Janis’ warning came too late. Shouts of confusion and shock mingled with the droid’s rapid movement as he waited for his vision to clear. Fitz grabbed him and hauled him to the side and through a doorway into the building beside them.
“Janis, open your eyes. Are you all right?” he asked.
“Where’s the droid?” he demanded, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. Fitz dragged him out the other entrance of the shack. “Where’s the droid?”
“Where do you think, man?” his companion answered through clenched teeth. “Tearing up the rest of the gang. If we don’t—”
“Janis, are you there?” Zeek asked over the comm. “Dobi and I are around the corner. You guys need to get away so we can—”
“When you see it, fire,” Janis ordered. “It’s tearing everyone apart anyway. Smoke it.”
“Not a problem.” He signed off.
“Janis! Fitz!” Kit called. They looked up as she skidded behind a desk through a hole in the wall of the building in front of them.
“Get down. Zeek and Dobi are about to…” Janis’ words were drowned out by the scream of two blasts that roared through the street beside them. The impact was deafening. Fitz and Janis sprawled on the floor and covered their ears. Eruptions of red and blue energy flared, followed by a static shriek and a swirl of smoke and electricity.
Fitz slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes. “Did we get it?” he asked Janis, only to see their leader race out into the street.
Zeek and Dobi, in heavy armor and wielding cannons, approached Janis. He looked at the area of the impact, hoping to see the scattered remains of the droid.
Instead, he saw a glinting white light among the dark smoke.
“No! No way could it still be alive.”
“It’s what?” Zeek asked.
Janis turned to warn them, but Kit and Fitz tackled him as the droid blasted a beam through the smoke. It tore into Dobi’s armor and panned to the left to bisect Zeek before either could utter a word. The top halves of their bodies dropped clumsily, followed by their lower sections.
The three hackers stared as the droid approached. Its body crackled with blue light, pieces of its armor had fallen off, and electricity sputtered along one of its arms, but it was still moving. Kit’s and Fitz’s eyes widened in horror, but Janis seethed in rage. Transfixed by their helplessness, the three could only await their inevitable fate.
The mechanical brought its claws out as it came closer and clicked them together dramatically. As it raised one of its arms, a blast of green energy struck it from behind and forced it to its knees. Janis looked up to see where that blast had come from, hoping to find some other Halos alive. Instead, he saw a figure in dark armor venting a rifle.
Before he could ask either of his teammates if they knew who it was, they grasped him under the arms and hauled him away as the droid spun and fired a blast at the stranger. The armored figured ducked into the alley they had been in and avoided the blast as the droid lurched after him.
Kaiden nearly stumbled from the blast behind him but managed to right himself before he fell. He continued his sprint, and the now-familiar rush of air warned him that the droid was preparing to leap. That confirmed that he had its full attention.
“Are you ready, Chief?”
“I am,” the EI stated calmly. “But you know that for this to work, it’s all on you, right? I simply have to press a button. You have to avoid about ten different ways to die.”
“That’s usually the average.” Kaiden chuckled and glanced back as the mechanical landed on top of the shack. He almost laughed as it crashed through the roof while he readied another shot, then backpedaled as he aimed and fired. It crashed through the wall into the blast. A shield flared up, but it was still knocked onto its back. Apparently, the cannon shots from the Halo members had finally caused some real damage. His plan looked less foolhardy and more like overkill.
Assuming it worked.
He made his way to the shoddy building he’d seen before, ran through it, and primed a shot that he fired at the wall in front of him to create an opening. The building shifted around him.
“Come on, you piece of junk,” he muttered as he turned to the entrance and waited for the droid. “Get in here.”
Kaiden saw nothing and wondered if it was trying to bait him instead. Chief flared in the HUD. “Kaiden—energy spike above!”
“What?” he barked and glanced up at the ceiling.
“Move anywhere.”
He jumped back as a beam melted through the ceiling above and scorched the ground where he had been. It began to sweep the floor, and he backed away as it drew closer. When it stopped, he heard loud thuds and a crash above. “Sneaky bastard.”
“It’s in the building like you wanted. Time to do the thing.”
Kaiden nodded and ran out of his makeshift exit as the droid continued to descend. “Blow it, Chief!”
“Get some more distance. We don’t know which way—”
“I’ll keep going. Blow it!” he demanded. Chief dimmed as Activated flashed across his HUD. The thermals he had scattered around the pillars in the building exploded behind him, but he didn’t look back to see if the droid had been caught in the blast. That would have simply been insurance. He focused instead on the unmistakable sounds as the building began to topple and collapse in on itself after its supports disintegrated.
The implosion of stone, glass, and metal kicked up a wall of dust that enveloped Kaiden. He peered back to make sure the building wasn’t falling toward him. It looked like it was being swallowed whole by the earth as it collapsed into itself. He slid to a halt as many tons of rubble shifted and thundered—hopefully onto the droid.
The ace scanned the surroundings for readings of power among the dust and debris. Finding one, he grasped his rifle and went back in.
“What’s it doing, Chief?”
“It’s in there somewhere, but I don’t read anything that resembles a shield or laser fire. It looks like it’s focusing its energy.”
He raised his rifle when he identified the outline of the droid in his visor. It was stuck under literally tons of rock and metal, but it somehow held the top half of its body up. The arms shook under the weight, and although he couldn’t see it, the silhouette of its energy reading showed it looking up at him as the energy began to condense in its chest.
“Kaiden, it's trying to—”
“I know,” he stated, charged a full shot, and fired directly toward the massive chest. The blast evaporated the droid’s armor and power source, and the head popped off and rolled down the pile of the building’s remains as the debris the droid had held up collapsed. The thud generated a gust of wind that scattered the dust around Kaiden and cleared his vision. The head rolled along the ground, and he stopped it with his foot.
“I’ve seen Genos do that plenty—trying to overcharge its core to self-destruct.” He rested his foot on the droid’s head. “A malicious, sneaky, and dirty bastard.” Kaiden holstered Sire as he bent and picked up the mechanical’s dusty skull. “Good riddance.”
Chapter Eleven
Gloomily, he examined the head and contemplated how much of a bounty this would qualify him for, considering that he would, at best, bring in about a tenth of the mechanical. Kaiden’s thoughts were distracted by someone running up the street. He placed his hand on his belt, ready to engage, as a trio of Azure Halo members approached him.
“Who are— Wait, is that the droid?” the one in front asked, a tall man with tanned skin and dyed blue hair worn in a short mohawk style. His voice was hoarse but still quite loud. He was flanked by a pale girl with a brunette bob hidden under what appeared to be an ancient aviator-style cap and a lanky blond man with sunglasses whose lenses had cracked during all the commotion.
Kaiden looked from them to the droid’s head. “What’s left of it.” He balanced the head in the palm of his hand for a moment before he tucked it under his arm. “The rest is under there somewhere.” He pointed
to the mound of what had once been a building.
“Man, I know this town ain’t much to look at, but do you really think we can simply destroy buildings when they become an eyesore?” the lanky one asked as he scowled at the pile of rubble.
“I am neither in construction nor décor,” Kaiden said easily. “The damn thing wouldn’t die, and I don’t have a nuke or EMP to detonate on a whim. This seemed to be the best option to make damn sure it stayed down.” His grip tightened around the head. “It did try to blow itself up before going down. Would any of you nerds like to guess how much damage that would have done?”
The one with the blue mohawk frowned, but the girl spoke quickly. “Considering the core we used was an Axiom model and the amount of power that the droid could have condensed, it could probably have leveled at least a couple of blocks.”
Kaiden sighed at hearing the corporation’s name. “Even when I’m not on a mission for them, they somehow find a way to screw me over,” he mumbled heatedly under his breath, “So which one of you thought it would be a good idea to activate an unfinished assault-slash-battle-slash-serial-killer droid?”
The blue mohawk man stepped forward. “None of us. The one who stole it and the one who turned it on are both dead.”
“Well, I’m sorry they lived long enough to make a such a monumentally stupid decision,” Kaiden retorted sarcastically. “What exactly was y’all’s endgame here?”
“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded. “Why are you here? Are you some sort of WC operative?”
“No, but they were next,” Kaiden admitted. He moved the head out from under his arm and spun it in his hand. “I’m here on a gig to retrieve this thing and turn it in. In a weird way, I guess it’s a different kind of luck for you. Otherwise, I would probably have had to mow you guys down to get it instead.”
“You’re another merc, huh?” the lanky one interjected as the leader tried to speak. “We’ve had to deal with you assholes ever since we took that thing.”
“Yeah. If you steal a piece of equipment from a corporation that really wants it back it, that is the usual outcome,” he pointed out.
“We’ve stolen plenty of things before, and hacked into some big-time databases too,” the girl stated. “We never had to deal with as many problems as that droid gave us.”
“Take it as a lesson to keep to your lane,” he advised and tossed the droid’s head into the air. The trio watched it move up and then down before Kaiden caught it. “You’re a hacker gang. Why branch out when you have a good thing going?”
“What do you know about being a part of something like this?” the leader asked as he drew a pistol and aimed it at Kaiden. “Do you know how many of my friends I’ve lost in the last two days?”
Kaiden held a finger up and then pointed at the ground. The leader didn’t bite, but the other two looked down. They tried to jump back, but the three were caught in a discharge of electricity from one of his shocks and were hurled to the ground, where their bodies contorted in pain.
“I threw that down when I tossed the droid’s head into the air,” he stated as he placed the head back under his arm and walked up to them. “Neat trick, huh?”
The three were too busy spasming to reply.
“Anyway, I’d go ahead and get out of here, but I’m in something of a tough spot. I have no transport outside of my own two legs.” He looked at the three and waited for their motor functions to return to something resembling normal. “Would any of you be willing to help me out?”
“F-f-fuck y-you,” the leader hissed through chattering teeth.
Kaiden sighed as he drew Debonair and aimed it at him. “I have to admit, it’s impressive that you still have your pride after all this, but now would be a good time to show a little humility.” He looked off to the side for a moment. “To extend an olive branch. It’s something I’ve only started learning myself.”
“You c-can h-h-have my j-jet bike,” the girl stammered. Kaiden turned his attention to her after a last look at the leader before he holstered his gun.
He stepped over the man and knelt beside her. “And where would that be?”
“Go down the s-street. Take a l-l-left and go down three blocks, and i-it’ll be in a rack with f-five others,” she explained. Her mouth still trembled from the shocks, but she seemed to have calmed a little. “Take the sensor—o-on my hat. It’ll activate it. The bike is black and w-white. It’s fully charged.”
Kaiden nodded and took a small circular device from her cap. “Much obliged.” He nodded his thanks, stood, and walked away from the downed trio, but stopped after a few steps. “For what it’s worth, I do know what it’s like to call a ragtag group of misfits friends and family. I can be a little cynical, and yeah, your friends made some stupid decisions that cost all of you, but I mean this.” He looked back for a moment, and the leader rolled his head to look at him as Kaiden opened his helmet’s visor to reveal his downcast eyes. “I am sorry you lost so many.” He closed his visor and turned away. “Mourn them, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
With that, he left them to recover as he went to get the jet bike and leave this town with another job completed.
Gin sat on a plush couch and glanced around the abode provided for him by his benefactor. He had been rather busy over the last couple of months, so he hadn’t had time to appreciate his current place of residence.
It was certainly a few steps up from the derelict ships and abandoned labs where he usually laid his head, but it lacked their ambiance.
He stood, and the silk robe he wore dragged on the floor as he walked up to Macha and took the blade into his hands. It occurred to him, as he examined it keenly, that he needed to take the time to have a night out with her. The event in the underground had been the last time she had received any use, and he realized that he’d allowed other distractions to render him a little idle when it came to his preferred pastimes.
Tracing his finger lightly along the blade, he recalled one event about a year or so ago when a soldier had demanded to know why he was a killer—why he felt the need to kill. To him, it was hypocrisy that a soldier of all things had admonished him for his occupation, hobby, passion, whatever one would title his actions. If this soldier could kill under the belief that he did this in defense of his loved ones and the ideologies of his homeworld, why could he not do the same for his own philosophies? Along with having a bit of fun, of course.
Granted, he also remembered being too enraged by the question to engage in civil reasoning. If he recalled correctly, his reply was, “If you were better at it I would be dead, not a killer.” Which was true enough, but it wasn’t usually like him to be so flat when a chance at conversation presented itself. He hadn’t even given the soldier a chance to retort before he’d thrust Macha into his eye.
Gin set the blade down and tapped a finger on his chin as he thought. Perhaps he should use the opportunity to add another branch to his legacy. After all, he was good with many more things than blades. That was how he had gotten his current job—an honest one that required almost all of his unique talents and probably the first “honest” piece of work he’d had in about a decade.
His thought was interrupted by a ringing sound. His communicator blinked, and considering that the only one with the number to it was his current benefactor, he decided he should probably answer it.
He sauntered over to the screen and accepted the call, folded his arms, and adopted a lazy smile. “Good evening, Zubanz. How are—”
“What do you think you are doing?” the businessman snapped. A vein throbbed visibly on his forehead as his wrathful eyes stared from the screen.
Gin’s smile fell, replaced by a quizzical frown “I would ask if this is a bad time, but you called me.”
“Two nights ago, one of my partner’s labs was broken into and a device was stolen,” Zubanz growled, and his eyes continued to bore into Gin. “A device being worked on for another one of my partners. No one talked until we injected serums
into the lead technician. One for anxiety, one for mental clarity, and one for stimulation. Through his drug-addled haze, he said you were the one to take it.”
“A device…” He hummed and played coy, then snapped his fingers in mock realization. “Project Wormwood? So dead Professor Lumiya is doing well, then? How’s his daughter?”
“Don’t get cute, Gin,” Zubanz warned. “The professor was so afraid of telling us what happened that even with the drugs, he collapsed in fear when he finally admitted that you broke in and stole it. He had to be rushed to a hospital.” After a few heavy breaths, Zubanz did what he could to compose himself and leaned back from the screen. “What were you thinking?” he hissed. “I gave you the job of sneaking into Nexus Academy and taking that experimental EI. It’s been months since then. What is your game?”
“My game is your job,” the killer stated equably, seemingly oblivious to the chairman’s rage. “And I’m playing by my rules. Even someone like me can’t simply waltz into the top ark academy in the world like I could, for example, break into a lab developing a new type of stealth technology.”
Zubanz clenched the fist on his deck, and his nostrils flared. “I told you, if you needed something we could provide, to contact the broker I set you up with and we would handle it.”
“I did. It took him three days to get back to me, and he told me it would take several months to get the device.” Gin leaned against the desk behind him. “He had to wait for tests and all that to complete, then had to make up a cover story for where it was going. I figured that was far too long to wait. I assumed you wanted this done as quickly as possible, so I decided to take care of it myself at no extra charge.”
“You could have caused an incident,” Zubanz pointed out and slammed his fist on the desk. Ice rattled in the glass beside him.
The killer’s fingernails dug into the wood of the desk, and his eyes narrowed at Zubanz’s accusations. “But I did not. Since you said you did your research into me, you should know that I usually handle such situations very differently,” he reminded the man. “I did that as a favor, thinking it would mean we could avoid having a discussion like this.”
Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration Page 9
