Adventure of Clint Runner 1

The bulkhead hisses open, and a sleek corporate agent glides into the red glare with two silent guards behind him. He barely glances at the wreckage, then locks onto the bio-heart module in Clint Runner’s hand.

The Wetware Engineer shifts closer to Clint Runner’s side, watching the doorway. The agent’s smile stays polished, but his eyes flick to her, measuring the new alignment.

The lock on the agent’s door is already overridden from outside. He is not improvising this entry, he is following a route.

Clint lets the agent and both guards settle into view, measuring spacing, hands, and angles. The officer on the right stands half a step ahead of the other two, the sort of placement that means he expects trouble first and takes it second.

The agent keeps his palms visible, but his weight sits on his back foot, ready to spring away from a bad deal. He is confident, yet not careless.

The left guard watches Clint Runner’s cybernetic arm instead of his face. His stance is compact, disciplined, and trained for a fast draw from hidden hardware.

The wetware engineer catches the same details a beat later and exhales through her nose. "They came prepared for retrieval, not conversation," she says.

One guard shifts his shoulders, the first real motion of the standoff. The red light strobes across their armor while the dead console stays dark between everyone and the door.

Clint Runner snaps his hand up. The leftover charge in the room answers him, white and violent, bursting across the dead console in a hard flash that turns armor, glass, and wet metal into silhouettes.

The agent flinches blind and staggers off his back foot. Both guards break formation at once, hands flying to their visors and rifles, their clean angles collapsing into panic.

The wetware engineer throws one arm across her face and ducks aside, more from instinct than fear of Clint. The bio-heart module stays locked in his grasp as the red pulse of the emergency lights returns between flashes.

Clint bolts for the bulkhead while they are still trying to see. His boots hammer past the dead console, and the room falls behind him in a smear of red and white.

The shout hits the room as Clint reaches the threshold, with the guards still half-blinded and the agent scrambling to recover his sight.

Clint vanishes into the shadow beside the open bulkhead, letting the red pulse swallow his outline.

One guard advances, visor still wobbling, drawn in by the empty corridor and the hard silence where Clint was.

Clint steps in from the blind side and drives his cybernetic fist into the guard's jaw. The hit snaps the man sideways and knocks his rifle down into the hatch frame.

The second guard jerks toward the sound, but the narrow doorway and the flailing body in front of him jam his line of fire.

The Wetware Engineer stays low inside the room, eyes on the bio-heart module in Clint's grip, as the agent and the surviving guard close toward the threshold.

Clint scoops the rifle free of the hatch frame, the jam giving with a metallic jerk in his cybernetic grip.

He brings the barrel up in one smooth motion and fires.

Security Guard Two folds backward into the generator room, hit hard enough to break his stance and his nerve.

The Agent stops mid-step, eyes locking on the muzzle now trained on him.

The Wetware Engineer rises a little higher from her crouch, watching the rifle in Clint’s hands, then the agent’s face.