Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "So sorry," said Nagashita. He reached inside his coat and came out with a silenced Beretta automatic. His hand bucked twice, and both GBI employees died with a bullet through the brain. Nagashita yanked the door wide open and waved his people through.

  The callousness with which Nagashita had killed the two GBI peons irked Sin. He had agreed that the Internal Defense Cadre would secure the lobby, but he'd somehow imagined Nagashita would take any employees prisoner. Then again, he reminded himself, he's treating this like a hostage rescue in which he's freeing the emperor's grandson. There's bound to be retribution in the mix.

  Sin keyed the radio he wore. "Team 1 is in. C'mon. Natch, have your folks hold."

  A black van roared up and came to a quick stop behind the bus. The side panel slid open, and four black-clad ninjas poured out. Each carried a silenced and suppressed HK MP-7 submachine-gun and wore a traditional katana across his back. Two carried between them another satchel that they hustled into the lobby, then dropped in the midst of their compatriots. The first team's ninjas had peeled off their colorful clothing beneath which they wore the dark togs of their profession.

  Sin grabbed his own tour bag and tore his gray Gray Line shirt open. He walked straight past the two ninjas stationed at the door and met Nagashita. Sin pulled his own Beretta from his bag and screwed a silencer on it as Nagashita pried one of the doors to the auditorium open. "Clear."

  "Let's do it." Sin slipped through the door and crouched low to the right. He swept his gun across the dark room, ready to shoot anything he saw. Nagashita entered the room right behind him and likewise found it clear. Sin looked over at him and caught his nod, then the two of them ran across the room to the security door while the rest of the IDC ninjas entered the auditorium and fanned out.

  "This is the door you can defeat?" Nagashita pressed his back against the wall beside the light panel.

  Sin nodded and tucked his pistol in his waistband. "This Tojicorp door lacks a bit. When someone presses his palm against it, he leaves a handprint. The Allard Technologies version of the device maps the print both for comparison for identification and to screen out in the future. The number of maps it keeps varies, but Tojicorp dumps the map information fast, saving on storage and making its unit cheaper."

  He reached into his bag and brought out a huge Kobe steak encased in clear plastic-wrap. Using his right hand, he pressed it to the panel, and the green scanning light activated. It passed down, then up again.

  Nagashita grabbed his shoulder. "Why is it not open?"

  "Give me a minute. The meat provides the correct backdrop to make the old palmprint stand out. It's probably just sorting through all the marks left on the glass." Sin held his breath as the light repeated the cycle, then let it out in a low "yes" as the door clicked open.

  Nagashita gave him a look that could have pierced his Kevlar vest. Tossing the steak aside, he pulled the door open, and four ninjas poured in to secure the hallway. They reported it clear, and Sin followed them. As they moved up the hallway, Sin looked into the offices they cleared, then waved Jytte and Hal into the second one on the right.

  He pointed at a computer console and the bank of mainframes behind it. "Jytte, can you take security down from here?"

  The computer empath concentrated for a moment, then nodded. "I think so. I found some codes for the Taos center they just opened. I should be able to use them and get in."

  "Good. Go to it." Sin helped Hal unfold the blueprint of the place and pointed out their current location. "We'll keep reporting where we are. Coordinate us with the Yakuza, if we have to bring the Dogs in." Hal gave him a sidelong glance, and Sin amended his statement. "Bat's with them, so when they come in, direct them to areas where we won't come up against each other."

  "I'm supposed to be here, right?"

  Sin turned as Rajani entered the room and killed a laugh. Swathed in Kevlar, she looked like the child of an overprotective mother who has been amply insulated for the first snow of winter. Her bright eyes still glittered, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Yes, here. Warn us if Fiddleback brings us any surprises. You okay?"

  She nodded. "First time I've felt warm in a while."

  Sin laughed and winked at her, then dashed out the door and down the hallway. The ninjas of Falcon Team—his team—had reached the far end of the security corridor. "Jytte, we're at the end of the hallway."

  Sin got no reply over the radio, but the door latch buzzed. He twisted the knob, killing the sound in seconds and stepped out into the corridor. To the right it looked clear, but a guard emerged from the men's room at the far end of the corridor. Left hand pressed against his sagging stomach to hold it back, he tugged at his fly with his right. He looked up with that surprised, fearful expression worn by anyone who had been caught with his fly undone in public, then started to take a half-step backward when he saw Sin's gun.

  Sin snapped off his first shot hurriedly, creasing the man's stomach. The gun made almost no sound because of the silencer, but the metallic thwang of the bullet ricocheting off the bathroom door-jamb sounded incredibly loud to his ears. The guard gave a yelp, then scrambled into the lavatory on all fours.

  Sin and two IDC ninjas chased after him. They paused at the door, and one ninja tossed a concussion grenade into the room. By way of return, they got two shots fired back at them. The bullets blew through the tile wall and out through the plasterboard wall in the hallway, but aside from stinging plaster shrapnel, the blind shots did no harm.

  The concussion grenade went off with a loud bang. Smoke poured from the narrow, tiled corridor leading into the washroom. The lead ninja swept the room with crisscrossing patterns of fire, tracing an X on the wall of the stalls. The toilet bowls shattered, and a body splashed down back in the corner. Water mixed with blood ran out and into the central drain.

  "Falcon is compromised. Let the Dogs go." Sin heard acknowledgments through his radio, then met the rest of his team back out in the corridor. They pressed on, heading toward the area in which the students had been housed. "Hal, does Jytte have a room number for Ryuhito yet?"

  "Negative, Falcon. She's working on it."

  He heard Nagashita's voice on the radio link. "Eagle is moving into the islands."

  "Roger that, Eagle." Hal's voice paused for a second. "Falcon, Eagle, we have a change in the schedules. Ryuhito should be in the Sun Court right now. Go!"

  The Sun Court, Sin recalled from the orientation tour, was the largest of the island courtyards that ran through the center of the complex. Located north of the Khmer and Yellowstone courtyards, it had a huge circular fountain full of solar imagery done in a Mesoamerican style reminiscent of the Aztecs. Their guide had described it as a place used for initiation ceremonies and celebrations like marriages. She had said the fountain could double as baptismal font, if needed, and was lit at night.

  Sin sprinted down the corridor and took his first left down another corridor. The second corridor linked the two halves of the complex, so he fired twice at the big plate-glass window, then stepped through the hole as soon as the glass stopped falling. That brought him out into the jungle-like Khmer courtyard. He ran to the nearest palm tree and slapped his back against it.

  "Falcon is in K-land. We're inbound for Helios."

  "Eagle has Y-land. Converging on Helios."

  "Falcon, be advised Rajani has bolted."

  "What? Why?"

  "Don't know. She ran out of here fast."

  Shit! Sin nodded at two of his ninjas and sent them running forward to the next position. The white, serpentine paths of crushed stone all converged on the open area in the center where he had been enjoying drinks with Ryuhito before things had fallen apart. In their advance, Falcon team avoided the pathways and headed on an oblique angle toward the middle.

  Peering out from behind the bole of another palm tree, Sin saw the giant stonehead had vanished. He thought he saw something else there, but couldn't be certain, so he waved two people to the edge of cover to check it out.
As they moved up, he saw the head's replacement move, and he dove for cover screaming "Down!" into his radio.

  The RamTech Roboguard IV had been painted over in the orange and black striping of a tiger, but its resemblance to any living thing ended there. It squatted in the middle of the courtyard like a streamlined mechanical toad, only rising up to its full three meters of height when it flicked on its running lights. The clawed feet dug into the gravel with a crunch as the stubby, L-shaped right arm mounted on the side of its clam-like body raked back and forth across the courtyard. The 9mm bullets from the built-in submachine-gun sliced through the undergrowth at a meter above the ground.

  The projectiles shredded vegetation and cut one of Sin's two scouts in half. His companion had started to dive for cover and caught a line of slugs in a bar sinister across her chest. She went down hard, and Sin could hear air bubbling up out of her lungs in the darkness.

  Below the Roboguard's body, the heavy barrel of a 25mm cannon waggled obscenely at Falcon team. Having seen the specs on the RamTech monstrosity, Sin knew that cannon could tear apart armored vehicles. Likewise, the heavier M2 machinegun located right below the SMG in the right arm could punch through anything his team had, but in keeping with the RamTech programming, the Roboguard had only used as much firepower as it needed to get the job done.

  Which is a lot more than we can bring to bear to take that armored beast apart.

  Suddenly, Sin heard gravel being crushed under running feet. He glanced to the right and saw Rajani sprint past along the path, heading right for the Roboguard. "No, Rajani, no!" She's not even got a gun!

  The Roboguard's left arm rotated outward and tracked her. Sin heard an explosive hiss of compressed air, then saw Rajani stumble and fall. It only darted her. She could still be alive. The hope that thought inspired died quickly as the Roboguard sidled over like a big bird approaching an egg and crouched above her recumbent body.

  "Hal, we've got a RamTech Roboguard IV here holding K-land and Rajani." Sin licked his lips. "If Jytte's been saving a security-cracking miracle, now is the time to use it." He ducked his head as another 9mm burst swept through the undergrowth. "If not, the only way we're getting to Ryuhito is in another incarnation."

  Rajani felt her heart skip a beat as Sin ran out of the command center. She started to send him a message telepathically, but stopped when she realized he had more than enough to think about without her distracting him. And you have more than enough to think about without letting him distract you.

  She appropriated a high-backed chair and sat in it, sinking deep into the cushions. She focused herself and purposely tuned out the algorithms and equations bleeding off Jytte like radio static. She found it more difficult to push past Hal's underlying hatred of violence, but she worked around it and let her mind float. She sensed both the Eagle and Falcon teams as they moved purposefully to their jobs, then went out beyond the buildings.

  In her mind she visualized them as being akin to the blueprints Hal had spread out on the desk, but she reversed the colors so the walls and doors became a neon blue in a navy-blue background. Sailing up over the walls, she started spotting and fixing in her mind where people were. For a second, a yellow lifelight burned down the hallway near Falcon team, then it winked out. Then, way out, she saw a number of lights blazing away, including the double-sized one she knew to be Bat.

  In the vast courtyards she saw no one. "Hal, Khmer and Yellowstone look clear. Dogs are closing on the guards out at that end."

  "Are you sure about the courtyards?"

  Rajani nodded and checked them again. "Clear. No life signs."

  "What about the Sun Court?"

  "Clear. Wait." She frowned and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. To her mind, that large central circle looked clear, but she had a hard time concentrating on it. "Something is not right."

  "Hal, Ryuhito should be in the Sun Court, according to this schedule I've found."

  "Checking." Rajani let her anger power her, and she again focused on the Sun Court. As if her anger were a hammer, the black shroud shielding that area crumpled. Golden lights filled it, but at the center she saw a brilliant white light burning like magnesium and a tainted green-gray light beside it. "Ryuhito is there in the Sun Court. I'm sure of it."

  She heard Hal's voice squawk over the radio, but the earpiece pulled free of her ear as she jerked her head to the right. The blackness tried to shut her out again, but she fought it and forced it to remain down. She saw Falcon and Eagle teams moving toward the Sun Court, and confidence strengthened her.

  Suddenly, a malignant green beam shot down through the sky and impaled the gray-green glow. For a moment, she saw the black silhouette of a centauroid spider creature devour the green-gray speck, then that speck returned with black marbling running through it, shifting from moment to moment.

  The green light shot out through the holes in the marbling and slammed into all the gold sparks surrounding it. She saw the green energy surround the bright light and mask its brilliance. Then a jade circle expanded and eclipsed the original ball, but Rajani realized too late that it meant one of the green beams was coming for her.

  She felt it slam into her forehead, and she jerked back in the chair. «I am here for you,» it communicated to her. «Come to me, come to me all.»

  At once she knew this sending had come from Fiddleback through his agent in the Sun Court. As she listened, the human edge of emotion on the message began to fail. Through it she began to hear more of Fiddleback's sibilant tones, and she fed that back along the link line to create a disruptive echo.

  Proximity will help! Rajani vaulted herself out of the chair and started running down the hallway. Distantly behind her, she heard Hal calling out to her, but she continued running. She sensed Fiddleback's growing satisfaction as, one by one, the gold lights shifted to green. «Come to me; I am here for you!» crooned the green energy.

  As she ran on, Rajani suddenly understood something about Fiddleback, and it spurred her on to greater speed. He collected things—people and creatures—and fused them together. If he were forced to break them down first, he could still use them, but they were not nearly as strong or capable as they would be if they came to him freely. Given that all the golden lights in the Sun Court could not, even were they all combined, even begin to match Ryuhito's energy, she knew she had to prevent his seduction.

  Gravel crunched beneath her feet. She heard gunfire in the distance, but she pushed on as her goal stood less than 40 meters north. Wait. Was that Sin? Do I smell blood?

  She heard Sin call out to her as she rushed past cover and into the central circle of stones. She started to turn back toward him when the Roboguard's dart, having missed her carotid artery, hit her right below her larynx. The dart stung, and she brought her hands to her throat, throwing herself utterly off balance. She fell heavily and rolled onto her back.

  Lying there sprawled out, she felt a rain of spent cartridges pour over her body. Looking up, she saw the Roboguard station itself above her. She wanted to scream, but could not because the drug in the dart paralyzed her vocal chords—a human would have been out, but with her xenobiological chemistry, a localized effect was the best it could produce.

  I am dead!

  «No, daughter, you are not!»

  Off to the right, a huge figure stood and raised a rifle of immense proportions. The Roboguard started to pivot right. The machine's right arm began tracking, then the underslung ball turret moved, then the arm again. By the time its decision tree determined the target did not fit any known attack profile, and it tried to bring all its weapons to bear, the giant's finger pulled the trigger.

  The PTRS's projectile weighed over two and a quarter total ounces. By the time the four-foot-long muzzle flame chased it from the gun's barrel, it had accelerated to 3320 feet per second. At that speed, the bullet traveled the 20 meters from the muzzle to the Roboguard roughly three times faster than the sound of it being fired.

  The teflon-coated tungsten projectil
e hit the Roboguard right beneath the spot where a GBI employee had lovingly painted one of the tiger's eyes. At the moment of impact, the Roboguard's armor began to bend and heat with the transfer of kinetic energy from the shell. The interior of the armor plating spalled off, spraying metal fragments through the CPU and severing fiber-optic connections to one of the two gyroscopes that kept it upright. That alone would have been enough to take the machine out of action.

  The teflon coating reduced friction between the bullet and the armor so its speed had only bled down to Mach 2.5 when the tungsten rod fully penetrated the Roboguard's armor. At that point, the shell's outer sheath began to telescope down, injecting the incendiary charge into the interior of the Roboguard's body. Those chemicals, which had ignited on impact, blossomed into a fireball as they got enough oxygen to combust. In the blink of an eye, the sophisticated sensors, custom ROMs and electrical relays that gave the Roboguard the illusion of life and sentience vanished into greasy smoke and molten sludge.

  The tungsten rod continued its flight and pierced the other side of the Roboguard's armor. Jets of fire shot out both the entry and exit wound like flames snorted by a dragon. They illuminated the whole Khmer courtyard, then vanished into dark afterimages. The Roboguard froze in its last position and, unbalanced, toppled over on its right side.

  Rajani rolled to the left and away from the shower of stones the claws tossed into the air when the machine went down. She clutched at her throat, but could not find the dart. More importantly to her, though, she didn't find a gaping wound where her throat should have been, and she checked twice because she could not believe how little blood she had on her hands.

  Sin skidded to a halt beside her and pulled her into the shadow of the Roboguard. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, then looked up beyond him as two other figures came running over. One she did not recognize at all, but the other . . . «Father?»

  «Yes, Rajani. It is me.»

  Her head craned back as she slowly stood. The creature answering her question towered above her. She recognized his color and his tattooing, yet he had changed incredibly since she had last seen him: the tusks and the extra pair of arms. Even his mind felt different as he spoke to her. Even so, there at the core she found someone familiar.