At last, we were ready. It'd taken us long enough, from getting permission to getting it all organized - I didn't want to go after anything in that town until I knew what I was dealing with, and pulling some strings got me that, even if it had taken some time.

The town of Paris was odd, and now I knew why. We knew why; they were full of ex-military. Super full, according to the census data I got cross referenced with old files: the place was over half veterans and retired military, and all of those had good records. No crimes in their jackets, no court-martials.

It was weird; small towns didn't just happen like that. Some of my friends were vets, and a more normal number for 'em was something like twenty percent in a given place, and even that was a little high. How the hell had they gotten over fifty?

It didn't matter, of course, we were still going, but it was best to know in advance what we were going into. The fact that there were so many armed veterans around the place meant we could either go in hard and fast with as many of us as possible, or we could go in with a small team of our best people.

The office had recommended the stealth approach and focused on plausible deniability, which was just a fancy way of saying 'we don't know you or anything else if you fail'. I couldn't stop the snort; so what else was new there?

Still, they were paying for it, so even if I'd have liked to have more of us, I'd listened.

We had the best we could get, and I was getting hot in my two sets of clothes. Full camo for the forest, and normal dark clothes for the town; stuff you could easily hide in or simply pass off as normal. My guys were all dressed the same way, and our bags had the tools of the trade, our pea shooters, and the homemade silencers for them.

The real firepower would be broken out if we needed to, of course, but there was no need to go loud before we had to. We knew we'd be discovered, but with luck that would happen on our way out, and if it did, we'd be a step ahead.

The real tricky part was the way in, and even with all the firepower in that place, even with all the most crazy and paranoid vets, they couldn't be watching for us all the time. We had a pretty good window here and it would only get better - but the more we waited, the harder this would get, and the office wanted it done.

I couldn't lie; me and the boys wanted it done too. Nothing like a post-raid celebration.
Still, I went over everything again, cause there was no point in taking chances.

"We shouldn't be going, Billy-Joe."

Speakin of... I turned to look the man square in the eye, drawing up to give the scrawny farmer my best loom. "So you've said, Jimmy. You also explained why, in depth. I heard you. We all heard you. Everyone here decided we'd go regardless. Hell, the maid can't be any more dangerous than the Sheriff, no matter how she moved."

There really was nothing he could say to that; Jimmy was one of our best, and it was his idea to test the waters, to see what kind of defenses the girl had, because the tech ones always had something.

Sneaking a raccoon while cameras were up and recording was a good idea. Jimmy set it all up himself, and none had been the wiser. He'd also been looking through his rifle scope, and had gotten his nerve checked when the maid had looked directly at him through a blind, despite no one being able to see anyone else from that far away - at least not without some kind of aid. The maid had only had her mark ones, and the cameras had proven it.

I couldn't dismiss it, of course, but we'd gone over it, and everyone had been on board, despite what the office wanted.
The office also wanted us to go, of course, but we didn't let that factor in.

"I'd like you on overwatch," I said again, a tired argument by this point. "but if you won't go, don't worry. We got some backup plans."

Jimmy was one of our better shots, and could bag a buck from five hundred yards. He did just that every year during hunting season.

"I ain't goin. Not this time," Jimmy said again. "Rusty'll be good enough."

Jimmy wasn't wrong. Rusty and Howie were good enough, but I'd feel better with him there. The more the merrier, after all, and it wasn't like the office wouldn't pay for a few more.

Howie wasn't as good, but he could use the help. His corn had gotten a bit of blight, after all.

Right. It was time to get this show on the road. "Alright, everyone ready?"

looked out into a sea of nods, both from our team and from our alibi. The party was going to go on all night, and it was an easy way to contribute. One I'd be joining once we got back, cause I could always use another beer. No one had anywhere to be tomorrow, after all.

A chorus of yeses, and I led the way. Everyone piled in the back of my truck - well, our first team. The second team, the one that would see us out and the two running overwatch, they were in Rusty's truck.

We had the fake plates on, of course. Someone would need to see our VINs and check them against the plates in order to see anything wrong, and so long as we obeyed traffic laws on the way over, there wouldn't be any issues.

We were going the back way again, since now that I knew where it was, we could just park there and walk in. Our hunting licenses were still valid after all.

Such a flimsy excuse wouldn't work on the way out of course, which was why we were going for speed. Ideally, they'd never know we were there, but I wasn't expecting that. The Campbells had an impressive service record, and while we knew about the standard alarms, with one of them in the house, we had to assume there was more we didn't know about and that we'd be blown just stepping on the property.

Now if I was wrong? Great. It meant we could end the threat and no one would be the wiser.

Right, the time to second guess was past. I started 'er up and checked to make sure everyone was settled into the bed before pulling out. Didn't want anyone standing up as I turned, falling out, and cracking their head on the pavement.

The two trucks I expected pulled out of the brightly lit lot behind me. I took one last look at the party going full swing and focused up.
There was no need to worry about the police here; they weren't at the party, and didn't carry our card, but the ones on duty tonight were ours. It was a shame it wasn't the entire force... at least yet.

It took us the better part of an hour to hit the area we needed to ditch the trucks. I wasn't going to lead us through the property we went last time, just to make sure we didn't have to dodge cameras. I mean, if I was Sheriff Myles, I'd have that area locked down harder than his own headquarters right now, and game cameras were cheap enough and hidden enough to give a warning.

But putting those same cameras all over their entire perimeter? The cost would be enormous and would require more than a few people to monitor it all; more than a small town jurisdiction should have.

I parked near the tree line, facing toward the road, and got out. I wouldn't be locking up, and I wouldn't be taking the keys both of those were a rookie mistake that could doom us all. If I got nabbed first, or worse, anyone else could make it to my truck and drive on out with a clear path, and if they were smart, they would take one of the five different routes meant to lead the cops away from where we were really headed.
There hadn't been a lot of rain, so any tracks would be disjointed and mostly untraceable.

Still, even if it shouldn't be possible... "Fan out. Check for cameras first, real quick. Just in case."

This was one of many different fields in the area, and not exactly the best one to start in, but it was one of the closer ones to the Campbell house. Our target was on the other side of these trees and only a few streets away.

I waited with as much patience as I could; the urge to check an area myself was strong, but we needed to just check a mile in then have everyone come back to share info, like a bunch of normal hunters might. Which meant I needed to be here when everyone walked back in, so we could get this show on the road as fast as possible. Moonlight was burning, after all.

I just dealt with it, and the answers came trickling in. No cameras close. Which meant it was up to me to choose the route and then hope there weren't any cameras on the other end of the trees, or that we could spot them all.

I really missed the good old days, when we could just pile into our trucks and go, without worrying about all this tech and trusting law enforcement response times would be slower than the average tortoise.

At least there weren't any drones. I HATED those things. Stupid plastic toys that made light of killing and took people out of the fight. You couldn't feel the weight of your decision to end a life through a screen.

We were silent, but we weren't slow, and we weren't careful. Any game along these trails had long since fled.

I had my phone on vibrate already, which was a good thing since when it finally went off, I damn near jumped through my socks. I covered the screen and thumbed it... our sniper was already in position. It was clear that they'd been less careful about the cameras, and I'd need to have a talk about that with them later.

We split as the game trails allowed, no more than three of us together, but stayed close. Any other hunters here would think it a little odd and be pissed at us for scaring the deer, but otherwise think nothing of it. We'd done this before, after all, at least once a night for the last several years. It made people more used to seeing a dozen or so good old boys in the woods with rifles just fartin' around.

In time we made it, close enough to see some of the street lamps in the distance. I signaled everyone to shut up and search for cameras again; this time, I finally got to pick an area myself and join in.

It just never felt right to be standing around when a job needed done.

We came out just over a block away from where we had last time, and I kept my mouth shut and acted like that was on purpose and not me just getting a bit turned around in the dark.

As we'd planned, my two overwatchers peeled off with our rifles and started to work around the side. They would be placed forest side more or less across from the target house, and so anyone going back that way would have some cover to pin down pursuers.

No more getting turned around again.

It wasn't quite time to pull the pop guns just yet, but shucking the camo was on the table. There was only so much our two guys could carry, so it would fall on Howie to play laundry man, follow the two, plant the clothes near enough, and catch up to us. If we needed the camo again, it'd be there, and if we didn't, it wouldn't have anything that could give us away.

Well, it shouldn't The cloth didn't take fingerprints well, and while dna might be a problem, it wasn't likely. Failing anything else, we could burn it on the way out.

We moved cautiously along the streets, in teams of two, covering each other and hopefully keeping on that camera search. So far, nothing on that front, which was a little odd, even for a small place like this with a limited budget. We'd avoid the main drag at least; there was surely at least one camera there.

Working up and taking note of the streets, we quickly made our way in. In the distance, a dog barked. That was it; there was no cars on the street, no one else on the sidewalks, and no police presence to be seen anywhere.

Even taking our time, the Campbell house came into view after maybe fifteen minutes. It just wasn't that far from the trees. A large two-story colonial; it was clear the married couple had done well - somehow. How they could afford that house on a couple of military retirements and consultant work was well beyond me. Nepotism? Graft? My tax dollars at work?

Or something else?

I couldn't help but feel that squirming in my gut. There was something wrong with this town, and I was sure the Campbells were at the heart of it.

Not for long. Whatever the plan by those sympathizers in congress was, we'd stop it.

I motioned my loyal troops to go to ground and stay put. I'd make the final check myself. As my daddy always said, if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself... and if I missed something, it'd be my fault alone and I wouldn't have to stomp a mud hole on someone else.

There was a cop car right out front. Well, an SUV, and one I recognized. It couldn't be the Sheriff's though, so it had to be the other one from the stop; a guy who had a shotgun not quite pointed at us from behind that vary car last time as we'd pulled off the highway.

Ex-military, for sure. One other car three blocks down on the street, with most of the others in driveways. That was a bit weird, but if it was three blocks down, they wouldn't be able to see anything, so it likely wasn't a watcher. Even if it was, they'd be too late to respond.
I marked it anyway, and gave another look around.

No cameras. The cop in the SUV had his hat over his face and his chair back; if he wasn't asleep, I'd eat that hat.

We were going to enter through the front; it wouldn't be expected, and we knew what alarm the Campbell's had, and how to disable it. A little trick with the window, and a little luck, and we'd not set anything off.

Of course, that was assuming the kid hadn't done something we couldn't anticipate. If she had, we'd rush her and give the response no time to counter.

I motioned everyone forward, and gave Ed the task of watching officer sleeping beauty while the rest of us went in to take the window.

I wasn't the specialist, but I knew enough to spot the thin wire set around the glass panel of the front window. Basic alarm systems were all the same - they always had the window wired, but it was always just the one, and while the better ones were set to go off if the window was jarred, there was a way around even that.

Frank (not to be confused with Franky) carefully traced the wire, following it around and up with his index finger. The device we needed was in his other hand and ready. He went up, then up again, finding where it met the window in the far corner, which was I guess a good place to put it. The last and most expensive place to look.

Frank put the device on the outside of the window carefully and tapped the button. In response, the laser flashed, slagging a corner of the window and cutting the wire before the signal could travel back and set off the alarm. Sure, it was messy, but we weren't trying to hide the fact that we were here or even where we entered from. We weren't sneak thieves.

It was time; I brought my gun out, just as the others were.

The inside was dark, as expected. There were no sounds coming from inside, as expected. I ignored the slight smell of burning, pushed the window up. The sound was faint enough that if it'd happened in my home, I wouldn't even hear it or know where it was from.

Still no sound or motion.

I had half a foot inside when a light flickered upstairs... as if someone was opening and closing a door to a lighted room.
There hadn't been any light on inside the house before we got on the porch.

I waited, and a few minutes later, the sliver of light repeated. So, someone going to the bathroom and now back in bed, probably.

I didn't believe it for a minute, but we were committed now. The damage to the window would be found in the morning. We could leave, but after this security would be twice as bad, maybe even worse, and the only thing we'd be able to pull off would be a very loud direct assault.

The office did not want a direct assault.

I finished going in, and waited. Sure, if someone drove by right now, we'd be seen instantly, but we couldn't afford to rush this.
No sounds, no motion. I gave the signal.

One by one, we all came in. I checked the living room - empty - before getting out of the way. Frank had another machine for the keypad, and a second after he slapped it on and pushed the button for it, the very loud chirp signified the alarm was now off and we were free to move.

We all waited again; no sound, no motion.

I signaled Frank to stay down here - we'd be using the back door and heading directly over the fence on our way out, and I wanted him to watch both it and the front door. There shouldn't be anything else between us and the kid.

Four of us went up the stairs. We already knew the floor plan, and just a little work had told us which room our target was in. There was no reason to make it worse for the other, normal kid; he was going to wake up to a bad day already.

The door might be locked, but a place like this? I could pick that old thing myself. Even so, I tested the knob cautiously.

It was open.

I let my two go past me, toward the master bedroom; they could lay down covering fire in case the parents came in hot, cause getting trapped in this hallway would not be pleasant. They didn't need to hit anything, just force them to duck for a second or two.

I'd be the one doing the honors, me and Cleve.

The gentle click of the door opening was loud in the oppressive silence.

No noise and no motion within range of my eyes. I kept them on the door, ready to see it burst outward as one of the things the kid had made ignored it to get at us... but it didn't happen.

Right, the moment was going on a little too long; we had to go now. I swung the door inward, and it moved without a single creak.

Noise, a slight tap, behind us.

I turned to find Cleve getting pulled into the bathroom. A mistake, we hadn't checked it and we knew someone had been awake up here! I thought they had gone back into the bedroom, but they hadn't!

Cleve had one hand wrapped around his mouth, and another holding his head from behind in what could only be an awkward, low leverage hold - and yet he was off the ground and unable to break it.

I was still bringing my gun to bear when a face loomed out of the dark behind him and rammed into the back of his head; Cleve sagged instantly.

"Go loud!" They knew we were here, and we had to get the job done. Turning back to finish the job was imperative now.

The door to the target's room was open, of course, but there was a form just inside it. Before I could bring my gun around, my arms were slammed by a hand packing the force of a hydraulic press.
My wrist and hand were broken; maybe in multiple places; my gun had flown down the hall somewhere.

I was rebounding from the wall before I realized there was a kick to follow the textbook disarm up. There was nothing else to do but retreat; I couldn't beat that thing like this, let alone two of them.

"Cover two!" Still, I'd let the others know if they didn't know already; maybe they could finish, or at least extract.

I didn't hold out much hope.

Then I was on my back, blinking up at the bright hall light above me. Something had hit me, right as I reached the stairs.

Shots were fired, the sounds loud enough to pop eardrums in the small space... one twenty-two, and two higher caliber. The familiar whizzing of bullets in a close miss reached my ears.

No, no, get up. You couldn't lay here!

My ribs were crushed; they had to be. I managed to sit up, but getting my feet under me was far worse than it should be.

All it took was a glance down the hall: we were down, all of us. Two were bleeding, Cleve I couldn't even see but he had to be in the bathroom somewhere, the door to the boy's room was open with someone looming in the depths of it, and the Campbell parents were peaking out from around the corner of their master bedroom door.

"Jeanette. Go take Jill and get the rest. Anyone running away from the house."

The woman was used to command. She didn't raise her voice, but even I could feel it. the maid bowed and moved, far faster than she should be able to.

Cybernetics? What sort of monster lived here?

"I got back just in time!" The other chirped in a voice that wouldn't have been out of place among the kids that the others brought to meetings, from time to time. then she moved as well, a girl that was at least as fast, from the doorway of the boy's bedroom and down past the stairs.

Well, now I knew what had hit me, at least.

There were no guns in range of me; the nearest I could see was my own, which was a good ten feet down in the hallway, back toward the two parents who were even now closing on us.

Foot steps were coming up the stairs, slowly. Wait, Frank was down there!

"Just me coming up," the familiar voice of Sheriff Myles rang out. "I'd rather not get perforated."

"Come ahead," the woman called back. "Be aware we have our guns trained on unsecured prisoners at the moment."

Sheriff Myles came into view, face first, and it was obvious he recognized me. "Ambulances on the way. Looks like a few might need to ride double, though."

"Likely," the Husband said. "We've got four injured, two seriously, one critically. I'll be securing the weapons now."

The big man reached me, and bent over and flashed me a sunny smile. "I thought I told you not to come back without a protest form?"

Verbal resistance was all I had left, so I used it. "Fuck you, Sheriff."

The man rolled his eyes, stood up, and moved on.

He put gloves on to grab my gun, unloaded it, and looked it over. Then he put it in a baggie that looked made for it. "Got one cuffed downstairs.
They broke your window."

"I'm just happy they didn't firebomb us," the husband replied. "A little more messy to handle that, and we've only got so many extinguishers in the house."

The Sheriff scoffed. "They'd need cars to do a good job of that, and we'd have caught them coming in. They had to have come in from the trees."

"Amateurs," the wife spit, pulling back her leg for a kick at Bobby, before thinking better of it. Bobby had seen better days, he'd caught two; one in the leg and one in the shoulder.

The wife turned to the husband. "You're slipping."

The husband shrugged. "Sure, let's go with that." His eyes flicked to his son's room. The kid was awake and up, taking all this in.

"Ian go check on your sister. Jeanette and Jeeves are both busy."

The response was a subdued "Alright Mom," and the kid took a wide berth around me.

He needn't have bothered. This had gone very badly, but I wasn't about to commit suicide by cop. My hands were visible and staying that way.

They brought up a good point, though; where was the little abomination? Even with the silencers, our stuff was loud; movies lied. The non-silenced pistols had been worse; was the little thing that sound a sleeper?

Cuffs bounced off the floor beside me. "Behind your back, please." Don't make me come over there." Myles was bending down to my fallen comrades with zip ties, not even watching.

The wife was watching, however, her eyes cold chips of ice set in a face a statue could wear and her gun not quite pointing at me.

I put the cuffs on. At least I managed to grit my teeth against the pain. Yelling and cussing wouldn't do me any good here.

My friends secured, the Sheriff stood up. "Alright. I'm going downstairs again to let my boys and the medics in, and let your butler up here to do his job. I trust these suspects will all be alive when I get back?"

He was looking directly at the wife, and the wife looked back at him. Neither was paying attention to the husband. "Unless they die on their own from here. No new holes from me."

Sheriff Myles held the look for a moment, then turned, taking note of me again as he passed. He had all our guns and the knives my friends had been carrying. He stopped by to grab mine and straightened again. "You're going to need a lot of cleanup here."

The husband sighed out, "Tell me about it. These bastards are bleeding all over the place."

I could hear the sirens in the distance, many of them. Just over the noise, steps sounded on the stairs. The Campbell family butler came into sight, his normally impeccable suit showing a tear all along the front of his shirt... no, a cut, his shirt was cut, neck to stomach.

He didn't appear bothered by it at all, and he wasn't bleeding. The cyborg theory was looking better and better.

Sure, we'd failed, but there was failure, and then there was failure.

The butler bowed, to the wife first, then to the husband. "Mrs Campbell. Mr. Campbell."

Then he turned and walked right into the room I hadn't gotten a chance to enter, all but ignoring their return greetings.

He called the boy by his name, Ian Campbell, which was a little surprising. I thought maybe he'd default to 'young master Ian'. There was something odd about him, something off. Something in the way he moved, and a bit more - but I'd met a cyborg once, and that man hadn't been all there either.

Still, there was something there...

The sirens got louder before cutting off, and a moment later, pounding steps hit the stairs. EMT's took one look at me, threw down a stretcher, and promptly rolled me on it. They weren't gentle, either.

"The others first."

The one looking down at me could have borrowed the look from the Campbell wife. Must be another abomination lover. "We need you out of the way first, sir. It wouldn't do to have anyone trip over you and fall down the stairs."

That... made a little sense. I almost protested that I could walk, but I wasn't sure if that was true.

A prick in my arm; what was that? The other EMT stood up, putting away a syringe. "Don't worry, Sir; you'll be fine."
What was that? It didn't look like one of those pre-packed painkiller shots... fuck, no, I was tired! Was that a...!