Lonely Thieves

Act V, Part XI

Kolya's Side (April 15, 12:00 am)

With Trevor and Chisato out of the building, Kolya decided to start planning for his escape. Overman agents attacking the top of the building while Special Soldiers came from below made it hard to imagine a proper escape route, but it wasn't as if Kolya was happy with laying down and waiting to be captured either. One way or another, he needed to find a way out of this mess.

As he pondered over what to do, he suddenly noticed something happening on one of the lower screens of the security terminal. When he looked closer at it, he realized it was another squad of Innocenti Special Soldiers storming the building. Unlike before, they had given up on being stealthy and were just charging into the building openly. They must have changed tactics once they saw the Overman agents blasting away at the roof without a care in the world.

In reaction to the invasion, Kolya quickly sent as many security bots as he could spare to the bottom floors. In all, ten security bots quickly met with the Special Soldiers, who had already pushed their way up past the fourth floor. This time, however, the Special Soldiers were prepared, and quickly dispatched several of the security bots within seconds of combat starting.

Kolya, quickly realizing that the security bots alone would no longer be good enough to push back the Special Soldiers, placed them back on automatic, and ran out of the room. He needed to find a way to escape before he was cornered on both sides.

Kolya first ran to the nearby elevator and pulled the door open with his bare hands. He planned to slide down using the elevator cable, but to his chagrin, this elevator appeared to be cable-less. It was impressive state-of-the-art technology that raised and lowered elevator cars without the need of a cable, but it was fairly inconvient for Kolya right now.

Kolya didn't have the time to wait for the elevator to come up, nor would it have been a good idea to try and ride it anyhow, so he ran down the stairs instead. He had no idea how far the Special Soldiers had progressed, but he had no choice. After all, he couldn't wait upstairs when the Overman agents were bearing down on him as well.

Kolya flew down several flights of stairs, keeping an eye out for any Special Soldiers that may have made their way up the stairs. Kolya kept running until he found his way down blocked by torn out rubble and furniture, right before the fifth floor. It wasn't impossible to push everything out of the way, but it would certainly have taken too much time. Thankfully, there was another stairwell on the other side, so he just needed to get there without being seen by any Special Soldiers that had to be on this floor.

Kolya peeked into the main hall and slipped in quietly once he was sure that no one was around. He quietly crept through the area as he made for the second stairwell, which he found fairly quickly. He stepped towards the stairway only to hear the sound of a gun cocking behind him.

"How unfortunate, Kolya. I didn't take you to be so clumsy."

Kolya slowly turned around to see Salvatore, outfitted entirely in Special Soldier gear. Salvatore shot him a smug grin as he kept his pistol trained on Kolya. "I gather that Amoretto failed to kill you. Is he dead?"

"Got no reason to keep him alive, right?"

Salvatore laughed. "You said it! Never liked the cocky son of a bitch. Having said that, he always did good work for us. Losing a capo hurts pretty bad too, you know?"

"As expected, you don't seem like you're going to let me go," Kolya smirked as he reached down for his gun. "I don't suppose you could be convinced?"

"Don't ask stupid questions, Kolya. It's not like you to play games like that."

"No, I guess it's not."