good hearing

"They're all going to die if you don't let me go! We're all going to die!"

Snow blew. It formed small piles where obstructions and rubble sat on either side of the street, and where cars could catch what blew through the air and deposit it on the ground, but it didn't add more than an inch to the ground, otherwise. People had been driven inside and the low visibility had slowed everything down.

It had been happening more and more, as of late.

Horseman dropped down from above with little more noise than a light scuff of boot on snowy road.

Horseman was the first of them. He was barely more than a teenager, and even though he was fit, he seemed small in his army uniform, cobbled together from both sides of the recent conflict. His weapon seemed big in his arms as he slumped down against the wall, sitting.

"Three groups," Horseman said. The snow caught on his eyebrows, and his breath fogged. "There's the group responsible for the hillbilly truck out front. Been here for a while. Possible PMC."

The truck had pieces of other cars and copious amounts of scrap metal spot-welded onto the exterior as extra armor. So heavy there had barely been room for the tires in the wheel wells that had been pushed closer to the ground.

"New guys we saw come in last week. Bunch of virgins. And then a bunch of S-4 types, dressed for business, not warfare."

"All crammed in together," Ribs said. He was skinny, head shorn, wasn't wearing a shirt under his heavy parka-style jacket, even in this weather. He smiled, and it wasn't a pretty picture. His face was marred with a diagonal stretch of scar tissue, with his left eye peering through strings of the stuff, and the right side of his face was the only part that wasn't sealed shut or utterly erased by the scarring- and that was because his molars were showing through the hole in his scarred cheek.

Angel added, "Two local nationals, the correspondent, and our POI."

Horseman leaned back, his head against the wall, gun across his knees, eyes closing. He looked like he was ready to take a nap right there. "They're hanging out together. The correspondent and the POI."

"He's a noisy fuck," Angel said. She had very blue eyes for her brown skin, a scarf around her head and lower face.

They fell silent, listening.

It took a sharp ear to pick out the words.

"I'm going to tell you what I think is going to happen. I think some of you are going to die. You've already been funneled here. They're liable to set fires or use explosives, throw everything into chaos. Then they will come. When you respond to commotions or gunfire, they'll be expecting you. It may even be surgical."

"If you know who they are why not tell us?"

"Because I can't. Things are going to go wrong and you're going to need to release me, fast once you realize just how wrong it goes."

"Wrong, confidential stuff? What, are they PMC? Are they ours?" the correspondent asked. A recognizable voice.

"Yes, might have some PMC in them. Yes, they're yours."

There was a pause.

"Don't fucking hit him!" the correspondent shouted.

"He needs to stop being cagey. My friends died out there because of his lies!"

Angel reached over, tapping shoulders, pointing up.

The four of them looked.

Grandfather was up there, on the rooftop. He wasn't that old, to deserve the name, but he had shocks of grey hair to his hair and beard. He pointed, hand out flat.

They moved. Horseman went to the corner and looked at the door, then motioned up.

They climbed the front of the building with coordinated ease, Angel first, Horseman last.

- One After Another 10.a