by J. N. Chaney
“I'm here, Reaper," he said, stepping away from a graffiti-covered bus stop on the edge of the plaza.
A cloud of mostly dispersed teargas drifted over our position, irritating our eyes and noses but not disabling us.
"It's time to consider plan B," I said. I knew immediately there was going to be a problem. Access to the lift was in high demand and the locals had tasted blood.
7
"Elise." I used the communication link X-37 and Jelly maintained with my crew. "Grab hold of Tom and stay close. We're getting on this lift."
"We can't! There are too many people," Elise said, starting to cough from the gas.
"They'll move out of my way," I said, grabbing Henshaw by the collar of his trench coat, nearly dislodging the sunglasses and hat that he was using for a disguise.
"It's not too late to reconsider, is it?" he joked.
"Only if you can transfer the rest of the software you promised right here and now. I'll turn you loose wherever you want if you can do that," I said. "No? Then stay close or you’re gonna get hurt."
The crowd blocking our access to the lift was a lot different from the people I had inadvertently intimidated when we first arrived on the surface of Roxo III. I didn't care about the small groups of brawlers like the ones who had confronted Path. The police and the street militia were a real danger.
But they had already clashed twice. The station’s ventilation system was pulling away most of the gas, as I suspected it would. That didn't mean the air quality was comfortable. My right eye burned and I felt my nose running. I wanted to cough but suppressed the impulse.
The rest of my party couldn’t do the same and quickly succumbed to the chemical as we pushed through the cloud of irritants. The police glared at me from behind their shields. Path eyed the rest of the crowd as though they were interesting street performers at an open-air market.
I smoked my cigar like I wasn't suffering—but I was, by the gods. I looked the cops in their eyes, defiantly staring down one after another. They were proud men who had the advantage of numbers and shields.
I raised the blade that remained extended from my left arm without breaking stride. The street militia we were already moving through gave us room, unconcealed fear in their expressions. The line of police officers trying to hold everyone away from the lift tensed.
"I'm coming through, boys," I said. "It doesn't have to be bloody."
"You're crazy!" Elise shouted at my back, but she stayed close, bringing along the rest of our group. Tom followed her and Path brought up the rear of our column.
I picked out one of the police sergeants near the center and pointed my arm blade at him. "Last chance, officer. Time to decide if you're getting paid enough for this."
"Hold shields," he said, but his voice wavered. He looked up and down the line of his men, his face reddening. Even from this distance, I could see he was shaking. That was what happened when a man had to make a decision that would get other people killed. Sweat rolled down his face. He wiped it away nervously. “Just try to hold shields. We can stop this maniac if we just stand together.”
"This isn't going to work," I said over the radio link to my people, keeping my attention on the sergeant. "I'm gonna have to cut our way through. Try not to look at the bodies when you step over them."
"They have riot shields," Tom said.
"It doesn't matter. Their shields are made out of cheap plastic, just for stopping bottles and rocks," I explained. "I can cut right through them. And if that doesn't work, the shields won't stop bullets."
"Wait! Just wait!" the sergeant said. He shouted at his officers, "We're supposed to hold this lift against rioters and the street militia. This group isn’t part of those groups. Let ‘em through!"
The officers opened up a lane. Knowing the man could reverse his decision at any time, I pushed through with my people close behind me, jumping at the opportunity. Tom, Elise, and Henshaw hurried to follow me. Path came, but acted unconcerned.
A leader of the street militia saw what was happening. "They're letting them through!”
"Why do they get to use the lift?" someone yelled.
"We all want off the surface! Let us up to the spaceport!" someone else shouted.
I wasn't normally wrong about these types of things. Chaos was my home and I knew it well. But what I hadn't anticipated was how the sudden surge against the police line would affect us.
We had barely made it through the line of riot cops when the plastic shields slammed together. Hundreds of street militia and other random rioters flung themselves forward. I looked over my shoulder and saw the first collision.
The weight of bodies pushed the cops back. Some fell and went down and were trampled. Path disappeared as a dozen men chased him into the fray on the wrong side of the police line.
Other Roxo locals broke and ran. For the most part, however, it became a pushing contest the police couldn’t win.
This caught us between them and the lift doors. I was starting to regret taking so long with Path and the other troublemakers. If I'd intervened earlier like Elise said I should have, maybe we wouldn't be caught in this predicament.
"X, open these doors," I grunted as I shoved a police officer back into the line. Three more fell toward us, overwhelmed by their attackers. I heard gas canisters popping, pellet bag guns that were supposedly less than lethal, and firearms splitting the air. Sirens blared from the ceiling.
"I'm doing my best, sir," X-37 said. "My specialties are looking after your health and spying on computer networks. Taking active control of security systems or opening doors is not what I normally do. Perhaps you can add that to my next upgrade package? And while we’re on the topic, remind me to explain what I have learned about Jelly during my surveillance. It's quite alarming and possibly important to our future."
"Elise, get Tom and Henshaw behind me," I ordered, annoyed with X-37 bringing up things I would probably forget to ask him about later.
"What about Path?" she asked as she dragged Henshaw and Tom toward the small safe area behind me. They argued, telling her that they were bigger and should be protecting her.
She ignored them. I told Elise to take charge because she was thinking clearly and didn't seem as afraid. Her shouts kept Tom and Henshaw motivated.
Path popped into view, jumping high enough to run on the shoulders of the mob. The line of police officers gave him trouble as more than one jabbed at him with batons, forcing him to skip and jump and finally fall roughly when he was across the barrier of uniforms and riot gear.
"Path will help me hold the line until you can get into the lift," I said, not asking Path if he was willing or able to do this.
I knew he was and he didn't argue with me. Who cared if he’d nearly died five seconds ago. He was a sword saint, hefting the plastic stick he had been using to fend off attackers and made ready. The police line was disintegrating, and random men and women jumped through screaming, attacking anyone they could get their hands on.
Path swung his stick twice and knocked two of his attackers unconscious. It was an impressive feat with such a light weapon. The first, lighting quick strike hit a man’s brachial plexus—a nerve bundle between the cervical and thoracic nerve junction—turning his legs to wet noodles and causing his eyes to roll back in his head as he fell. The next strike was invisible, even if I’d had time to watch carefully. The result was the same. His second opponent went down easily. This guy was impressive.
I stepped into the fray and punched one of them hard.
"Fall back a step, Path," I said. "Don’t get drawn into that melee."
"Stepping back now. This crowd is unruly and not at peace with the universe," Path said.
Things always happened fast in the middle of a chaotic fight. One moment we were pushing and shoving, occasionally lashing out with strikes to keep people back, and the next we were on the lift with the doors closing between us and the danger.
Three members of the street militia barged through
at the last second, smashing Tom sideways. Pumped up by the mob violence, they were also loaded with stimulants that dilated their pupils and gave their movements a manic, jerky quality. The worst of them had forgotten how to blink, apparently, and shouted profane threats at the cops with such force that their words sprayed spittle everywhere. A group of these hyper-violent rioters spotted Elise, and they rushed forward with their trashcan shields and stunners.
Behind them, the mob shoved a police hover car into the gap to keep the door from closing. Hundreds of rioters pressed up against the car. The only reason they didn’t climb over was that they were still fighting each other.
Path tore into the three intruders like a cyclone of violence, striking with his stick, his hands, and kicking with his feet. The encounter lasted only seconds and ended with all of them firing their black-market stunners at Path. He dodged two sets of probes but was taken down by the third. Government models of the device incapacitated their victims for five to thirty seconds.
Black market stunners could do anything from five seconds to the life of the battery and were as likely to explode in the hands of their users as work effectively.
I snapped out the blade on my left arm and sprinted across the lift. Elise was closer. She kicked one, but the blow glanced off the man’s trash can shield.
He responded with a right-handed haymaker, his fist arcing toward Elise in a flurry of movement.
She blocked it with both arms crossed and tried to kick him in the groin.
He jumped back and shot her a leering grin. “I’m gonna tear you apart, little girl.”
“You can try,” she countered, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
She kicked again, but he was ready for it, and so were his two friends. All three of them lunged forward like they were playing smashball, slamming her backward with one of their graffiti-covered shields.
I leapt through the air, converging on their fight at an angle, and landed square on the apparent leader of the street militia. The Reaper blade cut down at a forty-five-degree angle, from high left to low right. A section of the street ruffian’s face hit the floor.
I reversed the strike but changed the angle slightly to cut across his abdomen and take out his guts.
I looked for the other two and only saw one. He aimed something at me that wasn’t a stunner. Drawing my pistol on the move, I shot him twice in the chest and once in the head—all in half a second. The other attacker was still out of view. I searched for him and found him fighting with Elise.
Path stood up behind him and went to help, still without drawing his sword.
“Hey, street milker!” Path shouted.
I wrinkled an eyebrow at the strange insult but quickly realized it had the desired effect.
The man faced Path, drawing a cheap pistol.
I aimed and fired before the psychedelic sword saint could prove his hand-to-guns skills.
The third and final street militiaman fell backward, brains exploding out the back of his head as the bullet passed through.
I grabbed the messiest corpse and shoved it over the police hover car.
The crowd backed away, some turning to run and others vomiting on the deck.
“X, what will happen if we move the lift with the vehicle stuck like that?” I asked.
“It will likely be shorn in half,” X-37 advised.
I slapped the up button, thankful there was no passcode required. Moments later, the vehicle was destroyed by the shearing forces of the lift rising.
Elise and the others stared at me in horrified amazement, except for Path, who was already sitting to one side of the lift in thoughtful meditation.
"That was lucky," I said.
"Lucky!" Elise seethed at me. "We were following you because we thought you knew what you were doing! You gutted that man!”
The look on her face—her pale skin and tight lips—suggested she was about to vomit at the sight. The smell of the man’s intestines was affecting me as well. Henshaw, still huddling as far away as possible from the action, swayed and nearly fell.
“X, make a note to watch Henshaw. He’s got a weak stomach,” I said.
“Noted. Shall I check with Jelly to see if we have medications for nausea?” X-37 asked.
“Sure,” I said, preoccupied with Elise’s anger.
What I’d done was simple. Why couldn’t she understand what I was and what I did? “I killed him, does it matter how?”
“You’re out of control. You don’t listen to anyone,” she insisted. “Maybe you should stop and think about being part of a team.”
“The situation was fluid. We lived. They died. What more do you want? As for gutting the man who was trying to kill you… I’d do it again,” I said, retreating from the car as it was shorn in half by the rising elevator. I couldn’t see what happened to the part of the vehicle that was outside the lift, but what was inside disintegrated. The lift doors boomed shut.
Retrieving the remains of the cigar I had hastily jammed into a pocket during the melee, I wondered why everything had to be so difficult. Nursing the tattered cigar back to life took time, but I wasn’t a quitter.
8
We exited the lift and headed for Henshaw's yacht. The area was better maintained than the rest of the spaceport. All along the concourse were cocktail lounges where people talked over expensive drinks and listened to soft music. Dark blue carpet ran down the middle, gold-plated railings lined the walkways, and the ceiling was gold stars sprinkled on crimson.
Gazing through one of the large observation windows near the ceiling, I saw several ships on zero-gravity flight decks. Henshaw pointed at a sleek white vessel with gold trim. “That's the Lady Faith, my personal pleasure craft. She has slip drive capabilities and state-of-the-art engines.”
I made a note but was more concerned with the guards blocking access to the boarding area. They looked more like soldiers than cops.
The group stared back at me, noses turned up at the blood on my boots.
Henshaw froze where he was standing.
"What's the problem?" I asked. He'd been desperate to get here and now he wouldn't move forward.
"It's nothing," he said, looking over his shoulder for a place to retreat.
"What's his problem?" Elise asked. She was the first to pick up on the fact that something was wrong. Tom was close behind, watching Henshaw carefully. Path didn't seem to care.
I confronted Henshaw. "These aren't the guards you were expecting, are they?"
He shook his head. "No, they aren't. These men will take me to their headquarters."
"And why is that?" Elise asked.
"Their boss is a poor gambler. I'm sure he wants a rematch," Henshaw said, staring at them and plotting his next move. “I have invited him to my estate and my yacht but he insists on a rematch within his own dominion—which will be hazardous to my health.”
"That’s not really my problem," I said. "We brought you this far, now give me the software upgrades for my nerve-ware and LAI."
When he shook his head, the motion was so small, I barely noticed he was responding. He had a lot of things going at once, thoughts of what his gambling rivals would do to him conflicting with thoughts of what I would do to him. Now he wasn't able to make a decision.
"You're coming with me," I said, grabbing him before he could try to step away.
"Unhand me, Reaper," he said harshly. "I’m not some street protestor to be pushed around. And if those soldiers decide to come after me, us, then we’re in trouble."
“I’m a Reaper. I can handle soldiers,” I said despite knowing there were too many of them to resist.
“Let go of my arm. We’re done. Be thankful I fixed as many of your numerous problems as I did. No one outside the Union could have helped you,” Henshaw complained.
I stared him down, but he was surprisingly steadfast. “We’re not done, Henshaw. You made a promise.”
"I'd rather take my chances with them. Let. Me. Go. Or I'm going to start shouting
for help!" he threatened. “I’ll find someone else to take me to my ship.”
“Mr. James Henshaw is showing signs of self-doubt in equal measure with prime indicators of deception,” X-37 warned.
I already knew that and was getting impatient. "Give me the software update." I’d worried he was lying to me. Being proved right was a real punch to the gut.
"There is no update. I just said that to get your help," Henshaw admitted.
"That's a good way to die," I said. "You're coming with us."
"I'm not," he said, trying to pull away. I felt him shaking through the sensors in my Reaper arm.
I applied pressure to his bicep. "Come with me right now, or you'll have more than just augmented vision. One thing you might not know about Reaper hands is they can generate enough force to clip a human arm like a twig. Having a bionic arm won’t be so bad."
“I know what you can do but it changes nothing,” Henshaw said, pain straining his expression.
“You know it, but have you felt it?” I asked, increasing the pressure on his arm.
To his credit, Henshaw attempted to pull away anyway. I yanked him back. Seconds later, I had him tied at the wrists and ankles and thrown across my shoulder.
Elise and Tom looked worriedly at the guards. I saw them and had already calculated how long it would be before they intervened. My assessment was that they wouldn’t leave their assigned posts without orders, but there were limits to how long they would wait before taking their own initiative.
"They haven't realized who he is, or they would be after us," I said. "But they are private security agents. They're not going to get involved unless they think it's a person their masters are interested in. When the guy with the green wristband gets back, we could be in trouble. I think he went to his superiors for new orders."
"Okay," Elise said, with none of her normal bravado. Tom said nothing. Path was as serene as always. I headed down the concourse, but in the opposite direction of the yacht.
