“Fuck!” I shouted, seeing the living exoskeleton run swiftly toward us, its footsteps clattering on the hard floor.
I jumped back. Another gunshot cracked. Laura screamed as the counter exploded around her legs, sending her sprawling to the floor. I crawled toward her. She rolled away, towards the first bay.
“Laura!” I shouted, unable to see her.
Another gunshot, the discharge sending me reeling onto my stomach, landing on broken glassware and foaming liquid. My burning shoulder tore through the armor of adrenaline. I got back to hands and knees, looking about the room in confusion. The agent was already right next to me, the 20 mm on his arm aimed at my-
The room filled with popping sounds as I rolled to the left, the floor where I had just been shattering from the 20 mm, throwing me to the side. The person in the suit started screaming. I scrambled back up, seeing Laura standing on the other side of the bench, firing bursts from one of the technician’s M16s.
The agent turned around, the back-left side of his exoskeleton dissolved away, blood gushing from where Laura shot him. He lifted his 20 mm, aiming it toward Laura. I grabbed a scalpel from the bench and charged, plunging the sharp blade into the mixture of flesh and dissolving polymer repeatedly. He screamed again, trying to wrench away from me, the large weapon going off and demolishing the ceiling, sending fluorescent lights shattering to the floor. I kept stabbing, feeling dissolved polymer and acid burning my hand.
The agent was able to knock me back to the floor. He turned to look at me, but fell silent when he did. Blue visor hiding his face, the lights on the exoskeleton continued glowing. The room stood silent for a few moments. I waited.
Nothing.
“What the fuck is going on?” I said aloud, “why did the CSA show up?”
“We’re movin’ Goodwin,” Reynolds said, “CSA network’s gone tits up.”
“Get outta there,” Rosy said, “more CSA headin’ your way.”
“And go where?” I asked.
“Anywhere,” she said, “Regina did her job. The protesters are takin’ to the streets. You can hide amongst ‘em.”
Chapter 29
I grabbed our tech from the twisted remains of the server as Laura splashed a beaker of DNase solution over parts of the lab before throwing the glass down, shattering it. I found a bottle of pH 7.4 disodium phosphate buffer and poured it onto my hand and shoulder, trying to neutralize the acid, but it made no difference to the pain.
I inspected the drive, seeing scratches on the outer casing, but otherwise looking uncompromised. When finished, we made for the stairway door. I tried Corbin Montgomery’s RFID chip on it and the door unlocked, allowing us to go up the stairs.
“No,” I said when Laura tried getting off on the main floor, “we can still get to Dewitt.”
“Won’t they send more exos?”
“Yes,” I said, “so we don’t have much time. Come on.”
She followed me up the winding stairs, running all the way to the top floor – the executive offices. Montgomery’s RFID chip came through again and we got out into a hallway, sides lined with cubicles for secretaries, a solid door behind each desk for the various NexBioGen executives. The entire floor was dim and emptied of people.
We ran through, all the way to the end of the hall, which led right to the office of Doctor Susan Dewitt, CEO. Montgomery’s chip didn’t work.
“She’s not here,” Laura said.
“We canstill upload the malware here. Let’s get to her computer.”
I grabbed the secretary’s chair from the cubicle in front of Dewitt’s office and started swinging it at the narrow Plexiglas window to the side of the door. It bounced off off. I swung again and it bounced off again.
Laura held out a hand, signaling for me to get back. She raised the M16 and fired a burst, the Plexiglas cracking, a bullet flying off and hitting the ceiling. I brought the chair over again, taking one large swing and knocking a chunk of the window away. I dropped the chair and grabbed the Plexiglas with my hand, tugging on it. Laura joined me, both of us pulling and snapping it away.
Once the whole was large enough, I ducked down underneath and into the room, hurrying to the computer – another exact replica of the same server. It booted up instantly, allowing me to plug the drive in. Just as I started uploading, I heard the door at the end of the hall crash open. Another CSA agent in an exoskeleton walked into the hallway.
“Ah, shit,” I said, ducking down behind the desk.
He made his way down the hallway, stopping at each cubicle and using the strong, hydraulic arm to knock the locked door open and peer inside. He slowly made his way toward us as the program continued uploading, the bar filling on my bionic eye user interface.
Just when the officer made it up to Dewitt’s door, I pulled Laura with me. Running, hunched over, we sprinted for the broken window. The door crashed open as both of us dashed through the jagged opening into the hallway. The officer turned, firing his 20 mm with a savage blast. I dove. Cubicle walls toppled, plaster flying off the wall to my right.
Hitting the floor, I quickly rolled into an office, hearing another shot rock the floor just ahead of where I was running. Popping sounds went off. Laura fired the M16 from behind a cubicle desk. Another deafening crack of the 20 mm, the desk splintering, Laura hollering.
I scrambled to my feet. Out the door toward Laura. The agent stood in front of the cubicle already. I threw all my weight into the exo, only causing him to budge a single step to the side. Enough to throw off his aim. The high caliber bullet exploded through the window in back of the office space, sending shards of glass sailing into the streets below.
The agent whipped around as I ducked, stumbled, and ran. His other hand swung out, hitting me in the back and sending me sprawling to the floor. As he brought the 20 mm arm up, Laura jumped from behind the torn desk, landing her weight into the arm and knocking it aside as another earsplitting blast rang out, the wall two feet from my head splintering. I screamed as pieces of plaster embedded in my face.
I jumped to my feet, ignoring the pain and ran past the agent, grabbing Laura. The 5.56 mm rifle popped off automatic shots, a hail of bullets spraying over the office as we ran. Lights shattered. Chunks of plaster sprayed over the floor. Laura stumbled, falling into me. I grabbed her arm, pulling her along toward the stairway door. Automatic fire ripped holes in the wall around the door. I ran into it with my shoulder, feeling it pull easily off the hinges as I dashed stumbling into the stairway, Laura shouting behind me.
The gunfire stopped. Footsteps stamped across the floor. I ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, jumping the last five down to the switchback. Another shot thundered down through the stairwell, chunks of the shaft falling away through the center of the spiral. I bounded down the next flight, only vaguely aware of Laura behind me.
A punishing flash above sent me stumbling forward, bellowing as I landed hard, tumbling down the last four stairs. I wheezed as something landed on top of me, squeezing the air from my lungs. Laura. She rolled off, staggering to her feet. Smoke rose from the landing above us where the grenade had hit.
“Get up!” she shouted, trying to pull me up.
I struggled to get my breath back. More gunfire rained down from above. I managed to get to my feet, wobbling as air finally reached my lungs, gasping. Footsteps clattered down the stairs. I ran the next flight, jumping, turning on the switchback. Next flight and-
The agent landed hard in front of us on the stairs, the hydraulics in the legs taking the brunt of the impact. Just as he raised the weapon, the entire suit burst into flames. He reeled around to where a group of kids with ski-masks and bandanas lit another Molotov cocktail. The officer fired the 20 mm at them, one of the kids screaming as his chest ripped open, blood painting the wall behind him. The others scattered, shouting and tossing the lit Molotov at the officer, fire pluming over the CSA agent again.
I grabbed Laura’s wrist, pulling her with me past the flaming exo suit, coughing
on the smell of molten polymer and burning flesh. His 20 mm went off again, unaimed. The muffled sound of his screams howled uselessly from behind the mask.
We got back down to the main floor, the door already thrown off the hinges, and ran out into the lobby. The windows were all broken in, rioters inside smashing the furniture. Outside in the fading light droves of people coursed through the streets. Firecrackers burst and Roman candles flung sparks into the air, causing the unruly crowd’s shadows to dance wildly over the walls of downtown buildings. Laura and I exchanged glances, both of us panting, covered in scrapes, cuts and burns.
“Next time…I’ll just do the damn lab work,” she gasped.
I smirked, “we’re not out of here yet.”
We plunged out the door into the roiling mob. Mayhem gripped downtown. City police blew whistles as CSA agents shouted through bullhorns, demanding order. People ran in every direction, screams of both delight and rage echoing through the streets. Dumpsters and overturned cars burned. A group of marauders toppled over an ATM near the bank. A woman threw a brick into the window of a department store. Rioters wearing ANTIFA masks heaved against a SWAT truck, trying to tip it over. Looters piled out of an electronics store, arms filled with boxes of ARs and computer drives. A man with a bandanna covering his face hurled a flaming Molotov cocktail at the NexBioGen building as his friends cheered. A woman screamed as a band of young men crowded around her. A torrent of people made their way down the street – many reveling in the chaos, others fleeing it.
Laura and I ran against the flow of the throng, some people giving us strange glances when they saw our injuries, most ignoring us. It took me a minute to realize that over the cacophonous shouts of the crowds and magnified police demands over bullhorns, some of the people had taken up a chant.
“Mah-sah-ree-stahz! Mah-sah-ree-stahz!”
“The fuck is going on?” I asked.
“I got Carmen and Tea,” Rosy’s voice said, barely audible over the noise, “I think Regina and Tanya were taken in by the crowd.”
“It’s turned into a goddamn riot out here,” I said.
“Where are you?” Reynolds asked.
“I’m stuck in the crowds,” Rosy said.
“We’re headin’ to the rendezvous,” Reynolds said, “we got Goodwin and the PRA guy.”
“Everyone to the rendezvous point,” I said.
“I’m already there,” Aveena said, “where is everyone?”
“Did you upload the malware?” Rosy asked.
“Fuck,” I said, “it’s uploaded, but I left the tech in the computer.”
“Forget about it,” Reynolds said, “get to the rendezvous.”
The going was slow as Laura and I scrambled through the masses, dodging around people. Three shirtless kids were jumping on a smashed-up CSA cruiser. A light post teetered as people climbed it, a man sitting in top shouting into the night. People rushed in and out of smashed storefront windows. Flames danced skyward from a car dealership, droves of rioters zigzagging through the parked cars, smashing windows. An effigy of Gabriel Mitchell hung down into an intersection from the signal lights, a crowd standing around it shouting and throwing beer cans at it. Gunfire went off somewhere in the distance.
The otherworldly clamor quieted when the sound of an explosion cut through it. I stopped a moment, looking around. A block behind us – the NexBioGen headquarters – a plume of smoke rose toward the sky, chunks of debris falling to the streets. The shouts and cries of the rabble rose even louder. And then the distinct popping of 5.56 mm rifle fire echoed.
“They’ve opened fire on the rioters!” I shouted.
“Get outta there!” Reynolds barked.
“The girls…” Rosy said.
Laura and I ran, people dispersing as more gunfire crackled through the dying light. Ahead a bright glow flared up, fire climbing up the side of a police precinct used by the CSA. People screamed. I instinctively ducked as another volley of shots cracked. And then ahead of me I saw two small people running away.
“There!”
Regina and Tanya. A rioter ran into me as I tried veering toward them, knocking me to the ground. Pain shot through my burns. I stumbled to my hands and knees. Another rioter kneed me in the side, knocking me over. I scrambled to my feet, seeing Laura ahead, shouting to the girls. I started forward, running into someone and stumbling back just before I was lifted off my feet, thrown back in searing pain. I skidded down to the pavement, screaming as the world went black.
I came to, ears ringing, flesh tingling. Sitting up, I cringed at the stabbing pain in my stomach. I reached down. Blood leaked from a wound. When I looked around, vision coming back into focus, I found myself surrounded by blood-soaked bodies, some moving, others still. Someone behind me sobbed. Screams of horror drowned out the bellowing crowds. The world spun. A severed hand lay next to me. Panic surged as I looked to ends of my arms, but subsided upon finding both of my hands intact, though covered in blood. The relief was short lived when I remembered Laura and the two girls had been in front of me.
Working through the pain, I slowly clambered to my feet, feeling sticky blood all over the pavement. Rioters gathered around the blasted street, their shouts sounding distant. I staggered forward, holding my stomach, finding a shallow crater blasted into the road about two hundred feet in front of me. The gathering rioters grew quiet as they took in the devastation. I squeezed through the onlookers, falling to my knees next to the pile of mangled corpses, seeing their lifeless eyes staring up at me.
A blood-soaked arm reached toward me. A whimpering teenager, her entire body severed away below the waist, other hand holding her intestines in. A man knelt ten feet away, holding the ghastly remains of a teenage boy, blood dripping from his hands. The screams and cries of horrified witnesses resounded like a chorus from hell.
“Where the fuck is everyone?” Rosy’s voice came over my ear once the ringing went away.
And then I found Laura’s body. She lay on the ground in a pool of blood, right arm completely mangled and hanging from her shoulder by thin threads of flesh. The front of her shirt was burned off, the skin from her face down to her knees blistered and bloody. Next to her lay the body of Regina, mouth agape, half her face burned away down to the bone. Tanya was only recognizable by her size and the tiny cartoon themed backpack melted into the flesh of her back.
“N-no…” I faltered, kneeling down and moving my hands an inch above Laura’s body. The indecision of panic gripped me. Shouting over my earpiece, hushed whispers in the gathering crowd, and racing thoughts formed a horrified concoction of confusion in my mind. I only managed to repeat “no…” over and over under my breath, tears welling in my eyes. She wasn’t moving. There was no-
A noise escaped her mouth – a weak cough as she tried to raise her head. I scooped my arms under her, putting an ear next to her mouth, hearing raspy, shallow breaths. Laura’s mangled right arm dangled as I lifted her up. Shouts and gunfire reverberated in the distance, the smell of burning everywhere.
I turned, looking at the hushed crowd. Another person stepped forward, kneeling down next to Regina’s body, picking her up. Another person did the same for Tanya. Murmurs spread across the crowd, people sobbing. I started walking down the street, the stabbing pain in my abdomen almost unbearable as I carried Laura’s limp body in my arms.
“They killed her!” a single voice shouted, “They killed Regina! They murdered the Masaristas!”
“Those motherfuckers!” a girl shrieked, everyone else responding with a single deafening roar.
The crowd around me grew into a furor as I made my way through it, not looking back at the martyred children.
I looked up from Laura’s mangled frame. People’s faces twisted in outrage. Anxious voices from my earpiece echoed uselessly through my head. The mob began moving, their angry shouts quieting to tense murmuring. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing the two men carrying Regina and Tanya’s bodies coming forward along with others carrying the bodies of
loved ones. The crowd let them pass, coming toward me.
A procession started, marching quietly down the street. I felt numb, keeping my eyes forward as I walked along with them, looking for some other way I could go to get away, but the crowd had become too thick around me.
Sirens blared, police whistles shrieked, indistinguishable voices barked orders over bullhorns, helicopter blades whooshed through the air above the city, and the shouts of rioters unaware of the spontaneous march echoed through the streets. Wind swept smoke and ash between buildings. The wreckage of cars, street lights, and broken glass littered the crowded roads.
The two people holding Regina and Tanya had reached the front of the procession. A line of city police in riot gear stood ahead of the marchers, blocking their path, but the procession didn’t slow down.
“The CSA killed them!” someone shouted.
When the city officers saw people carrying the bloody bodies of the dead, they shuffled out of the way.
It’s just a likely it was a rioter’s bomb that killed the girls…
Several city police officers started walking with us, the others watching as we went by. Two CSA agents in exoskeletons came from around the corner of an intersection and made for us, but the march didn’t stop. The agents shouted for us to halt, voices amplified, but nobody listened. CSA cruisers raced around the corner before we got to the two in exos, creating a road block two hundred feet ahead, but the procession continued.
When we couldn’t march any further, the two carrying Regina and Tanya stopped in front of the officers in exos and knelt down, laying the two small, mangled bodies in front of them. Everyone stood quiet, facing the CSA agents.
“You killed them,” a woman said.
“They were just kids!’ another voice shouted, more joining in, each louder than the last.
“Fascists!”
“Leave, you fucking assholes!”
“Fuck the CSA!”
“Nazis!”
“You killed them!”
Incarnate- Essence Page 53
