Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

“Idiots! Why the hell did you kidnap him? You could have dropped him the moment you left the greenhouse!” Watson screamed as he threw a chair at the two young men, forcing them to dodge. Ardan was knocked out on the floor, sedated and fast asleep.

They were on the second floor of a three-storey building, also known as the ‘Safehouse’ for all their operations. It was here where they coordinated arson and blackmail attacks, doing what they do best. However, this was their first time doing a kidnapping operation.

The second floor was the heart of their operations – a few computer terminals were placed sparsely apart with little else, apart from weapons that were packed into boxes in a mess – guns, knives and ammunition were randomly thrown inside.

Other than that, the entire floor was empty like an abandoned concrete building, save for a few chairs. Watson stood in place, wearing the same business suit he had delivered the pitch in, while Fred and Rao had already tossed away the greenhouse worker uniform, donning their usual polo tee and jeans to be inconspicuous.

“We didn’t have a choice, we didn’t have any disguise on. It was too last minute of a plan, so we had to wing it! If we left the kid behind, we would have been exposed in an instant!” Fred exclaimed.

“Mr Watson, don’t worry! We can just kill him if you don’t want to handle this whole situation! I’ll do it right now!” Rao scrambled to Ardan, grabbing a knife that was lying on the floor on the way before Watson rushed over and kicked him right in the stomach, sending Rao flying.

He had surprising strength despite his old age, a result of illegal strengthening procedures and mechanized prosthetics that gave him chronic anger management issues. Under the surface, he was almost half a cyborg.

“Idiots! Don’t you know the rules of the underground? NO KILLING! The enforcers were very clear that anything goes as long as we do not KILL ANYONE! If we kill anyone and it gets revealed, both the Five Families and the Dynasty of Hawthorn will come crashing down on us.”

”Don’t you remember what happened to the Red Wolf gang? They killed just an ordinary woman in the outer zones and they were all sentenced to death, down to the last man. Corporate espionage, arson, blackmail, drugs, that’s all fine because they know they can’t stop or repress all of it. But killing, EVEN just collateral is the last line, do you understand?!”

“Yes, but what if I kill him so well they will never find out?” Fred spoke, excited to get his hands dirty.

“Then you will have to kill everyone in the organization too because they would rather snuff you out than let you get captured by the enforcers to spill all our secrets, idiot.” That reply from Watson shut up Fred immediately.

Watson paced around the room, trying to rack his brains. “I managed to stall the enforcers for a bit, swearing to my contact that we will return the kid physically nice and proper, so don’t harm a single hair on him. The only issue now is how to make sure he doesn’t accuse us. We need to have a few bodies to act as scapegoats as well for the two of you.“

”I’ll go to the boss for a few drugs to cause memory loss for the past few days and a few grown bodies for substitution, so don’t you two dare leave this room for anything!” Watson slammed the door as he left, while Rao was still sprawled on the floor clutching his tummy.

Fred’s face paled as he realized that Watson would have to explain the whole situation to the boss, meaning his underworld career might potentially come to an end immediately. “Rao, get up! We got to make sure no one else finds out we’re here. Just check again that we cleared the public camera logs.”

“I already did it - no way anyone can track us down.” Rao struggled to get up, stumbling over to a chair, while Fred turned on a computer terminal, pulling up all the camera feeds. Checking each of the feeds slowly one by one, Fred was satisfied that none of the feeds showed them escaping the greenhouse.

If the senior manager in the greenhouse did his job probably, they would be completely clean once Watson comes back.

Right outside the ‘safe house’, it was a busy commercial street. People were walking through the high street, shopping and laughing, while holographic advertisements floated in mid-air, enticing them. No one seemed to know that such a crime was happening right beside them.

The hovercars flew overhead incessantly, none of them diverting towards them. Rao used a camera situated at the front of the ‘safehouse’ to scan the crowd. “Doesn’t seem like anyone is stalking us, I don’t know why Watson was so uptight about it! We’re completely in the clear!”

“Uptight about what?” A voice whispered behind Rao, which caused him to scream and fall off the chair. Watson was back. “Mr Watson, how did you get back so fast? Do you have the memory loss drugs?”

“Of course not! Do you think I dare to go meet the boss in person? I simply called someone else to help us out, they’ll be here at night so we just got to wait here for five hours. I don’t trust any of you, so I’ll be staying here to make sure nothing goes wrong,” Watson snorted.

He didn’t trust the two of them anymore, especially not after this colossal fuck up. The cost of failure was too damn high for him to run off just like that.

[Hello, anybody home? I got a superb pizza delivery here!] A voice blurted out on the intercom.

“Oh great, it’s finally here!” Fred reached for the button to open the door but Watson gripped his arm tight before shoving him away from the computer terminal. Watson used the camera to aim at the pizza delivery man, trying to glean his information.

The delivery guy was decked out in full blue, with a logo that screamed gaudy. A slogan labelled on his cap: [‘Super Pizza hotter than the surface!’]

“You actually fucking ordered pizza in this kind of situation? Are you crazy!?” Watson shouted.

“What? What the hell am I supposed to eat then? You know I eat Athen Super Pizza almost every week! I’m not about to break this routine that I had for the last five years! It’s the only form of discipline I have left in my life!” Fred shouted back. If he had to stand up for anything, this was his defining moment.

Watson face-palmed, completely and utterly defeated by the sheer stupidity of Fred. Swearing to himself that this was the last job with them, he allowed Fred to go down and check if it was the right pizza.

There was a chance that the delivery driver was impersonated by somebody else. The camera couldn’t clearly see the delivery man’s face under the cap, but so far, the uniform and the hovercar parked outside seemed legitimate, but Watson wasn’t about to let his guard down.

The first floor was the ‘front’ of the ‘safehouse’, a disguise for what they did. It looked like a regular trading shop that sold vintage trading cards from ages ago, with ‘legendary’ cards laid out in glass boxes on tables, most of them fabricated illegally.

Fred headed to the front door of the ‘safehouse on the first floor. “Fucking Watson, trying to break my delicate routine. Who the fuck actually cares about a kidnapping? He’s just a random sixteen-year-old kid!” Walking up to the door, he peeped through the eyehole of the door.

For security reasons, none of the doors in the safehouse had any digital connections, they were completely off the grid apart from the computer terminal for safety concerns.

Fred realized he didn’t recognize the delivery driver, raising his suspicion level! “Who the hell are you? Where’s my regular guy? Don’t fuck with me, I’m pretty pissed now.”

“Oh, you mean Randy? He’s sick right now, so I’m covering for him. He told me you’re a regular, so I brought you an extra one on the house as an apology!”

“Oh, yea? What’s the extra one?”

“Randy said this was your favourite, chem-fried rat chunks with tentagloo slices!” The delivery guy took out one of the pizza boxes, showing the glory of the Athen Super Pizza.

Fred’s mouth was already watering before he even saw the box. He instinctively reached to open the door, undoing the many mechanical locks on the door in sequence.

Before he undid the last lock, however, he heard a series of thuds coming from above. “What the hell are they doing on the second floor?” Fred thought to himself. “Hey, new guy, just wait here a while I’m gonna go grab the L-credits real quick.”

“No need, I’ll come in and grab it myself!” The door that was only held by a single lock was kicked open by the delivery man, while three others came out from the delivery hover car, all dressed in the same delivery outfit. The door knocked on Fred, who was sent sprawling onto the floor.

He could barely recover himself before one of the delivery men sat on his back, pinning him down, while Fred watched his pizza splatter onto the floor.

Fred could hardly believe it. He was getting raided by his favourite pizza chain! “What the fuck man! I thought I was your regular - why the hell are you doing this? I always paid on time! At least let me have that fucking pizza, I’ll give an extra tip!”

Above, Watson’s eyes squinted, hearing both the thuds coming from the floor above and the door being smashed in the front. The attack was in plain view on the camera monitors. “Rao, go to the third floor and check it out, I’ll stop the four below!” They rushed out of the room, leaving Ardan alone sleeping on the floor.

The third floor was where the illegal goods meant to be transported were kept. Drugs, data chips, illegal prosthetics and exotic plants were all kept in a messy layout of boxes, both metallic and plastic. Many of the goods were shifted with the help of the various gangs operating within the city and beyond, such as Rockhold.

Under the dim lighting, it looked like a mad researcher’s laboratory, except Rao was nowhere close to ever operating a laboratory. He just did what he was told and spend the money on anything he wanted. Rao walked through the third floor, trying to see what made the thuds just now.

Suddenly, he heard shuffling behind a stack of boxes. “Haha, I got you!” Rao immediately ran over, kicking over the stack of boxes hoping to hit whoever was behind.

However, the stack of boxes didn’t move, as though it was an iron wall. Instead, the ‘iron wall’ and stack of boxes started to move towards him.

“What the fuck?!” He dodged as the stack of metallic boxes crashed into a series of large jars, causing the exotic plants within to start flopping on the ground, splashing green liquid everywhere.

Rao scrambled away on all fours, regaining his footing a distance away. A large figure stood up from the sea of boxes, his arms bulging as he eyed Rao like a predator. He was much larger than Rao, causing Rao to gulp instinctively.

“Hey, we’re covered under the enforcers! Don’t try anything rash!” Rao assumed that the attacker was from another crime ring, trying to sabotage their operation. That didn’t deter the attacker at all, however.

“Don’t think that our boss won’t do anything! He’ll fuck you upside down!” Rao continued shouting as the attacker kept walking towards him, who then suddenly lunged at him.

The first strikes felt as though death was coming straight for him, but Rao had lived through enough close calls to steel his nerves and dodge.

He pushed his body to the limit as he dodged the rapid punches thrown by the attacker, feeling the air ripple as one punch came dangerously close to his face, narrowly missing him by a hair.

He was getting forced back and noticed that the attacker was generally trying to get him away from the door leading to the second floor.

“Braton, he’s not here! Hold him here, we’re going to check below!” Three figures suddenly appeared in the midst of random boxes and corners, apparently checking the floor while Rao had been fighting Braton.

The three of them dashed towards the door, while Braton stood his ground, stopping Rao from catching up to them! “Get the fuck out of my way, you gorilla!” Rao cursed as he finally started to counterattack.

Downstairs, Lisa, Trissa and Erik rushed down the stairwell to get to the second floor. “The four guards should be holding whoever’s left on the first floor. Let’s check the second floor first for Ardan before…” Lisa stopped dead in her tracks as she reached the second floor, seeing Watson right in front of her.

“Very cute, kids, but your pincer attack only works if both sides are strong enough. Seems like your ‘pizza’ friends weren’t strong enough. Now stop this right now or I’ll make sure your parents never see you again!” Watson sneered, standing right in front of the door.

He naturally expected them to stop in fright, but instead, Lisa and Trissa dashed towards him fearlessly.

Watson cursed, parrying each of the kicks from Lisa that could knock out the senior manager in one hit.

Lisa too was shocked, amazed that the older Watson would be able to withstand such a hit. “Hehe, you guys are too young, but I’ve already replaced most of my limbs with prosthetics!” Watson grinned before starting to throw his own devastating kicks, which Trissa and Lisa dodged nimbly, their bodies being lighter and faster.

Erik quickly scrambled across the fight, trying to get to the door while Watson was distracted.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Watson lunged at Erik but tripped at the last moment when both Lisa and Trissa took advantage of the distraction to kick his left leg at the same time together.

The two girls winced as their legs felt numb smashing against the metal under Watson’s skin, but they gritted their teeth while Erik stuck to the plan, entering past the door and slamming it close.

They all knew their roles, and Erik was the only one who would be able to hack into the terminals.

He quickly grabbed a chair and jammed it against the door, before turning around to scan the room. “Ardan!” Erik exclaimed as he rushed to the sleeping Ardan on the floor.

“Wake up! Come on Ardan!” No matter how much Erik shook Ardan, he was too sedated to wake up even the slightest bit.

Instead of wasting any more time, Erik decided to scour the computer terminals, downloading evidence of all the illegal stuff that had passed through this ‘safehouse’ into his personal multi-terminal.

Lucky for him, Rao and Fred didn’t lock the computer terminals before leaving, allowing him easy access to all their logs and contacts, exposing the entire crime ring.

Erik smiled as he collected all the information. “Mission objective complete, now let’s get the hell out of here!”. Suddenly the barricaded door blasted wide open, with Watson rushing straight at Erik.

The two girls had been knocked back into the stairwell by Watson who was essentially a cyborg, lying on the ground. “Erik!” Trissa screamed as she tried to get up. Erik scrambled back to the end of the room, but it was too late, Watson almost got a hold of him.

At this moment, the ceiling suddenly collapsed, slamming directly from above into Watson and narrowly missing Erik by a sliver.

The sound of crushing metal echoed through the floor as two human figures fell from the top too, adding even more weight to the already mangled limbs of Watson, who screamed in pain.

Braton got up from the rubble, staring around at the chaotic scene and the breathless Erik in front of him. Rao could barely move anymore, his head bleeding and ribs were broken from the fall caused by Braton pummelling him into the ground, while Watson was pinned below the collapsed ceiling, gasping for air.

Erik could hardly believe his luck, believing that he would have died if it wasn’t for the miraculous timing of Braton.

“Mission success…?”