Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

  He need not have bothered.

  “I’m not going to kill you yet, you prick,” I said. My hands locked around his wrists and I squeezed, earning a bellow of pain from him that revealed big, stained teeth.

  “I’ll fucking—” he began, but I ended his comment with an open-handed slap that sent snot and teeth flying in a glutinous arc. He collapsed again, and this time he wouldn’t get back up. I put a boot on his head and let my breathing slow, then looked around at the people, who stared in horror at me.

  “What’s this asshole’s name?” I asked, trying to keep the rage out of my voice.

  “Doppkin,” came the answer in a small female voice, filled with pain. It was one of the people on the leash, now removed. I turned my head to regard them, trying to school my features into something friendly. There were two young women—one a blue-eyed blonde, one brunette with skin the color of tea and haunted brown eyes—next to each other, both filthy beyond belief, covered in cuts and bruises, and wearing expressions of fearful hope.

  I removed my foot and stepped over to the women, crouching to the one who spoke. Extending my hand, I smiled, and this time I could feel it reach my eyes. I was genuinely happy they were alive. And free.

  “Jack Bowman, and these are my people. We came here to find oil, but as of this second you’ll never be harmed again. You have my word.”

  “We’re . . . free?” the blonde woman asked. The other choked off a sob.

  “You are. What are your names? That’s General Aristine, Silk, Mira, and Neve, who is really sweet despite her rifle,” I said.

  The women tried to smile, but their lips were cracked, and it clearly pained them, so they nodded in unison.

  The darker girl pointed to her friend. “That’s Anibel, and I’m Tress. We were taken—we were taken south of here. When they burned our outpost during the big movement.”

  “Big movement?” I asked, cutting my eyes at everyone to make sure they were listening.

  “The animals and people. All moving. Lots of dust and rustlers coming through. They stole everything that wasn’t attached to the house, and then that sonofabitch over there burned us out. Killed most everyone except—except,” Tress faltered.

  “The pretty ones, right?” Mira said. Her tone was poisonous with anger.

  “Yeah,” Anibel said, the first word she’d spoken.

  “You’re safe now. Hungry?” I asked.

  “Very. And, um, Jack?” Tress asked, giving Anibel a hopeful glance.

  “Honey, would you like to shower?” Aristine said, stepping forward and reaching out to Anibel and Tress. Both women began to cry, and Mira came over, then Neve. They helped the women to their feet.

  “Shower on the oil tanker. Swings out of the side and has a curtain. It’s in a recessed panel for detox, but this is an ever better use of it, I think,” Aristine said. “We’re going to take care of you, and anyone else who needs it, but you have to tell us a few things. Like who among these people is guilty of hurting you and any others, okay?”

  “What will happen to them?” Tress asked.

  “I’m going to kill them after I question them,” I answered simply.

  Both women gave hard nods, but it was Anibel who hissed, “Yes. Good.”

  Their arms raised and they began pointing at people until we’d identified four more criminals, all of whom began a loud denial of any involvement in the disgusting display of torture and rape that surrounded us.

  “Shut them up,” I said to the Daymares, who gave each guard an expert blow that knocked them stupid. “Thanks.” It was a pleasure working with professionals.

  “After you shower and eat, we’re going to need your input about this camp, and anything you’ve seen in this area. If it’s too much, tell us, okay?” I said.

  “A shower would—thank you,” Tress said, her eyes gemmed with tears.

  They walked away in the care of Aristine and Neve, but Mira stayed close to me, her eyes dead as stones. “I’ll help question . . . him.”

  “Doppkin, time to sit up,” I said. He was awake, but bleeding freely from his nose. The fight in him was gone. He was just a big, stinking coward, and his death was a shadow at the door. He knew it, too. The reality sat heavy on his features, which were slack and pale.

  “Where are my women?” he asked, which was the first true surprise I’d had for the day.

  “Your women? Did you buy those girls, you stinking fuck?” I was squatting in front of him, my blades in each hand.

  “Damn right I did. Paid their momma in salted meat and a pair of working radios for both of them. Said they were good workers, and fun to fu—”

  My fist caught him in the mouth, but not hard enough to shatter his teeth. With my new ‘bots, control was key. I would fine-tune my abilities on Doppkin’s corpse, if I had to, but for now I needed him awake and talking.

  “Wanna try that again? Are those your women?” I asked him.

  “Guess not,” he said, blood spooling from his mouth in a crimson stream.

  “Good. What are you doing here with the oil?” I asked.

  “The fuck you think we’re—”

  Crack. My hand smashed into his ear and he slumped over, clutching his skull.

  “I don’t like your tone, Doppkin. In fact, I don’t like your tongue,” I said, reaching for his mouth while lifting the blade in my left hand.

  He tried to scramble away, but Mira put the barrel of her gun in his ear. “Stay.”

  The cold metal had an instant effect, and Doppkin showed a kernel of intellect for the first time.

  “The oil. Why, and who uses it?” I asked.

  He worked his jaw, eyes sullen but alert. “We got sent out, looking for oil and gas. One call to all the scavs working in the south, the truck comes around once a week for pickup. Pay us in food, liquor, whores. Sometimes a gun. We been here three months,” Doppkin said.

  “Who collects the oil?” I asked.

  “Kassos. They take everything, and if you don’t give them every drop, then they take one of us. They have people who are—they have specialists. Who use people for things,” he admitted. There was a tinge of something new in his voice. Fear, and not the kind I was inspiring by beating him. This was a different thing entirely. It was horror.

  “How many days? Until the truck?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, and I knew then that Doppkin had seen his last day.

  “Time?” Mira asked.

  “About noon. They come from over there, the path,” Doppkin said. There was the hint of a road to the east.

  “How many people? Details, Doppkin. Give it all to me, and I’ll make it quick,” I said.

  “Six plus a driver. They got guns, but they never draw them on us until it’s time to take someone. Then they will use them, and I think they like it,” he said.

  “It’s the only way to deal with fucking animals like you. That’s the thing about your kind, Doppkin. You always run into someone like me,” I said, and I reached down and took his head in my hands. He closed his eyes and said nothing. “Do you want a piece of him?” I called over to the women he’d abused. Anyone?” I lifted my voice so the remaining people could hear.

  I got one response.

  “Yer goddamned right I do,” growled an ancient woman with torn clothes and lurid bruises on her face and arms. She strode to us in a lurching path, then hawked and spat on Doppkin’s face. “I’d piss on you, too, if I had any water in me, you bastard.” She punctuated each word with a vigorous kick, then gave me a decisive nod. “Do it. We can tell you more than he will, anyway. He was always pickled drunk or pinning them girls down in the tent.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked the old woman.

  She grinned, and her remaining teeth flashed yellow. “I’m too old for you, boy, so don’t go getting no ideas. You can call me Charlie.”

  I laughed despite the grim moment. “Will do, Charlie. Your skirts are safe with me. As to this one, well—”

  I broke his neck wi
th a sharp crack, and Doppkin went limp as the light fled his eyes.

  “Anyone want to bury him?” I asked, knowing the answer would be no.

  “Let the bloodchickens take him, and be done with it,” Charlie said.

  “Good enough for me,” I said. There was silence for a long moment, then people began to move again, standing straighter, with their eyes lifted from the ground.

  “Charlie, let’s get you fed and cleaned up. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and I want this place secured in an hour. We’re going to have a greeting in store for Kassos’ fuel truck,” I told her.

  Silk was already issuing orders in her persuasive, calm tone, and people began to move. In seconds, the oil field was a hive of activity, and I found myself with a quiet moment. I walked to the tanker and stood next to Mira, who watched the women getting ready to shower.

  “Protect them from everything, I murmured, and she gave me a small nod.

  It was time to look over our newest asset. The field was waiting.

  14

  “Wake up. Time to hunt,” I whispered to Mira.

  “Wha—” she began, then came alert in seconds. “How long until dawn?”

  “Four hours. We go now,” I told her in low tones. “Had to keep this quiet in case Kassos had any spies among the survivors. We’re going to meet the truck before it ever gets in sight of the field.”

  “I should have known.” Mira’s sigh was rich with disgust, but she got her gear without another word as Aristine, Breslin, and Neve materialized out of the dark.

  “Let’s slide out of camp. We set up at the first turn in that path, one klick out. Total silence until then, and we split to each side. Neve and Mira, if there are rear guards, you drop them. Breslin and I take the truck. I want two of them alive to talk. Understood?”

  After a quick gear check, we moved out with me in the lead. The darkness was far from total; the moon and stars gave enough light to leave silvery traces on the sand. In minutes we were on the path, making good time through the quiet desert night. There was little wind, and I broke into a gentle trot, mindful of Breslin’s huge frame. He was built for power, not speed, and we took an easy pace for ten minutes, arriving at a series of broken boulders and low scrub that made for a perfect choke point.

  I pointed to either side, and Neve went left with Breslin. Mira found a spot and pointed her rifle downrange. I knew that anything inside of a half klick was dead if she pulled the trigger, and Neve would do the same. All we had to do now was wait.

  We didn’t wait long.

  I heard the oil truck rumbling toward us, the engine a low growl carried on the night air. To their credit, the drivers didn’t use lights, which told me they had some concept of security as well as a lingering distrust of the recently departed Doppkin. There was a second vehicle behind the truck, and when it flashed in the moonlight I could see it was an open air jeep, swerving back and forth slowly, like it was hunting.

  Time trickled by like a slow train until the oil truck was a hundred meters out. “Driver,” I muttered to Mira, whose rifle cracked a second later. There was no windshield to shatter, so the round hit the driver’s forehead without slowing down. I heard a thing scream, then the truck veered hard, flipping on its side and sliding to a halt within seconds. Neve’s rifle fired twice, and the man climbing through the open cab howled in pain, hands clutching his ruined legs.

  “Nice shooting,” I said, not knowing if she would hear me, then Breslin was standing and I followed as we began running toward the downed oil hauler. I had my blades out as another shot went over my shoulder, striking the grill of the jeep. Sparks flew and a flame began to lick out of the hood as the driver made a correction, but the jeep hammered a large stone, shattering the front end and hurling four people skyward. It seemed seatbelts had gone out of style while I was sleeping.

  “Save two!” I bellowed, accelerating past Breslin as my ‘bots sent me into overdrive. The riders landed hard, but one of them recovered immediately and was bringing a shotgun up to fire. I slashed his body open from neck to balls, never slowing down as I caught the second rider with the hilt of my blade, crunching bone and cartilage before he could raise his own weapon. The second pair of fighters stood, and one of them fired wildly with a machine pistol that sprayed rounds into the desert night. I heard Breslin grunt, but he kept running.

  “These two,” I told him, streaking forward to punch one of the survivors in the gut. He collapsed, dropping to the ground as I rotated left to greet the last fighter, a rangy woman with a rifle on her back. She spun the rifle around in a smooth motion, snapping off a shot at a speed that was impossibly fast for a normal human.

  Kassos—and the woman before me—had ‘bots.

  Unfortunately, hers were not the same as what surged through my veins, and I blurred into motion with an open hand strike against her rifle. The strap snapped from the force of my blow, but not until it jerked her head back with a savage twist. I stepped closer, grabbed her wrists, and forced her to the ground. Mira walked up and placed the barrel of her gun against the woman’s cheek.

  “Give me a reason,” Mira hissed.

  “Get fucked,” the woman said, but then Breslin and Neve approached, and the odds got much worse for the last surviving Kassos fighter.

  “She’s got ‘bots in her blood. I’ll bind her,” I said to my people, then spoke directly to the woman. She was tall and ropy with muscle. Her hair was short, black, and clean, as was her skin. Her eyes were dark, and they burned with intelligence. She wasn’t just some truck jockey. I recognized a commander when I saw one. “Breslin. In their truck, find and cut out any safety belts or netting. Bring it to me.”

  “You think netting is going to hold my wrists? Are you an idiot?” The woman’s tone dripped with contempt.

  I took notice of her as if she’d just appeared. “Oh, of course. You don’t know me—Jack Bowman, by the way—so you wouldn’t grasp how I do things. The cords aren’t going around your wrists. They’re going around your neck. Tightly. You’ll begin to lose consciousness, even while you fight against me, but I’m much stronger and eventually you’re going to drift in and out. I'll let you breathe just long enough to get your shit together, then we'll choke you out again, all the while asking questions. It’s not elegant, but it should work. Even a hard-bitten bitch like you will cave after your lungs are heaving for the fourth, tenth, twentieth time—how ever many it takes. I’ve got plenty of daylight, but you? You don’t have nearly enough breath.”

  She was quiet, then Breslin returned with a length of black-coated wire.

  “Will this work?” he asked me.

  “Even better,” I enthused. “Wrap it wound her neck twice and put the end in my right hand.

  Breslin put his massive hands around the woman’s neck and began looping the cable. “How close to her jaw?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Mira said, stepping forward and shooting between the woman’s legs. “Next one goes in your head. What’s your fucking name?”

  I shrugged as if powerless to stop Mira’s anger. “She’s not enjoying the day. I’d answer before she decides to end yours.”

  “Dayne. My name is Dayne.”

  “That’s a start,” I said. “Dayne, you seem intelligent, and you were in command of the pickup team. You also know how to deal with the late Doppkin—yes, he’s dead, I’m afraid, which means we’re in control of the oil field. Since you drove quite a distance to get here, I’m assuming this is the northernmost field still producing. Sound about right?”

  Dayne said nothing but stared hard at me through the gloom. She had an intensity that would have made her a good officer, if my army didn’t care about things like abuse or rules.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Let me continue with our grand plans for the region, and Kassos as a whole,” I said, and Dayne bucked hard against my grip.

  “No! Not another word!” Dayne’s eyes were white in the starlight, and she fought savagely to get away. I squeezed hard on her arms wh
ile lifting, feeling the shoulder bones grate as she hissed in pain. “No, please. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to—”

  “Know? Because you think that knowing means you’re going to die?” I finished for her.

  All she could do was nod. Fear had her now, as I’d hoped. I could deal with people who were scared. I couldn’t work with people in a rage.

  “Doppkin was limited in what he could tell me because he was drunk and stupid. Now he’s dead. I’ll cut you a deal, and it’s going to be a one time offer. Answer my questions and live. Hesitate and die. The offer starts now. Where did you get your ‘bots?” I asked.

  Dayne’s face shifted from fear to shock. “How do you know?”

  “I have them. Last time. Where did you get your ‘bots?”

  Her answer was immediate. “From the Legacy Lab. It’s in Kassos. It’s not a constant thing. They come and go. The building is like a fortress, and every other year or so, some of us get dosed. That’s what they call it. Dosing,” Dayne said.

  “Who gives you the ‘bots?” I asked.

  “They’re people sort of like you. They come to Kassos for trade, usually from the west, but I think they came east once when I was younger. I’ve only been in Kassos for six years. The Procurators don’t seem to age. They look the same as when I was younger, and my mother said the same thing before she died in the Northern War four years back.”

  “Northern War?” I prompted.

  “River people who came east, fought their way to our northern outposts, up the trading road. They caught hundreds of people from Kassos on the highway and slaughtered every last one. My mother was in transit with—she was in transit,” Dayne finished.

  “What, exactly, was she transporting?” Mira asked, her voice like iron.

  “Ogres and people. Together,” came the answer.

  “Why together?” I said.

  “They were being brought in to build. Kassos has rings of defense among the streets and buildings, but the city is always taking from some buildings and making others,” Dayne said.

  “Why?” I asked. It made no sense to consume structures for other uses when you were short on labor and materials.