The Far Shores (The Central Series)

by Rawlins, Zachary

  Mitsuru activated her implant, querying Central and requesting options, backup, tactical support – knowing full well that it wouldn’t arrive in time. Fighting a Weir in close quarters was tantamount to suicide. They were faster and stronger than Operators, and even if she had time to download the appropriate combat protocols, there was no time to employ them. A barrier was out of the question – at this distance, the Weir probably would have been inside with her.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she was quite out of options. After all, Mitsuru was bleeding.

  Her pain and anxiety were the driving forces that pried the Black Door open, restraints fracturing with the weakness of metal that has cracked and then been mended, snapping with a brittleness that surprised and, on some level, disappointed her. The Weir charged, and Mitsuru’s protocol went Black.

  The Weir embedded claws in her shoulder, and she let it happen, exulting in the violation of her flesh, the agony, black blood flowing freely from the wound. It cried out again, this time almost totally feral, and lifted her with an enormous paw wrapped around her throat, claws digging into the back of her neck and below her jaw. Mitsuru choked and laughed as her blood flowed down the Weir’s arms, wrapping and intertwining around its torso, moving with a volition that defied gravity and fluid dynamics. The Weir strangled her while her blood crawled across the length of its body like a shroud.

  The creature tore its claws free of the wound in its shoulder, and brought both paws to bear on her neck, attempting to snap her spine. Her vision swam and bile rose in her throat. Then Mitsuru gave the command, and the net of black blood pulled taut, slicing through fur and tissue, nanometric tendrils cutting like blades. The Weir halted and made a querulous, inquisitive sound, and Mitsuru almost felt sorry for it. Then the Weir’s body lost cohesion, separated into horribly smooth sections, and tumbled to the ground in a thousand discrete and bleeding pieces.

  Six.

  Alex ran as fast as he possibly could. He never would have admitted it aloud – certainly not to Michael, who had trained him – but he was still secretly thrilled at his ability to sprint flat out for a couple hundred meters. He was pleased to return to the Academy, to the familiarity of the simulated training sessions of the Program, even if he would have rather been doing something that didn’t involve violence. It was good to see familiar faces, even if he was trying to pretend-kill them.

  Then again, being killed in a simulation still hurt like hell. And not every face was completely familiar.

  Nam-sun was new to the Program, and only fifteen years old, so Alex didn’t blame him for defending himself the way that felt the most natural.

  The Beretta on Nam-sun’s hip looked a little too big for his delicate hands. He had plenty of time to draw, sight on the gangly boy charging around the corner as if something was chasing him, and drop Alex before he ever had a chance to close.

  New recruits to the combat track tended to overemphasize their protocols. They had, after all, spent the better part of the last few years refining and perfecting them, and most were eager for the chance to show off the skills they had acquired. This was doubly true for energy manipulators, who operated under a tacit understanding that their protocols made firearms redundant.

  Alex, on the other hand, was just starting to understand how to use his protocol, thanks to a late start and an orphan background. If Katya hadn’t devoted most of the summer to drilling him in its various forms and effects, he probably wouldn’t have known how to use it at all. This was usually a disadvantage – but it had a positive side effect. Namely, when he wanted to hurt someone, Alex tended to try to hit them.

  Technically, Alex had a firearm as well, as did every student in the exercise, but much to Miss Aoki’s shame and frustration, Alex remained stubbornly at the bottom of his class in marksmanship. He honestly never even gave the gun a thought.

  Truth be told, Nam-sun’s protocol was nothing to sneeze at. The kid was already an E-Class energy manipulator. His protocol manifested as a five-meter-radius bioelectrical field of variable voltage and amperage – meaning he could do anything from stun to electrocute anyone that got close to him. Nam-sun must have intended to do to exactly that to Alex. He hardly bothered to assume a defensive posture, grimacing as he activated the post-hypnotic trigger for his protocol.

  Nam-sun had enough time to look surprised before Alex landed a leaping punch to the side of his jaw.

  It almost felt natural. Alex shunted the electrical energy that Nam-sun radiated, enough to fry him where he stood and then some, directly into the Ether, incidentally dropping the ambient temperature in the immediate area by a few degrees as radiant energy fled. The more effort Nam-sun put into his protocol, the freer he left Alex to batter him. Alex did so avidly, trying to end the fight before the kid figured out what was going on and attempted some sort of coherent defense.

  Nam-sun’s knees were wobbly. Alex helped the process along by grinding his heel into Nam-sun’s instep while driving his right hand into the boy’s exposed side. His knuckles sank into the soft spot right below the ribs, and the Korean moaned and doubled over. Alex brought both hands down on the back of his neck, bruising his fingers on Nam-sun’s skull. Then, it was as simple as stomping on him with steel-toed boots until he was sure that Nam-sun wouldn’t be getting back up.

  Alex briefly wondered when this sort of thing had stopped bothering him.

  That wasn’t bad, Alex. But get your head back in the game, before someone takes it off. I still show five active signatures.

  The worst part of the Program was having Miss Gallow in his head; his instructor riding shotgun, so to speak, like a cartoon devil on his shoulder.

  Telepaths had a significant advantage in this sort of exercise. They could identify positions and track movement, even if mental shielding made combat usage of their protocols difficult. Alex had spent the better of his summer drilling with Katya, however, who by her own admission had an evil and devious mind. As a result, Alex had a few new tricks at his disposal, techniques a bit more refined than shunting energy into the Ether or freezing people solid.

  For example, if he closed his eyes and concentrated, as he was doing at the moment, he could sense Etheric energy. This hadn’t seemed particularly useful, until Alex learned there was only one known large-scale emitter of Etheric energy – namely, the nanites inside every Operator. Each tiny machine maintained a connection to the Ether, which was theorized to be a power source. Whatever the reason, Alex found that his protocol could sense the nanites in the dark behind his eyelids, human figures traced with the rapid pulsation of a hundred million tiny radiant points, as if rendered in iridescent dust.

  Alex counted to five.

  He couldn’t tell one from the other. They were just glowing blurs. But he knew how many and where.

  There were two to his east, so close that his sense of them intermingled. That meant they were close or touching, so, barring a spontaneous romantic encounter, the pair were locked in hand to hand combat, the nanites inside whirling with motion and activity.

  Alex watched them for a moment, but neither seemed to gain any advantage.

  Renton and Timor, then. Renton’s telepathy made him virtually impossible to hit, but Timor’s precognition gave him foreknowledge of the events in the immediate future, so he was equally elusive. Their stalemates in combat were notorious. Alex had actually fallen asleep during one of their sparring sessions.

  The other three signatures were more distant, all to his west. It seemed likely that they would encounter one another before they bumped into Alex, so he decided to push his luck and headed east.

  I’m stunned, Alex. Truly, I am speechless at your development. Trying to take out two while they are occupied with each other? That is a whole awful lot like strategy. They grow so fast, don’t they, Mitzi? Next you’ll be kissing girls and smoking.

  He gritted his teeth, careful not to think anything obnoxious in return. There was no way that Alex would ever risk angering Miss Gallow. Even he wa
sn’t that stupid.

  Alex followed an alley, then hopped a chain-link fence, doing his best to be quiet about it. The environment they were using today was like the outlines of a city, all of the buildings and streets but none of the people or the noise. It reminded him a little bit of the video games that Vivik played, Grand Theft Auto and the like, with endless rows of reflective windows and impenetrable doors. It would have made a great paintball arena if it actually existed outside of Gustav’s mind.

  He paused at a corner and risked closing his eyes again. The two figures were still engaged in combat one block over, which confirmed Alex’s suspicions as to identity. Most fights were decided in seconds, but both combatants were still standing a minute and a half later.

  Alex trotted across the street, aiming to flank the pair before either realized he was nearby, hoping they were too involved with each other to notice. He flinched at a burst of gunfire, most likely from a submachine gun, judging from the sound. Even after the better part of a year and thousands of rounds, fired both at targets and in anger, Alex still jumped every time he heard a gunshot. At this point he had given up hope of stopping.

  The alley he jogged along was spotless and rather devoid of detail, only the occasional immaculate dumpster or fire escape ladder to break the monotony of the utterly uniform brickwork. Alex knew that details like dirt weren’t a functional necessity, but their absence contributed to the overall sense of wrongness that dogged him in every simulation.

  Not that I’m criticizing, Gustav, he added hastily, in case the old man was listening in on his thoughts.

  C’mon, Alex. Get with it.

  More gunfire, very close now. Probably near the mouth of the alley, but Alex didn’t want to stop to confirm and risk that Renton would notice his telepathic signature. His entire plan was based on the hope that Renton would be too busy dealing with Timor’s precognition to enjoy normal telepathic awareness – and similarly, that the precognitive would be so focused on Renton’s intentions that he wouldn’t anticipate Alex’s.

  Well, that, and the grenade. That was a big part of the plan, too.

  It was more than a little bit surreal, reaching into a thigh pocket for high explosives, but that was life in Central – or it was Alex Warner’s life, at the very least.

  He kept a grenade in the pocket where he once kept an MP3 player. There was probably some sort of meaningful symbolism to that, but Alex didn’t bother with that shit. He was primarily concerned with not blowing himself up or getting shot in the process of using it.

  Or, he had to admit, remembering to arm the damn thing.

  There was a story to that, involving Steve, Renton, Miss Aoki, and Margot. It had involved a screaming Alex tossing an unarmed grenade in the center of a melee, only to watch it roll on the ground in circles while everyone stared at him. At one point, it had been funny. There had been a great deal of teasing in the aftermath. Ever since Margot...now that she was gone, it was too painful to remember. And Steve, too, killed in the attack. He was an asshole, sure, but it was weird for him disappear when he had been such a regular feature of life in Central.

  Poor Margot. Alex hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed her company, biting sarcasm, and offhand consideration, until it was all irretrievably lost.

  He shook his head to clear it, reminding himself not to think about anything other than the immediate situation. Alex had boxed up those memories, and since no one seemed to mention her anymore, he assumed everyone else had done the same.

  Alex almost screwed things up the old-fashioned way. He was so involved with arming the grenade that he didn’t notice that he was in full view of Timor for a few seconds. He dove behind a conveniently placed dumpster, fiddling with the grenade and hoping that Katya’s brother hadn’t seen him. He wasn’t an assassin like Katya or anything, but Timor was part of Anastasia’s personal bodyguard, so he was plenty dangerous.

  Fortunately, Timor appeared to have his hands full at the moment, at least from what Alex could tell by peeking around the corner of the dumpster. Renton liked to fight close, where his telepathy gave him the greatest advantage, and he was pressing Timor hard, a hatchet in one hand and a Smith & Wesson in the other. Timor’s suppressed MP5 was useless in such close proximity, so he was using it to block Renton’s hatchet blade, when he couldn’t sidestep it entirely, dodging and weaving toward a future where Renton didn’t open new holes in him.

  It was a delicate situation for both. If Timor jumped out of the range of Renton’s hatchet, then Renton could use the pistol in his other hand before Timor could aim the submachine gun. If Renton relented even for a moment, however, or took a second to sight his handgun, then the opposite would happen, and Timor would have the opportunity to open up at devastatingly short range. They were forced to stay close and wait for the other to make a mistake.

  Of course, neither of them looked even slightly worried. Renton appeared positively delighted by the situation, attacking with abandon, while Timor wore an aloof smile, his suit not even ruffled. Alex envied and hated both of them.

  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Alex.

  Miss Gallow. Always there for him with good advice regarding murder. She was right, too. With that in mind, Alex didn’t limit himself to arming the fuse and throwing the grenade. He did something else, too.

  Of course, it would only work if he guessed right, but there was no helping that.

  He tossed the grenade with a gentle overhand throw. Timor and Renton both saw and halted momentarily, craning their necks like spectators at a baseball game tracking a long fly ball, then their surprise and temporary paralysis was dispelled, and they turned and ran in opposite directions. Not that it made any difference. The sixteen hours worth of remedial explosives practice that Miss Aoki had forced on him paid off, as much as Alex resented the notion. The grenade detonated while it was still in the air, above and directly overhead of Renton and Timor.

  Alex looked away. He knew that he shouldn’t – both Timor and Renton were more than capable of putting him down before he realized they had survived – but he couldn’t make himself watch people that knew – even sort of liked – be torn apart by a spray of shrapnel.

  He opened his eyes just in time to dive back behind the dumpster and avoid getting riddled with bullets from Timor’s submachine gun. Timor must have loaded hollow points, because metal-jacket rounds would have punched right through his cover. Alex slid his semiautomatic from the holster on his hip and fired blindly around the side of the dumpster, afraid to even peek. He didn’t even think about aiming. It wouldn’t have made any difference.

  “Come on out, Alex,” Timor called. Alex heard the sounds of a discarded magazine clattering against the concrete and knew that Timor was reloading. “That was a good trick, but not quite good enough.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Alex yelled, reloading his own mostly useless firearm. “Think I’ll stay right here.”

  Timor laughed and fired a burst from his submachine gun, the impact of the shells against the dumpster louder than the actual shots. Alex was so startled that the gun nearly fell from his hands, and he cursed his own nerves. Then he stuck his gun over the top of the dumpster and fired rapidly and blindly, burning through the eighteen-round magazine.

  “Very well, Alex. I will simply be forced to flush you...”

  Timor didn’t finish the sentence. Well, he did in a sense – but not with words. Instead, there was a surprised, inquisitive noise, followed by the sound of the liquid in his body flash-freezing, which reminded Alex of popcorn popping.

  Precognition isn’t the same as omniscience, after all.

  Alex scrambled around the dumpster in a crouch, one hand on the ground for balance, the other wrapped around the grip of his pistol.

  Katya, of course, had been the source of this particular revelation. Timor, like all other precognitives, had a blind spot – he could only anticipate the futures on which he focused his attention. Anticipating all future possibilities was an overwhelming task,
the sheer scope of which would cripple any precognitive advantage. Instead, combat precognitives focused on obvious concerns and imminent threats. The greatest source of danger, the most immediate threat.

  The bullets from Alex’s gun, for example. Timor’s protocol was focused on the firearm. Alex could have fired a hundred rounds, and he never would have hit him. So he didn’t try. Alex fired blindly, his intent limited to distracting Timor from the small area of immense cold that he had created with his protocol before he threw the grenade.

  Alex was typically reluctant to use his protocol on this scale, for fear of causing himself a protracted period of dreamless, unavoidable sleep. Within the telepathic training sessions, however, Alex could use his protocol without restraint, because the consequences of a Black Protocol were beyond the scope of Gustav’s simulation. Alex had therefore chilled a wide swath of empty space to near-zero temperatures, situated between him and the combatants, before he tossed the grenade. When Timor came into contact with the super-cooled air and breathed it in, the consequences were devastating.

  Alex rounded the dumpster cautiously. Timor was on his hands and knees, blue in the face, and gurgling through his damaged trachea. Alex put his 9mm at the base of Timor’s neck, the only distance at which Alex was certain that he would not miss.

  “Nothing personal,” Alex said, closing his eyes and pulling the trigger, wincing when something viscous splattered across his face.

  It never is, Alex. We are all professionals. Even our enemies.

  Alex wiped whatever – he didn’t want to know what – from his face with his sleeve, and ducked into the next alley, identical to the one he had just left, save for the mess. He had just forced his gun back inside the always stubborn holster when he heard heavy footsteps behind him, from someone who wasn’t bothering to hide.