“We’re taking this ship,” one of them stated.
“I’d rather you didn’t, but considering the circumstances, I’ll not argue.” He retrieved his case that had fallen to the floor. “My name is Alfred Walker. Might I request that I accompany you?”
The two looked at each other, each seemingly as surprised as the other. “Is this part of the mission?” Chiyo asked
“I don’t see any bonus objectives. Maybe it’s a secret one? In these situations, you would want to bring back high-ranking men like this for a bounty or to stand trial, right?” Genos questioned.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the Animus? It might have to do with the upgrades. This could be a secondary option of some kind.”
Animus? Walker noted that word. He had heard of this device and what it was capable of. He thought back to what he had discovered earlier, put the pieces together, and smiled. So that’s what they were doing. He would play along.
“I am unarmed and, while I’m sure at least one of you is a brilliant hacker, I can activate the ship with the press of a button,” he assured them.
“Trust me, my EI could get it running as fast,” Chiyo said.
“I’m sure it could, but I should let you in on a little secret, albeit an open one. To keep some of my men from taking my precious ship for joy rides, I installed a proximity mine.” He held a hand up with a bracelet on it. “Should it be activated without me on the ship, it will explode.”
“Can you confirm this?” Chiyo asked and glanced at Genos.
He studied the ship and his visor shimmered in purple light. “Scan the ship, Viola, and look for— Oh, it’s not well hidden is it?”
“That would be the point, yes,” Walker noted dryly. “I’ll submit to any restraints or injuries you feel are necessary, but I would prefer a shot in the leg to being obliterated.”
The duo talked amongst themselves. Genos said he could disable it himself, but it would take at least twenty minutes. By that time, the bomb would be the least of their worries.
“Get on, activate the ship, and find a seat. No talking to either of us,” Chiyo ordered.
“As you wish,” Walker said, turning towards the ship again, “Much obliged.”
“Chiyo, Genos, where are ya’ll?” Kaiden asked as he raced through the station that rapidly fell apart around him.
“We had a slight hold up, but we’ve taken off,” Chiyo explained. “Where are you?”
“Hanger bay—next to hanger twelve.”
“Most of these hangers are sealed and the loss of power is depleting the shields. You have to find one that still active unless you wanna be spaced.”
“Any suggestions?”
“The closest is hanger fourteen, but that could go at any moment. Hanger eighteen is your best bet.”
“Back to the start,” he huffed, “Chiyo meet me at hanger eighteen.”
“On it.”
He quickened his pace and covered more than half a mile in two minutes. As he slid along the ground toward his destination, the entire station shook. “My guess is we’re low on time. Something big just fell off.”
“That would be about a quarter of the station.”
“Great. Chiyo?” Kaiden entered the hanger. A few pirates remained, obviously seeking to escape. “How close are you?”
“Coming in now.” A silver shuttle floated into the hanger and he ran toward it. When the other men followed suit, he yanked out another frag grenade and hurled it at them. The group scattered and cursed vociferously.. The ramp lowered and the ace flung himself on board. “I’m in. Take us away,” he shouted as he took a few shots with Debonair at the pirates who had recovered and resumed their rush to get aboard.
He entered the cockpit and greeted Chiyo and Genos. A man with thin white hair and a goatee sat in the corner. “How long do we have and who the hell is he?
“One minute and thirty seconds exactly, and he’s the guy who owns this ship. I’ll explain when we’re done,” the infiltrator informed him from where she sat across from the DSC leader with her gun in hand.
“I assume you are the one whom Swarn attacked?” Walker asked and Kaiden simply glared at him in response. “Since you are alive, I would guess that he is not.”
“Yeah, he’s gone. He really couldn’t wait a few more minutes to go down with the ship,” Kaiden answered, his expression deadpan. “You gonna miss you buddy?”
Walker scoffed. “Did you talk to him for more than a minute?”
“I have reached the top speed of this ship.” Genos said fretfully.
Kaiden crossed the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot’s chair. “Is there any way to give this thing more juice?”
“I’ve had Viola turn off all non-essential systems and reroute the power to the boosters,” Genos explained.
“Will it be enough?”
“It should suffice, but that will be left up to the Animus. Once the base is destroyed, we should get a mission complete.
The ace looked at the dash and switched a screen so he had a view of the station behind them and could watch it fall apart. Chunks of the station drifted away into space, while others exploded or shattered. Finally, after it was almost too distant to see, the station erupted, their mission complete.
Kaiden sat back and grinned at his teammates as the banner appeared in his view. He turned in his chair to Walker. “If you get reused, I hope they don’t stick you in as the big bad. You might end up with the same fate as Swarn.”
“I wouldn’t want that now, would I?” Walker asked and Kaiden frowned.
“I know they are supposed to be lifelike, but do they have to be so snarky?”
“We’re de-syncing,” Chiyo warned. He looked as the world weny white and disappeared around him and waved a cheerful goodbye to Walker.
Once they had left, the man remained and smiled as three bodies slumped over before their suits flattened as dust poured out. He picked a few specks up and rubbed them in his fingers.
Interesting.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zubaz strode through the lobby and into the greeting area in front of his office without even a glance at his secretary as he made his way to his office. “Liya, cancel everything I have for the rest of the evening. I have something I need to deal with.” He shoved his office door open before he slammed it behind him.
He made his way over to his desk, put down the object in his hand, and activated his monitor to access the list of bounty hunters, mercs, soldiers, and killers—all he could muster who were under the organization’s thumb. He sent messages to each of them with one order. Kill Gin Sonny. He added all the information he had on him and sent the messages before he opened a compartment on the underside of his desk and removed a bottle of whisky. Forgoing the glass, he drank straight from the bottle.
It had been barely ten minutes since he had received the report. Everyone at the lab—every guard, technician, assistant, and anyone working that night—had been killed and mutilated. Some had tried to escape, but no one on staff was able to get out of the building. The doors were all locked and the emergency seals activated.
Forty-seven people gone in a night.
Gin hadn’t even been clever or subtle. Zubaz reached for the object he had placed on his desk. It was Gin’s knife—the one he’d named—found in the corpse of an engineer near one of the emergency exits.
The chairman, despite himself, did feel the loss. That lab was one of the few that had an active staff who knew what they were working on and, more importantly, who they worked for. They might have been below the people on the board like himself, but they shared the vision.
But what got to him more was the sense of failure, the feeling that he had been made to look like a fool. Gin was a psychopath, but he had worked with them before. They always wanted the same thing—their vices catered to, their sick fantasies realized, do that and they will do anything you want.
But Gin? He was like a child. If he encountered any rule that forbade him from do
ing something and he did it. What was worse was that not only did he spit in his face, but he had promised the board that he would handle everything when he suggested they use him. He knew he would have to pay, and he could only hope his rank wouldn’t be stripped as a result.
They wouldn’t do that—risk letting him go. They would be worried he would talk and would probably simply have him killed. He looked at the bottle of whiskey in his hand and flung it against the wall with a pained shout before he collapsed in his chair again.
Where did he go from here? He had already sent teams to the condo he had set Gin up in and sent out over a dozen search parties to comb the area around the lab and city. But the killer could have been long gone by this point. He would be found—he wouldn’t risk leaving Earth right now, not with all the equipment he had stolen. It would prove too much of a risk. He had already sent a tip to the world council about his thefts and they would already be on high alert, knowing that he was on Earth due to his incident in Brazil. He wouldn’t get away.
The chairman drew a ragged breath and reminded himself that he needed to calm down. This wasn’t something he had to concern himself with now. Instead, he needed to figure out what to do about the organization. They would want answers but what could he say? He should have acted faster. When Gin first showed signs of being out of control he should have had him doped up then and there, broken him, and made him follow commands. But that didn’t make sense to him at the time. He chosen the man for his talents and skills and wouldn’t get those with a serum zombie.
He was thinking about Gin again, dammit. Focus.
His first consideration was whether he should turn himself in to the organization. Perhaps it would be better to do that willingly rather than have them send an escort. He wondered if they would even bother with an interview or trial. The mission, that was what was important, and despite his loyalty, he had potentially compromised it, even if only slightly.
Gin couldn’t be traced back to them, not as a whole. Maybe to Zubaz, personally, but he had been sure to cover his tracks. What if that nutcase openly stated he had worked for him? That wouldn’t hold up in court. The man was obviously insane.
The chairman checked his messages. Nothing had come back from the people he had sent messages to and his teeth clenched so hard they could have cracked. They were under orders to reply as quickly as possible when given orders. Was everyone defying him now? He began to feel like a joke and his anger surged again as he smashed his fist into the monitor. It broke and cut his hand but he ignored the wound and slammed his palm onto the desk. Defeated, he rested his head upon it and scratched the back of his head rapidly in frustration.
He made a decision. He would head to the manor tonight and would prostrate himself before the other members of the Arbiter Organization and vow to right his wrongs. Even if they didn’t demand it, it was his mess to fix.
His choice made, he placed a finger on the button of his call pad. “Liya, call Jorge and have him ready a team and prepare my ship,” he demanded but there was no answer, “Liya? Do you hear me?”
The lights in Zubaz’s office flickered. Was there a malfunction? Suddenly, they went out and plunged the room into darkness. The shutters fell into place over the large windows and he jumped and his heart thudded painfully within.
“What’s going on?” he screamed into the blackness.
“Why soundproof the room if you’re going to yell like that, Zubaz?” a mischievous voice asked.
The chairman’s heart almost stopped. He opened a drawer in his desk quickly and drew out a heavy pistol. Without hesitation, he turned and fired into the darkness. Brief flashes of light illuminated the surroundings but he saw nothing and hit nothing but what he owned.
“Where are you?!” he demanded as his hands fumbled to vent the pistol.
“Here, obviously,” Gin replied. His voice sounded as if he was both in front and behind him, but as Zubaz spun and fired once again, he hit nothing. “I’ve played with the different settings on the wormwood device. I like this one—the voice projection. It is rather cinematic, for lack of a better term. Actually, perhaps ‘haunting’ works better.”
“D-do you r-realize what y-you done?!” Zubaz stammered and closed the vent on his pistol.
“What I normally do—the thing that got your attention in the first place,” the killer responded. His voice made it sound as if he had simply answered a mundane question. “I will admit, most of my actions in the last few hours have been more malicious than usual, but I was dealing with some issues stemming from you.”
The chairman crept toward the door to his office. He tried furtively to open it with no luck, then slammed against it in the hope that it would either break or someone would hear him.
“I would imagine you paid top cred for those doors so they wouldn’t budge an inch whenever you had to take your frustrations out on them with all that petulant door slamming,” the intruder mocked. “I only got in rather recently—talked with Liya, lovely girl,”
“What did you do to her?” Zubaz demanded.
“Oh, I sent her home early,” Gin stated. “And before you take that to mean I sent her off to the afterlife before her time or something, I’m not so… Well I wanted to say cruel, but I think I’ve demonstrated the ability to be. But I’ve worked my anger out, for the most part.”
“That wasn’t Liya… When I came in that wasn’t—”
“To think I spent all that time messing with the setting on this thing for nothing. You didn’t even spare me a look. I so badly wanted to know if I had it down yet.” Gin sighed. Silence ensued stretched on for what felt like hours to Zubaz. It was more distressing than to hear him speak.
When Gin finally spoke again, the disturbingly playful tone was gone, replaced by a grim, hissing voice. “Tell me, Zubaz, what did you think I was when you hired me? A potential pet? A fancy toy you could play with because you had the cash? I had hoped that this would be an interesting new direction in my life, the closest I could come to going straight.” He drew a long, forced breath. “I would laugh if it didn’t piss me off so much.”
“This was because of you!” the chairman snapped. “I told you I would let you do what you wanted, that I would pay for anything you needed. You only had to do one thing!”
“We’ve already had this discussion, Zubaz, and I didn’t like how it went the first time,” the killer stated in a flat tone. “If you really had any sort of plan, if any of your friends in your little club did to deal with your current problem, then I would be far away from here, not troubling you.”
It went quiet again, but a shocking noise erupted and a searing pain burned into the chairman’s leg. He cried out and fell and immediately, tried to stand but couldn’t find his balance. In the darkness, he fumbled around him to figure out what was wrong when his hand landed on something. He brought it to his face and recoiled. It was a shoe, one that was filled with his foot.
As the horrifying realization hit him, a boot slammed against his chest. He winced and looked up. Gin stood above him with a glowing plasma blade in his hand. “But you brought me here, Chairman, and had the audacity not to know your place.”
Zubaz tried to respond, but only mumbled words formed around his hitched breathing. The killer knelt and held his blade up to his face so he could see it in the darkness. He was emotionless and stared sharply but blankly at him as if he were staring through him. “I kill for sport, to fill a void, to achieve something I couldn’t do as a ‘normal’ person. That’s why I go after those we generally consider warriors of some kind. Although I suppose I’m not too picky in some areas. If there is one thing I absolutely despise, it’s having to deal with those who believe themselves to be better than they are.”
Gin stepped pushed away from Zubaz, who tried to suck in as much breath as possible as the other man walked over to his desk. He picked Macha up and slid it into its sheath. “It’s kind of you to bring her back. I was concerned I would have to make another stop to retrieve her if y
ou let the cops take her. At least you proved somewhat useful.”
“A-a-are, y-you, going t-to—” The chairman couldn’t form the words. The killer looked at him and twirled the plasma blade in his hands.
“Speak up. Isn’t a proper voice something they teach you in business?”
“A-are you g-going to k-k-kill me?” Zubaz asked and tried to compose himself as he pushed up to sit on the floor.
“Eventually…perhaps.” Gin admitted coyly. His mouth formed into a small smirk as his macabre happiness returned. “I suppose how this all ends is up to you, but you shouldn’t really be all that surprised if I do.” He held up a few fragments of the broken monitor “You tried to kill me, now didn’t you?”
“I’ll call it off,” he promised. “I’ll call it off. I’ll pay you what I promised. You can leave and do whatever you wish.”
“How thoughtful. But you know, sometimes, the intention is more important than the outcome.” The killer took a few steps closer. “Besides, the messages never made it out.” He hovered the plasma blade over his own wrist, a compartment popped open, and the BREW device slid out. “This is my newest little toy, and I’ve already found that it works wonders.” He slid the device back into the compartment and looked at the tablet. “After I deal with that boy, I have a list of other people to meet—another plus.”
While Gin was distracted, Zubaz leaned back to retrieve the pistol. He turned and fired at the other man, who simply created a small shield with his palm to block the blasts before he formed the barrier into a ball and hurled it at the chairman’s hand to knock the gun away.
“So should I take that to mean you wish to die?” he asked. “You had better come up with a good reason why you thought that was a good idea.”
Zubaz lowered his head in defeat and the killer sucked his teeth. “Disgusting.” he muttered and stepped forward to finish the chairman.
“You said ‘that boy’—do you mean Kaiden Jericho?” Zubaz asked. “The Nexus Academy student, the one I hired you to go after to begin with?”
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