Dragon Rising

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Well, just not right. He always whistled a little jig coming and going up those stairs, the same one all the time. I wait by the door when my meals are due. Usually, I crack the door a bit so I can hear and see who’s coming. It was him, only he didn’t whistle, and he didn’t stop by. Didn’t even look my way. That wasn’t like the Officer Petrie I knew. So I said to myself, I said, Weena, you march right to that window and see what’s what.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I got to the window over there.” She pointed to a glass lozenge sheathed in a white aluminum blind. The blind was snugged at the head of the window, and two casement windows were cranked wide open. “And I looked down, and I saw him leaving. I recognized his uniform except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “It was the wrong coat.” The way she said it, she sounded almost put out. “There he was, with that long uniform coat buttoned all the way up.”

  Loveland shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

  “Officer Petrie never wore anything but a little leather patrol jacket unless it was snowing. But it wasn’t snowing that day.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t remember things. I remember because of a warm snap we had right before the end of February. The smell of garbage coming up from the alley was so strong I called the super to complain. You could still smell it in the vents, like something up and died. Up there.” She pointed toward the ceiling. “Well, it took days, and by the time the super got his fat bum up to check the vents, the smell wasn’t so bad, and he couldn’t find anything. But even the people who leave my meals smelled it. They asked if maybe my cat caught a rat and took it into the air ducts.”

  Until that instant, Loveland was convinced this was a waste of time. Now he sat forward. “Can you show us where the smell was the worst?”

  That turned out to be the bathroom. The bathroom had one casement window of rainwater glass that overlooked the alley between this apartment house and the next. Jeffries pointed with a gnarly finger. “Right there.”

  Loveland inspected the ceiling of low-hung acoustical tile, the kind someone might use in a basement to obscure pipes. “I’m going to step on your toilet, Ma’am.” Before Jeffries could object, he was straddling the bowl, closely peering at one tile.

  “What?” asked Thereon.

  “Here.” Loveland stabbed a finger at an irregular, light brown stain. The stain looked like a watermark. “These are individual tiles. I ought to be able to . . .” Cautiously, he spread the fingers of his right hand, palmed the center of the tile and pushed up. The tile moved fractionally, enough so Loveland caught that faint but familiar whiff of decay. “Who lives in the apartment above yours?”

  “Oh, an invalid,” Jeffries said. “Well, used to. He moved in earlier this year, and not for very long. He was in a wheelchair, and very unfriendly. Said he didn’t want to be bothered and had a nurse, though I never saw him until the night they moved out.”

  “Night?” Loveland said. “That’s a weird time to move.”

  “Last I saw of him, his nurse was carrying him all bundled up, just like a baby. Our elevator wasn’t working that day, I think. That’s not such a surprise. Such a big man, too, the nurse. But I remember thinking that something wasn’t quite right.”

  “In what way?” Loveland asked. “Something about the nurse? The guy in the wheelchair?”

  “The one in the wheelchair. I’ll show you.” She led them back into her living room. “Through the window, you see that light on the corner?”

  The window was old and the glass a little warped, so the street lamp on the far right corner was outlined in a faint, rainbow penumbra. “I see it,” Loveland said. “He carried him down the street?”

  “That’s where the hover was. When they got to that light, and it shone on that poor sick man?” She leaned in. “He didn’t have a face.”

  * * *

  The invalid’s apartment was still on a year’s lease, though the manager said he’d never met the occupant in person. At first, Loveland thought they’d have to get a warrant. Then Thereon mentioned the stink in the ceiling, the health department. “I notice your elevator’s not working,” Thereon said. “Now, you don’t want the building inspectors to come by.”

  The manager didn’t. They got in.

  The apartment was virtually identical to Edwina Jeffries’—except for the wheelchair parked at the door to the bathroom. Pointing the way, like an invitation to come on in. They did—and that’s when they found the square that had been cut out of the bathroom floor.

  They found a decomposing body wedged beneath. The body had been wrapped in pryolene, but as the body had bloated, the edges had pulled apart, allowing fluids to seep into that acoustical tile in Jeffries’ bathroom.

  The next day at the autopsy, the ME concluded that Officer Josh Petrie had been alive when his hands had been flayed, and the skin stripped like gloves. And he had still been alive when he was bagged and left to suffocate.

  23

  Bore’s Hell, New Samarkand

  3 September 3136

  When the recruit dashed in, Jonathan peered down from a spider’s-eye view. (Sun-baked, rough brick made for a splendid grip surface.) Then he dropped. The recruit gave a startled yelp as Jonathan flipped him over. The recruit was a boy, really, and he got angry about how Jonathan was going to screw things up. What the hell was he doing . . . !

  Jonathan laughed so hard he nearly lost his grip; he laughed until there were tears; and he was still laughing as he slid his KA-BAR between the boy’s left fourth and fifth ribs. The boy jerked like a huge game fish hooked on a heavy line as the knife skewered his heart. His eyes bugged, and red bubbles frothed from his lips. Still giggling, Jonathan ripped the recruit’s uniform shirt apart and dipped his fingers in the blood. He inhaled that rich, full aroma and then slowly, deliberately, tasted each finger.

  As the boy died, Jonathan stripped off the recruit’s helmet and uniform. All the participants in the exercise wore multiple laser integrated system gear both for ID and to record laser tags. Jonathan wasn’t planning on playing dead, but he needed to light up at just the right moment. He also snapped off the recruit’s smoky gray goggles. The high-impact ferroglass lenses were low-profile and designed to withstand bursts of shrapnel. This was not a live-fire exercise, but the goggles would obscure his face until the proper moment.

  To play this game, he’d cut his hair military-short and dyed it brown. That really hurt. He liked to look at himself, all that black hair cascading over hardened muscle and bronzed skin. His favorite pastime aboard ship, under acceleration: rubbing in oil, his fingers sliding over toned flesh, the sensation so erotic he shivered with lust as he followed the hills and valleys of his arms, his hard abdomen and taut thighs. (He was in the best shape of his life now, his body a temple for her.)

  Jonathan washed his hands with sand and mounded debris over the body, then slung the recruit’s Zeus laser rifle over his shoulder. By the time anyone missed him, vermin would’ve been done with the boy’s face. By then, Jonathan would be long gone.

  * * *

  Now he crouched below the edge of a sandy berm, snuggled in his sniper’s nest. The sand, dun-colored and very fine, like baker’s sugar, was very hot against his exposed skin. (Thank heavens this sand was harmless, not like the caustic moat of diacetylsilicate surrounding the college proper.) He’d stripped down and then slapped on a jump pack. He buried the knapsack in the sand. From a munitions belt snugged round his waist, he withdrew magnetic quick-hitches that he fitted to his boots and wrists.

  Seven hundred meters away, the air was alive with the staccato flash of ruby laser fire and the faint shouts of recruits. His company was in retreat, and enemy reinforcements were not far behind. He spied all those lovely targets milling around like ants, and his fingers tightened around the Zeus.

  A flick of a switch, that’s all, and then I’d be at full burn.

  Th
at was, however pleasurable, an unnecessary risk. Yes, but what about the recruit? He really hadn’t needed to kill the boy. He’d have accomplished the same thing waiting here.

  Acting as if I need to prove I’ve been here. This is like Towne all over again. I want Bhatia to know and fear me.

  But Bhatia did. He could bring Bhatia down. So, why this hunger for recognition? Because there was no Marcus to need and admire him?

  In the next instant, he was furious. What a fool. He wasn’t alone! He had Katana. He had to stop thinking like this. These kinds of thoughts fomented doubt, and doubt would get him killed. Or worse: caught.

  Bhatia would peel my mind, a layer at time. He’d keep me like a fly in amber, to learn how to make more of me . . .

  A throaty rumble shook him from his thoughts. Tracking left, he spied a DI Morgan clanking into the city. The enemy reinforcements had arrived. He’d had a chance to study the recruit’s mission specs. The tank really didn’t interest him and neither did the squat, jungle-green VV1 Ranger skirting the tank’s right flank, its turret swiveling in a classic sweeping maneuver that would bring its eight machine guns to bear in a heartbeat.

  No, his quarry was coming from the southwest. Vibrations jarred sand into tiny avalanches that spilled around his body, with a sound like rice. He flattened, looked right—and there.

  The Rokurokubi’s massive form was so starkly outlined against a blinding blue sky it looked scissored out of paper. Wedded to the ’Mech’s right fist, its katana blade gleamed a dazzling white. The gold accents of its oxblood red kabuto winked and twinkled as it strode forward. Behind it, its shadow was a long, inky stain on the sand.

  Then, in the ’Mech’s wake and high above, Jonathan spotted a Balac Strike following as if tethered by an invisible leash. An instant later, the sound caught up, that telltale whopwhopwhopwhop of blades slapping air.

  He waited, clamping down on his desire, biding his time. He watched as the Rokurokubi ate up the distance between them. The pounding grew more violent as the ’Mech continued its relentless advance. The air filled with the ear-shattering roar of autocannon blanks spewing from its left arm. The air was close now with swirling sand scuffed by the ’Mech’s feet, and the acrid smell of lubricant and ozone mingling with ’Mech coolant. When he breathed through his mouth, his throat rebelled, the muscles clutching against the burn. He spat, tasting grit.

  Ready.

  He laid the Zeus aside—no need for it in what he had planned—then dug into his munitions belt and reeled out a clawed grappler. Snapping the reinforced cable to a quick-release, he raised himself to his toes, crouching on his haunches, every muscle quivering as he watched the giant machine’s left foot kick past. The ’Mech’s pilot was likely oblivious to his presence. Probably didn’t care even if he wasn’t. After all, what was one man?

  Don’t let it get too far ahead, or you’ll never catch it. Do it now!

  In a flash, he was on his feet, up and over the berm, slithering to level sand hard-packed by the ’Mech’s passage. He ran as fast as he could, lungs screaming against the superheated air, heart pounding against his ribs, legs churning sand. Then, as he crossed behind the ’Mech, he thumbed his jump pack to life. The lifters ignited with a growl, and he was airborne, wind as hot as dragon’s breath scouring his face, his stomach bottoming out as he rocketed for the machine’s undercarriage.

  Now, go, go!

  He swung the grappler, hurling it with all his might. The weighted hooks shot forward, clanked against armor, slid—and held, snagging the ’Mech where the left leg joined the machine’s gyroscope housing. Instantly, he cut thrust and tripped the cable’s uptake wheel. The metal spooled with a zipping sound, and as he came within two meters of the gyroscope housing, he swung back then forward, disengaging from the grappler and then flipping like an aerialist. For a heart-stopping moment, there was nothing but air—and then he made contact, his magnetic quick-hitches securing him like an insect in a spiderweb.

  Jonathan let out his pent-up breath in an explosive whoosh! He’d done it, he’d done it—a lone man, no battlearmor, equipped only with lifters and quick-hitches! By all that was holy, he would put the fear of God into Bhatia! This was his destiny. How strong Katana and he were together!

  He began clambering up the ’Mech’s back, still using the quick-hitches. But he wasn’t prepared for how scorching hot the ’Mech’s armor was, didn’t suspect until his right forearm brushed metal. Pain boiled red and hot down his arm and blacked his vision for one perilous second. If not for the quick-hitches, he’d have fallen. He clung there, pulling in air so thick with heat it was like breathing in the exhalations of a blast furnace.

  That brought him back to the reality of his peril, to mortality. He continued on, feeling it now, his breath slashing and hacking his throat with lava tongues of heat, his muscles bulging with effort. Every jolt and bang of the ’Mech’s passage detonated in his joints. Sweat poured down his arms and neck, dripping like molten armor cooked by laser fire. The thunder of autocannons was deafening, and he was tiring, his limbs going watery.

  Can’t fail. Grimly, he stretched his right arm so far the tortured joint protested. He felt the solid thunk of the quick-hitch catching, and he scrambled up another meter. Above, he saw the flare of the Rokurokubi’s helmet.

  Nearly there, mustn’t fail, just concentrate . . .

  Roaring with the strain, he threw his last hitch, hoisted himself the last few meters . . . Just a little more . . . and then he clamped onto the pole of a banner fixed on the ’Mech’s right shoulder.

  Done it! But he had to rest, he had to, and as air whistled into his tortured lungs, he prayed: Please, Katana, my love, please, do not abandon me now! But, oh, God, he was so tired . . .

  Then—somehow—he was atop the machine’s head. He blinked, suddenly confused. How? He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. No, he couldn’t worry about this now. Time to finish this.

  He swarmed up and crested the suji kabuto. At the helmet’s lip, he inched forward. Instead of a menpo, the ’Mech possessed a face mask of ferroglass. Moving quickly now, he belayed over the lip of the steel armor visor, dropping down on myomer-reinforced flexible cable.

  It gave him a vicious thrill when the MechWarrior caught sight of him. The pilot’s surprise was instantly translated into movement as the Rokurokubi flinched, its arms automatically jerking back. Slapping molded plastique onto the ferroglass canopy, Jonathan disengaged his belay at the same moment that he banged on his lifters.

  The Rokurokubi’s blade sliced air as the MechWarrior tried, unsuccessfully, to swat Jonathan from the sky. He twisted in midair, his vision swirling, and bared his teeth in triumph. And now, and now . . . He counted out the seconds, his heart beating a counterpoint, his thumb poised over the detonator. And . . . now!

  A WHUMP! Brilliant yellow paint sprayed over the ferroglass and spattered the ’Mech. A clean kill.

  For you, dear Director. Jonathan turned his gaze heavenward toward the Balac Strike even as he fell to earth. So you may know—and fear.

  24

  Internal Security College, New Samarkand

  3 September 3136

  “Well, I’d never thought we’d find ourselves here,” Toranaga said. He held a steaming bowl of plump soba and slurped noodles.

  “And where is that, Tai-shu?” Bhatia said with a twinge of nausea. The noodle looked like a worm slithering down the gullet of a ravenous bird.

  “Tormark gone,” Toranaga said around a noodle. “A big bang, and she’s a plasma smear.”

  “Indeed.” Was Toranaga fishing to see whether Bhatia had anything to do with it, or whether Bhatia suspected him? Could he risk directness? After all, they were in his private quarters located in the very heart of the ISF complex and under heavy guard. They were well soundproofed. He’d modeled his system on the Black Room, a design he had also overseen and whose flaws, deliberately placed, he exploited when necessary. (He hated surprises he hadn’t planned.)

  Then
Bhatia found his opening. They were attended by a single servant, a youth with dark cinnamon eyes hooded by luxuriant brown-black lashes. No boy, Cameron was a young man. Midway through the meal, Cameron offered a small platter of crisp mountain yam rolls. And that’s when Bhatia saw it—the way Toranaga reached for a roll but trailed his fingers along Cameron’s hand. Just the whisper of a touch, but it was there.

  Ah, is this what you dream of, Toranaga? The slender limbs and ripening body of a warrior, and the pleasures of Bushido?

  “May I ask you something?”

  Startled, Bhatia covered by taking a sip of ice water. “Of course.”

  “As a warlord, I had reason to despise Tormark. But why you?”

  “Suffice it to say Akira Tormark and his defection dealt a blow to my concerns.” He paused. “More to the point, where do we go from here?”

  Toranaga’s eyes narrowed. He held out a mug to the youth, who filled it with strong, sweet potato liquor. “We?”

  “Yes. Tormark is gone. Your protégée will command Tormark’s forces and lead them to Dieron.”

  “Hunh.” Toranaga’s eyes were a little glassy, though he’d not had much to drink. “I’ve a suspicion that whelp Theodore will claim the prize.”

  “I think not. Tai-shu Kurita will leave Dieron to Yori. He’d look greedy and impolitic if he took over the reins. Yet, if she does well . . .” He let the rest hang, but a sudden gleam of avarice lit Toranaga’s eyes.

  For that, I must thank that opiate I added to your liquor, my dear Toranaga. You may think yourself cunning—but I am more cunning still.

  Toranaga stared at Bhatia for a long moment. The ISF director could almost hear the wheels and gears turning, clicking, spinning. Calculating just how far he could go and still leave this place with his head screwed to his neck. Then Toranaga’s jet-black eyes slid to Cameron still in attendance. “You really want to talk about this now?”

  Bhatia was pleased when the young man didn’t even blink. “Cameron’s perfectly safe. Keen on being a recruit. His parents died suddenly, but he’s become my good right arm, haven’t you, Cameron?”