We were trapped. It was a classic sniper's killzone, the kind I used to set up for other players. The Ghost Enforcer had perfect cover at the end of the long, straight corridor. It had a flawless weapon, inhuman aim, and infinite patience. Anya was pinned behind a concrete pillar, wounded and bleeding. I was stuck behind a flimsy conduit that wouldn't stop a stiff breeze, let alone a high-caliber round. We couldn't advance. We couldn't retreat. Any move we made into the open would be our last.
"Anya, talk to me. How bad is the leg?" I called out, keeping my voice low. The acoustics of the metal corridor were treacherous; sound traveled.
"It's a deep graze. Bleeding a lot. Hurts like hell," she replied, her breaths short and sharp. I could hear the pain she was trying to hide. "I can't put my full weight on it. I need to use a Med-Syringe, but I can't get a window. He's watching my cover. The second I move, he'll put another round in me."
She was right. The Ghost was patient. It was a machine. It could wait for days without getting bored or tired. We couldn't. Anya was on a timer. Her health bar, visible on my HUD, was slowly ticking down. If we didn't do something, she would bleed out right there.
My mind raced, frantically searching for a solution. The raw panic began to subside, replaced by a cold, desperate focus. I couldn't shoot him. But I knew how he thought. I had been him. A sniper is a creature of angles and patience. He waits for the enemy to make a mistake. He controls the battlefield by limiting the enemy's options.
So we wouldn't play his game. We would make him play ours.
"Anya," I said, a plan forming in my mind, a fragile strategy born of desperation and a dozen years of playing first-person shooters. "I'm going to be your spotter. I can't shoot, but I can see the angles. You have the gun. I have the eyes. We have to work together. You have to trust me. When I tell you to shoot, you shoot. Don't aim for him. Aim where I tell you."
There was a pause. I could feel her hesitation. It was a crazy idea. "What's the plan, Leo? We don't have ammo to waste."
"Suppression," I said, the plan solidifying. "We're going to make him duck. We're going to put his programming to the test. If we can make him move, make him change his position, you get the time you need to use the syringe."
I peered over my cover for a fraction of a second, just long enough to get a snapshot of the corridor. The Enforcer's red eye was still fixed on Anya's position. It was completely ignoring me. It had assessed me as a non-threat. Good. That was the only advantage we had.
"Anya, on my mark," I said, my voice urgent. "Aim for the ceiling. Look for a cluster of power conduits, two meters above his head. See them?"
"The ceiling? Leo, that's a complete waste of a bullet! I need to make my shots count!" she protested.
"Trust me!" I hissed. "It's not about hitting him. It's about seeing what he does. On three. One… two… THREE!"
Anya must have seen the desperation in my plan, because she did it. She leaned out and fired, not at the Enforcer, but at the spot I designated. The Phantom's roar was deafening. The bullet ripped into the ceiling. A shower of sparks and severed electrical cables rained down on the Enforcer's position.
It was exactly what I expected. The Ghost Enforcer didn't even flinch. It didn't duck. It didn't move. It was a machine. It wasn't scared of sparks or falling debris. It had calculated, correctly, that the shot was a non-lethal threat.
But I wasn't trying to scare it. I was testing its programming. It didn't react to an indirect attack. It stayed locked on its primary target: Anya. Its programming was brutally efficient, but that efficiency made it rigid. That was a weakness. A human player might have been startled, might have shifted position. The machine did not.
"Okay, he didn't move," I relayed quickly. "His combat AI is locked down. He won't react unless he perceives a direct threat. Now we use that."
I looked up, my eyes tracing the layout of the corridor above us. Running along the length of the ceiling was a massive, thick pipe, easily two feet in diameter. It was heavily insulated and coated in a thick layer of frost. A coolant line. Or maybe liquid nitrogen for the industrial zone's old systems. It was old and the metal was streaked with rust in places.
"Anya, new target," I said, my voice quickening with a surge of hope. "There's a large coolant pipe above us. Follow it down the corridor. There's a valve junction about ten meters in front of him. It looks weak, rusted. If we can rupture it…"
"It would create a cloud. A visual barrier. Obscure his vision," she finished, understanding immediately. The tactical brilliance was still there, even through the pain. "But I can't get a clean shot at it from this angle. The pillar is in the way. He'll hit me before I can line it up properly."
"You won't have to," I said, a crazy, suicidal idea taking hold. "You're the distraction. I'm the one who takes the shot."
She was silent for a second. The implication hung in the air. "With what, Leo? Your pistol can't reach that far with any accuracy. It's a peashooter."
"It doesn't have to be accurate," I said, pulling the basic pistol from its holster. The weapon felt small and pathetic in my hand, a toy compared to the monster at the other end of the hall. "It just has to hit a giant pipe."
Just then, my comms pinged. A priority message from Seraph. Her voice was strained, cutting through our private channel. "Leo, what is going on? My team sees gunfire in the maintenance corridor. It's not the Dominion. Who are you fighting?"
"It's the Ghost!" I yelled into the comms, my frustration boiling over. "He's here! He's an Enforcer. He has us pinned down!"
"That's impossible," Seraph's voice was sharp with disbelief and annoyance. "An Enforcer shouldn't be here. This complicates the tactical situation. My orders stand. We cannot reveal our position until the Dominion arrives. You are the bait, Leo. Do your job. Handle it."
The channel closed. She was leaving us here. We were completely on our own.
"Okay, Anya," I said, my voice grim, all hope of rescue gone. "It's on us. Get ready to suppress. On my signal, you lay down fire. Don't worry about hitting him. Just make him look at you."
This was our only chance. A desperate plan with a handgun against a perfect robotic sniper. It was insane. It was suicide. It was the only move we had left on the board.