomped back over to the group in annoyance. “How well-guarded are we talking here? Did you get an accurate count on the number of people they had there?”

  “I counted thirty-five of them,” Sonar provided helpfully. “Four of them are pretty auged out, another seemed to be leaning towards being system ghosts.”

  “I also saw two zipping about the place, so make that two blitzers as well,” Monroe added.

  Trace laughed hollowly. “Four bruisers, someone who might be able to shut down our eyes, or cause other problems, and two people fast enough that none of us will be able to shoot them. Oh, and let’s not forget the twenty-eight normally augmented gangsters we would still have to deal with.”

  “Well, when you put it like that,” Mel-Gear took a step back, her face finally losing some of its prior enthusiasm.

  “I could take care of the two blitzers,” Kenshin offered, a hand stroking the hilt of his sword. “Along with anyone else I come across.”

  Everyone outside of Trace was a tier 2 edger, or in Monroe’s case, the equivalent of one, so they had far more experience and skills than he did. It was entirely possible that he was overreacting simply because of his inexperience. It was also possible they had all gotten lost in the thought of the credits hitting their respective accounts.

  One single-tier level couldn’t really be that much of a difference. Could it?

  “Answer me honestly here. Are you all sure that we can pull this off? Or are you just thinking about the possible spending spree?” Trace demanded, looking each of them in their eyes.

  “The money definitely has something to do with it,” Monroe answered honestly. “That said, I think if you got serious with your new suit, kept stealth mode on the entire time, and picked your targets right… Yeah, I don’t think it would be an issue for you alone. The only ones who might cause you a problem are the speedy blitzers, which Kenshin said he’ll take care of, and the unknown skill of the system ghost wannabe.

  “Now that you know they are there, just remove your system from the net and shut down all external communications. You’ll be fine. They can’t breach something that doesn’t have a signal going to it. Well, I mean, your eyes are still a possible vulnerability, but inside the helmet, you should be fine, and they won’t be able to hardwire in either.“

  “You seem to know a lot about the subject,” GreaseStain said curiously.

  “His girlfriend is a specialist,” Trace told the group, guessing that was why Monroe knew so much. It was either that or related to how he had become an edger in the first place, a story he had yet to tell Trace.

  The others accepted that answer, while the large man gave him a small nod of gratitude.

  “If I do that, it means no one will be able to reach me if something happens,” Trace reminded everyone. “Kenshin should probably do it as well, just in case.” He sighed and looked up at the night sky, which was lit up by the neon lights of the city they called home. “Fine, let’s do this. Monroe, can you grab a few extra magazines for my CD-10 from my bag for later? I’ll need them for the warehouses. Sonar, can you drive a few of us to the location?”

  He still thought it was a bad idea, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t also interested in giving his stealth suit a thorough field test.

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