by Alex White
The jumper craft came down hard in front of the truck, its undercarriage spitting sparks over their windscreen. It was a sleek number, with roaming magenta stripes streaking along its lime-green surface, culminating in a dazzling gold “Tobiuo” logo. What held Boots’s attention, however, was the startling white-and-gold bot perched atop its roof.
She’d seen the bot before in the makeshift lab of the cargo bay, but locked onto the roof of a beach jumper was another story entirely. The humanoid armor leaned gracefully from side to side, surfing the vehicle between oncoming traffic. Glorious and majestic, it stood with all of the poise of a dancer. Its arms flashed with caution lights as it steered through a busy intersection.
“Oh, yes!” Nilah whooped. “Teacup’s hacking interface works like a charm!”
“Please tell me you’re not still calling it that,” Orna groaned over the comm.
“Of course I am, love,” said Nilah, and the jump jets put her astride the fleeing Rebecca Grimsby. “What did I tell you, Boots? Preston Exa.”
“Enough with the car crap!” shouted Boots. “Knock her off the road!”
Nilah’s Tobiuo drifted across into the Exa, shoving it a bit, but Rebecca was on tires, and Nilah was on hoverlifts. With no traction, the Tobiuo bounced right off. Worse still, Boots could make out the silhouette of a frantic passenger inside Nilah’s beach jumper, beating on the glass.
“Bloody—” Nilah began and knocked Rebecca again with the same result, sending the passenger sprawling in the cabin.
“Hunter Two, you’ve got someone in your car!” Boots said, laying into the horn to warn people as best she could.
Malik snapped in his clip and leaned out the window to put a few shots into Rebecca’s rear bumper. They glowed with the orange light of eidolon suppressors, and each shot took a few ticks off the Exa’s speed.
“Now we’re talking,” growled Boots, slamming into the Exa’s backside with the full force of the cargo truck.
The Exa spun with the hit, coming to rest at the driver’s side of the truck. It peeled out, leaving a cloud of black polymer smoke as it raced away in the exact opposite direction. Nilah and the Tobiuo whipped around, easily swapping ends on performance hoverlifts before coming to a halt. The jumper’s gull-wing doors popped open.
“Out,” Teacup boomed over its speakers, and its terrified passenger scurried from the cabin. At least they wouldn’t have any civvies tagging along for the chase.
The jumper launched in the direction of the Exa, and over the comms Nilah chuckled. “Leave the driving to me, loves. I’ll bring her back in one piece.”
Struggling to get the cart into gear, Boots grumbled, “Cheeky little punk.”
The cart roared left through the intersection and up a long straightaway. Finally starting to get the hang of it, Boots whipped past a gaggle of joggers and around a shocked fellow on a sports bike.
“Where are you going?” Malik demanded, loading another clip.
“Going to cut ol’ Becky off,” said Boots. “I’m not letting Nilah get her after showing us up!”
A high-caliber slinger melted the tarmac just in front of the cart. Checking the imagers, Boots spotted a pair of fliers closing in on her.
“This is the firm of Willingham McCabe,” came their loudspeakers. “You are in pursuit of a client under our protection. Surrender or be destroyed.”
Boots squinted at the imager feed, trying to make sense of the threat. Any halfway decent outfit would’ve just opened fire. “What the hell?”
Another round struck the light pole ahead of her, sparks gushing from its base. Pedestrians scattered, and her heart jumped into her throat at the thought of one of them getting crushed.
Boots narrowly swerved to avoid the collapsing pole, then gunned it—as much as the cart would allow. “What was that about not needing the Runner?”
Malik fired up at them, his shots flying so wide as to be laughable. “Just keep us in one piece, Boots!”
“Boss, come in,” she shouted into her comm. “We’re taking fire from private security and need air support!”
“I’ll handle it,” said Orna. “I’m almost to you.”
Boots flinched as another round struck a little too close. “You can’t just shoot security guards out of the sky over a town! Have Zipper come knock out one of their engines with her marksman’s mark.”
“Capricious en route,” said Cordell. “Hold tight.”
“We just turned up Fifth Avenue!” said Nilah.
Boots checked her guidance display—two blocks up. They were never going to make it to a cutoff point. She spun the large steering wheel to the right, skidding around a corner insofar as the lumbering machine could skid. Another shot pounded the pavement ahead of them, spraying the front grill with molten glass shards.
“I have an idea, Lizzie,” said Kin, and she couldn’t help but smirk at his use of her name.
“All ears, Kin!” she said.
“I’ll call their management and explain the situation. They’ll have to listen.”
Boots jerked the wheel to avoid another flaming round. “Yeah, you do that, buddy.”
The cart sagged with a brutal hit as something landed on the roof. Had one of the shots struck home? Boots checked the camera feed to find Charger perched atop them, a huge piece of spinning tech in its hands. The bot’s bloodred armor gleamed in the sun, and its dorsal vents sizzled with pleasure.
It’d almost knocked Boots off the road, and she fumed. “What the hell are you doing, Hunter One?”
Orna scoffed. “You were the only ones slow enough to catch on foot, grandma.”
Charger traced out an amplified mechanist’s glyph and jammed its fingers into the piece of gear in its hands; arcane energy crackled over the surface as the device spun up. A jagged mounting bracket hung from one side where it’d been ripped free from something.
One of the fliers fired a shot, and the device came to life, shattering the spell on approach.
Boots gaped. “Where did you get a full-sized disperser?”
“Stole it. They didn’t need it,” said Orna, and a bump in the road shook her hold on the gyroscoping spinning head. “It’s like wrestling a damned bear, though.” She scarcely brought the system up for the next incoming shot and laughed. “Whoops! Almost got us. Not really, sucker. Try harder.”
Malik grimaced. “Please don’t taunt the people with cannons.”
“I’ve connected to the Willingham McCabe answering service,” said Kin.
“Hello?” came a smooth voice.
“Hi!” said Kin. “You’re currently conducting security operations in the Mizuhara Colony, which put your men in danger of violating GATO Commissioning Treaty Article Fifty-Seven Dash A, Subsection Eighty-One. If you persist along this path, your soldiers may be killed, and your organization may become enemies of the Taitutian State.”
“Who is this?” demanded the voice.
“I’m afraid I’m not authorized to say,” Kin chuckled, “but I can assure you”—a pause, then—“they terminated the call.”
Broken spell threads spattered the cargo compartment, hissing all around them as another round detonated in midair.
“Boss,” said Orna, “give me weapons free so I can blast these assholes.”
The truck ramped a hill, nearly shaking Charger loose, and the bot dug a huge row of furrows down the side panels. They wouldn’t be getting the rental deposit back, that much was certain.
“Boss here. Denied. Do not shoot those assholes.”
The truck screeched as Charger curled its toes in frustration. “But they’re assholes, sir!”
“Not a capital crime,” said Cordell. “Air support inbound in twenty seconds.”
They swung around a long curve, and the town opened up a little. Along the distant shoreline road, Boots spotted Teacup, perched atop its Tobiuo beach jumper as it raced after Rebecca’s Exa. The jumper leapt past magical walls of water summoned into its path by the fleeing woman; Rebecca’s magi
c was fierce and strong.
The roads intersected ahead, just as Boots had hoped. She kept the accelerator to the floor, praying that she’d be able to T-bone the Exa and end the chase.
She made it to the intersection one second too late.
Rebecca blasted by, but Teacup and the Tobiuo came crashing into the rear bed of the truck, demolishing it and knocking Charger free. Gravity went all funny as the car’s emergency drives kicked on to spare them a horrific death, and they went rolling into the embankment. When they came to a stop, Boots found Teacup and Charger lying in the middle of the road, scuffed all to hell and floundering in each other’s arms.
Boots struggled upright in the driver’s seat, checking to find Malik glaring at her.
Rebecca’s Exa made it a hundred meters before the Capricious raged over a nearby mountainside and plastered the hood with a shot from the keel slinger. The Exa flipped end over end a few times before skidding to a halt on its roof.
Then, the Capricious lanced the two pursuit fliers with a shot each across their engines, forcing an emergency landing from both.
“I’m afraid that’s how it’s done, people,” said Aisha, her aim perfect as always.
“Yeah, I’ll try to remember to bring my starship to the next car chase,” grumbled Boots, creaking open her door.
“Don’t blame your failings on my wife,” said Malik, jumping out beside her.
“I said we should’ve brought the Runner!” Boots shot back. “Hunters! Are you done playing grabass over there? We’ve got a target to catch.”
Teacup disentangled itself from Charger as Boots advanced on the downed Exa, slinger at the ready.
“Boots!” called Malik, tossing her a clip, which she fumbled. “Take these overloaders. Suppressors don’t hurt organics.”
She picked it up off the ground, finding a few rounds inside. “Thanks.” Then she turned to the car. “Grimsby! Come out with your hands up and fingers interlocked! I will shoot the piss out of you, you hear me?”
No response came from the flipped supercar, just the gentle spin of the tires and ticking of cooling metal. Teacup unfolded, and Nilah stepped down out of its interior in her dark combat suit. She wore her Compass gear like a natural, and if Boots hadn’t known better, she would’ve assumed the ex-racer was a cold-blooded killer.
“You should’ve seen the truck coming!” Nilah screamed at Teacup, and the bot recoiled. “Now come with me.” As she strolled past, she muttered, “Back in a tick, Boots. Just let me handle this.”
As requested, Boots hung back while Charger, Teacup, and Nilah closed on the vehicle.
“Now, I’ll show you something she can do that Charger can’t,” said Nilah, and Orna gave a bitter laugh.
They surrounded the vehicle, peering inside. Boots kept her distance, since she was neither a martial artist nor made of regraded steel.
“Door off, please,” said Nilah, and Teacup shredded the metal from its frame. “Thank you, gorgeous. Now please apprehend the woman inside.”
Like a snow leopard fishing from a mountain stream, Teacup ducked in and removed Rebecca Grimsby from the vehicle. It popped open its front armor plating and jammed the screaming woman inside, its restraints locking to her limbs. Then, her cries were instantly silenced as the armor snapped closed.
Nilah clapped the dust from her hands and turned to her compatriots. “She can’t cast. She can’t see. She can’t hear. She can’t move.”
“And all you had to do was let scum into your battle armor,” Orna mused from the safety of Charger’s cockpit. “I’d rather cut off her hands. That’d stop her from casting, too.”
The Capricious touched down in the middle of the nearest intersection, much to the chagrin of a waiting delivery driver.
Boots tapped her comm. “Well, Boss, we got her.”
“Finally?” he asked.
“Yep. Claire Asby’s daughter is all ours.”
if you enjoyed
A BAD DEAL FOR THE WHOLE GALAXY
look out for
ONE WAY
by
S. J. Morden
Andy Weir’s The Martian meets Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None in this edge-of-your-seat science fiction thriller about one man’s fight for survival on a planet where everyone’s a killer.
1
[Internal memo: Gerardo Avila, Panopticon, to Data Resources, Panopticon, 10/2/2046]
We are seeking inmates who fit the following profile:
• serving either an indeterminate life sentence(s) or a fixed-term sentence(s) that extend beyond the inmate’s natural life-span.
• has had a prolonged period (5 years +) of no contact with anyone on the outside: this includes, but is not exclusive to, family, friends, previous employers and/or employees, lawyers, journalists and authors, advocacy groups, external law enforcement, FBI, CIA, other federal organizations including immigration services.
• has professional qualifications, previous employment, or transferable skills in one of the following areas: transportation, construction (all trades), computer science/information technology, applied science, medicine, horticulture.
• is not suffering from a degenerative or chronic physical or mental condition that would cause death or debilitation in the immediate (5 years +) future.
• is currently in reasonable physical and mental health, between the ages of 21 and 60.
Please compile a list of potential candidates and send them to me by Friday.
Gerardo Avila,
Special Projects Coordinator, Panopticon
“Put your hands on the table.”
Frank’s hands were already cuffed together, joined by three steel links. His feet were also shackled. The seat he sat on was bolted to the ground, and the table in front of him was the same. The room was all wipe-clean surfaces. The smell of bleach was an alkaline sting in the back of his throat and on the lids of his eyes. It wasn’t as if he could go anywhere or do anything, but he still complied with the order. Slowly, he raised his hands from his lap, feeling the drag of the metal biting into his skin, and lowered them onto the black vinyl covering of the table. There was a large hole drilled in it. Another length of chain was run through the circle made by his cuffed arms and into the hole. His guard put a padlock on it, and went to stand by the door they’d both entered through.
Frank pulled up to see how much slack he’d been given. The chain rattled and tightened. Ten, maybe eleven inches. Not enough to reach across the table. The chair didn’t move. The table didn’t move. He was stuck where he was for however long they wanted.
It was a change, though. Something different. To his left was a frosted window, bars on the outside, a grille on the inside. He looked up: a light, a length of fluorescent tube, humming slightly and pulsing in its wire cage. He could see the guard out of the corner of his right eye.
He waited, listening to the nearby hum and the more distant echoing sounds of doors slamming, buzzers rasping, voices shouting. These were the sounds that were most familiar to him. His own breathing. The soft scratch of his blue shirt. The creak of stress as he shifted his weight from leaning forward to sitting back.
He waited because that was all he could do, all he was allowed to do. Time passed. He became uncomfortable. He could only rest his hands on the table, and he couldn’t get up and walk around. Eventually he grunted. “So why am I here?”
The guard didn’t move, didn’t smile. Frank didn’t know him, and wasn’t sure if he was one of the regular staff anyway. The uniform was the same, but the face was unfamiliar. Frank eased forward, twisted his arms so he could put his elbows on the table, and put his weight on them. His head drooped forward. He was perpetually tired, from lights on to lights out. It wasn’t an earned tiredness, a good tiredness. Having so little to do was exhausting.
Then there was the scrabble of a key at a lock, and the other door, the one facing him, that led to the free world, opened. A man in a suit came through, and without acknowledging Frank or t
he guard, put his briefcase on the table and pushed at the catches. The lid sprang open, and he lifted it to its fullest extent so that it formed a screen between Frank and the contents of the case.
The briefcase smelled of leather, earthy, rich in aromatic oils. The clasps and the corners were bright golden brass, polished and unscratched. They shone in the artificial light. The man pulled out a cardboard folder with Frank’s name on it, shut the briefcase and transferred it to the floor. He sat down—his chair could move—and sorted through his papers. “You can go now. Thank you.”
Frank wasn’t going anywhere, and the guard was the only other person in the room. The guard left, locking the door behind him. It was just the two of them now. Frank leaned back again—the other man was close, too close—and tried to guess what all this was about. He hadn’t had a visitor in years, hadn’t wanted one, and certainly hadn’t asked for this one, this man in a suit, with his tie and undone top button, his smooth, tanned skin and well-shaved cheeks, his cologne, his short, gel-spiked hair. This free man.
“Mr Franklin Kittridge?” He still hadn’t looked up, hadn’t looked Frank in the eye yet. He leafed through the file with Frank’s name on the cover and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stamped on it, turning the translucently thin pages covered with typeface. Paper and board. Everybody else would have used a tablet, but not the cash-starved CDCR.
“Well, if I’m not, both of us have had a wasted journey.”
It wasn’t much of a joke, but it seemed to break the ice, just a little, just enough for the man to raise his chin and steal a glance at Frank before looking down at the contents of the folder again.
Of course, no one had called him “Mr” Kittridge for years. Frank felt a long-dormant curiosity stir deep inside, where he’d shut it away in case it sent him mad.
“Can I get you anything?” the man asked. “Something to eat, drink?”
Frank cocked his head over his shoulder at the locked door behind him. Definitely no guard. He turned back. “You could start by telling me your name.”
