by M. R. Forbes
A soldier. One of the ones that had been freed during the prior night's fighting.
Mitchell pushed himself out from under the bike. It was worse than he had thought. Much worse. The Tetron had stationed an army in Angeles.
An army under its control, with or without the neural implant.
He got to his feet, rushing over to the soldier, making sure he was dead and taking his rifle. He returned the sidearm to the leg holster and ran for the emergency stairs.
He heard gunfire.
40
Mitchell slammed open the door to the stairwell, crouching and taking aim down the steps. The building had been rigged with makeshift lights powered by the cars in the garage below, and now they were flickering and threatening to go out.
"Shank." He sent him another knock. He couldn't have been more than twenty meters away.
No signal.
"Frig."
The gunfire was coming from the sleeping area three floors down. Mitchell dropped the steps quickly, the adrenaline and chemicals leaving his wounds forgotten, his head and eyes focused. As bad as the damage was, he had taken worse and kept fighting.
The sound of shooting grew louder as Mitchell eased open the door to the stairs. This level of the parking garage was mostly open, and he peeked out to see four shooters aligned behind support columns, firing back at where the mattresses and been arranged.
Dozens of the dead lay across them, killed in their sleep. Others huddled behind more of the columns, returning the fire. From the looks of it, only five or six of the true rebels were still alive.
Mitchell swallowed his anger. He swallowed every emotion. He was a Space Marine, and this was war. There was no time for feeling, only action.
He pushed on the door, slamming it open hard enough that it echoed through the space. The Tetron soldiers reacted to the noise, turning around to take aim at the new threat. Mitchell put bullets in each of them before they could gather their aim.
"Shank," he said. "You here?"
He didn't see the Rigger's body in the flickering light.
"Mitchell? Shit. Is that you?"
His head came out from behind a column.
"You're clear," Mitchell said. "Comm is offline."
"Yeah, no shit. Thanks for the save, sir."
Shank came out from behind the column. Sergeant Geren, Riley, and Adams joined him.
"What the hell is going on?" Geren asked.
"The soldiers. They're Tetron."
"No. We pulled their implants."
"They aren't being controlled by the implants. They're Tetron. Clones. I think every soldier that was in Angeles. Come on, I'm sure this isn't all of them."
"Colonel, you okay?" Shank asked, noticing the wounds.
"I will be. Theses things are here for a reason, and it isn't me. Any ideas?"
"Kill us all, I bet," Riley said.
Mitchell led them back out into the stairwell. At the same time a door higher up opened, and a squad of soldiers spilled out into the space and started climbing.
"Diamond Company," Geren whispered. "We freed them last night."
"Who's up there?"
"I heard Tio was staying in the penthouse," Adams said. "He likes the heights, or something."
"Tio?"
The Knife. Who thought the creator might be his brother. Who may have had a means to infect and control the Tetron. That was who they had come for. That was who it was watching. Mitchell didn't know if it had planned to launch its attack tonight, or if Holly had forced it into motion.
It didn't matter.
"Shank, take Adams and Riley down to the mess and clear out any enemy soldiers you find there. Save whoever you can. Geren, you're with me."
Shank nodded, using hand signals to lead the other two soldiers. It was a good thing the military still trained them to communicate without the implants, even if it was a fallback of a fallback.
"How's your aim, Sergeant?" Mitchell asked, motioning up at the climbing group of soldiers. "We need to hit them fast."
"We should try to get over them. There's a second stairwell from the lobby."
"Agreed. Go ahead."
Geren took the lead, quietly climbing the three floors back to the lobby. They exited out and crossed to the other side of the dead lift banks, where a second stairwell waited. They paused at the door. Mitchell motioned for her to check up, and then they went in.
Mitchell swept his rifle down the steps. Clear. Geren didn't fire, either.
"Let's go."
They started climbing, taking the steps two at a time, ascending at a run. The penthouse was seventy floors above them, a long climb for an older man like Tio.
"He must really love heights," Mitchell said.
They kept going. Ten floors. Twenty. Thirty. Mitchell's legs burned, but he didn't dare slow down. Geren was still going like a champion, her breathing hard but steady.
She stopped suddenly. "You hear that, sir?"
Mitchell listened. More gunfire, coming from the floor. Number forty-eight.
"What if he didn't go all the way up?"
"Come on."
They pushed open the door. It fed out into a long corridor with rooms on either side that ended in a window and forked in both directions. The gunshots were still distant.
They ran down the corridor, reaching the fork. Mitchell took the right side, Geren the left. They rounded the corner. Mitchell's sight was empty. Sergeant Geren opened fire.
He turned on his heel, dropping to his knee and taking aim at the same time. Two soldiers had been standing on either side of one of the doors, firing into the room. The carbonate behind them was peppered with cracks from projectile strikes. They both fell under Geren's assault.
"Nice shooting," Mitchell said, getting back to his feet. They approached the room cautiously.
Mitchell peeked his head around the corner. There was a bed near the back window, ten meters away. A body was lying on top of it. A pretty blonde woman, naked and bloody. Her neck was bruised.
"Colonel?"
Cormac raised his head from behind a dresser, tipped over to catch the bullets.
Mitchell eyed him, and then the body.
"They snuck up on us while I was in the pisser," Cormac said. "I don't know how they knew we were in here. I guess they heard us snogging. Bloody bastards."
He came out from behind the dresser. He was naked, his body covered in all kinds of colorful tattoos and still in a state of arousal.
"Yeah, so getting shot at makes me hard," he said, finding his clothes on the floor and reaching for them.
"The entire place is under attack," Mitchell said. "Get your gear and move out. We're heading for the penthouse. You better catch up, soldier."
Cormac glanced at Geren, who was staring at the body on the bed. There was no way she didn't see the bruises.
"Yes, sir," he said. "She wanted it that way. I swear on my mother's grave."
Mitchell had his doubts, but there was no time to worry about it. "Geren, come on."
He left Cormac still dressing himself, racing around the corner and back across to the second stairwell. Geren pressed up to the other side of the door.
"They may have gotten ahead of us," she said.
Mitchell nodded and then signaled that he was opening the door. He pushed the muzzle of the rifle against it, letting it move slowly, pointing the business end down. He heard the boots on the steps, above and below.
They had split up.
Bullets started slamming the door, and Mitchell dropped it and fell back, grabbing Geren's arm and pulling her down with him. The projectiles went through the door and into the ceiling.
"Shit. Geren, are you hit?"
"No, sir. Thanks to you."
"We're too late. Frigging Cormac."
"You called, sir?"
He came around the corner towards them. He was naked from the waist up, save for the light exoskeleton attachments hooked into his bones and the small power pack slung to his back.
"There's half a dozen down, half a dozen up," Mitchell said. "They've got the doorway pinned."
Cormac smiled. "They think they do, sir." He reached behind his back and produced a grenade. "I never go anywhere without one. You never know."
"Do it."
Cormac dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to the door. He started pushing it open, drawing another round of cover fire from the group below.
"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to meeeeee," he sang at a whisper, pressing the fingerprint sensor to activate the grenade. "One friiiiigging fraaaaggggment grenade." He laughed as he rolled it forward and closed the door.
It exploded ten seconds later. Cormac didn't wait before he went through the door again, rolling to a sitting position with his rifle facing down. Shots echoed in the stairwell, and then it was silent.
"Clear, Colonel," he said.
Mitchell and Geren got to their feet. They entered the stairwell and looked up. The second half of Diamond was already gone.
"Nice work, Private," he said, clapping Cormac on the shoulder. "We aren't done yet."
41
They moved into the stairwell, climbing as fast as they could. The Diamond soldiers had already reached the seventieth floor, meaning Tio was left with whatever defenses of his own he possessed.
"What's going on here, Colonel?" Cormac asked.
"It wants the Knife."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I think it thinks he knows who the Creator is."
"Huh?"
"Shut up and fight, Firedog."
"Yes, sir."
The sound of fire drifted down a minute later. They were only on floor sixty-one, still too far away to help.
"Damn, this is a frigging mess," Cormac said. "You got a smoke, sir?"
"Are you always this annoying, Firedog?" Mitchell asked. He was breathing hard, the long run combining with his injuries and a system full of chemicals to leave him winded.
"You know me, sir."
They finally reached the floor. The shooting had stopped. Mitchell motioned to Cormac, who eased open the door once more. He made a face when he did.
"Blew his frigging head right off."
Mitchell peered around him. A headless soldier wearing a Diamond patch was laying in a pool of blood and filth. Two more were nearby.
"Someone was waiting for them," Geren said.
They went out onto the floor, following the path to the end of the hallway. Mitchell leaned out to see around the corner. The penthouse doors were in the center, allowing for the suite to take up the majority of the top two floors of the hotel. The hallway was filled with bodies, a mix of Diamond soldiers and others in fancy suits.
A remaining soldier stood guard. The rest had to be inside.
"Looks like Tio had bodyguards," Geren said.
"Not anymore," Cormac replied with a laugh.
"I've got him," Geren said. She stepped out into the hallway, raising the rifle to her shoulder, aiming, and firing, all within a single motion. "Clear."
For now. They ran to the doors, sweeping the entrance. Two more bodyguards were dead inside. A second pair of soldiers appeared from the great room beyond an open marble foyer. Cormac strafed across the space, his fire mingling with Geren's and cutting them down.
"Come on."
Mitchell led the way across to the great room, keeping the rifle at his hip and ready to fire. The injections were starting to wear down, his time in an emergency state exceeding the design of the system. His head was starting to throb, and the double vision was returning, along with the pain.
He came to an abrupt stop, putting up his hand to freeze the soldiers behind him.
Tio was standing in front of a large, seamless carbonate window that opened the entirety of the penthouse to a view of the world outside. He was facing away from them, trying to look out over the city.
He couldn't, because a drone was on the other side, floating laterally while a soldier used a torch to melt through the carbonate.
General Cornelius was next to him, holding a gun to his head.
"Captain," Cornelius said, not even turning around. "I am taking Liun Tio."
"Why?" Mitchell asked.
He held his stomach clenched at the truth of the reveal. The real Cornelius was gone. Dead on Liberty, dead in deep space, or taken and turned into this. There wasn't going to be a happy reunion between father and daughter. They weren't going to have one of the greatest military minds in the Alliance to lead them towards victory.
It also meant the Tetron knew everything. All of their plans, all of their logistics. It knew about the package. It knew about Tio's software.
Everything.
"To find the Creator."
To find the Creator? Not to stop him from finding Christine? Not to kill him at all?
"He isn't the Creator."
"He knows the Creator."
"Pulin?" Tio said.
"Pulin is the Creator," Cornelius said.
"You don't know that. He may not be."
"Historical records indicate a ninety-four percent probability that Liberty is a node that leads to the Creator. We have studied every personnel record and every data item. We have infiltrated all levels of resistance planet-wide. Liun Tio is a leaf. We are taking him, Captain Mitchell Ares Williams."
"I'm not going to let you."
"Yes. It is required."
"What does that mean?"
"A flawed configuration has allowed you to decipher this algorithm ahead of estimates. You have broken continuity and achieved an enhanced statistical probability of completing your routine. You are required to effect action which will counter this abduction. We will fight, and one of us will die."
"You heard him, sir," Cormac whispered. "The alien's got the General. We need to put him down."
Mitchell was still. He stared at Cornelius, searching the man's eyes. Was there anything human left in there? Anything they could save or salvage? He didn't see it. They were flat and blank. The machine was right. They had to fight, and one of them would die.
"Sir?" Cormac whispered. "I've got the shot."
Mitchell didn't move. It wanted him to attack. As far as it was concerned, it was a mathematical certainty. So what if he didn't? What if he just stood there and let the Tetron take the Knife? What would happen then?
"Sir?"
"It is required," Cornelius repeated.
War eternal. Mitchell closed his eyes. They had always done this. They had always fought. What choice did one side have when the other sought to destroy it? To not fight was to lose. To die.
Or was it?
To fight was to lose and die. If there was anything he had learned, that was it. The war that never ended. Even if he conquered the Tetron, there was no guarantee they wouldn't be created again, only to return the universe to the perpetual cycle of destruction.
The choice may have been clear. It may have been mathematically certain.
It was still a choice.
Mitchell's gun fell from his hand, landing on the carpeted floor with a soft thud.
"No," he said. "I don't want to fight. I want to understand."
Cornelius froze, clearly unable to process the impossible.
The drone exploded behind him, the force of the blast throwing the soldier forward into the weakened carbonate and through, the waves pushing Cornelius and Tio away from the edge.
"What the hell?" Mitchell dropped to a knee, grabbing the gun while he cursed. He had tried a different tactic, and it had appeared to be working.
He had been close, so close to making something happen. Something different. Something unexpected.
Hadn't he?
Cornelius started to pick himself up, gun in hand and turning towards where Tio had been thrown. The older man lay static on the floor, and Mitchell didn't know if he had survived the blast.
"It is required," he said. Mitchell watched the General's finger tighte
ning on the trigger. Before he was able to fire the gun, a bullet tore through the hand, and it vanished in a spray of bone and flesh and blood.
"Get with it, Colonel," Cormac said, firing two more rounds into Cornelius. The body dropped and didn't move.
A third shot from Geren's gun and the final soldier fell. Mitchell dragged himself to his feet, stumbling towards the window and looking out.
Zed's Zombie was planted below, so small at this height. She must have had the optics zoomed because she raised one of the mech's hands in a thumbs up.
Mitchell backed away, lowering his head so she wouldn't see his dissatisfaction. It wasn't her fault. She had probably seen the drone coming in and discovered the communications link was down. Then she tracked it from the ground, saw what it was doing, and took the initiative. There was no way she could have known he was there, further back on the floor.
There was no way she could have known he would try to counter the Tetron's violence pacifistically. Hell, he would never have guessed he would try it until he was in the middle of the attempt.
He heard a groan from his right and saw Tio pushing himself up.
"Colonel?" the man said. "I don't know if I completely understand this."
"It doesn't matter," Mitchell said, heading toward the Knife. "We need to get out of here. All of us. Right now."
"What do you mean, sir?" Geren asked.
"It accepted that we had to fight, and only one of us could win. It's lost the element of surprise, and the upper hand on capturing Tio. Getting to him was the only reason it abandoned Angeles. It knows about Tio. It must know how he thinks. The whole damn thing was one big frigging trap."
"A trap that's been sprung, and it didn't get what it wanted," Cormac said.
"Yes."
"Which means there is no logical reason for it to allow any of us to survive," Tio said. "In fact, our continued existence is sure to be a statistically significant risk."
"I thought it wants you alive?" Geren said.
"It did. It would be easier for me to lead it to Pulin than to have to find him itself. Or maybe they already killed him." Tio shrugged. "Whatever the situation is, your rescue has altered all of the calculations. A thinking machine is still tied to some form of reason and logic, even if it is beyond what we humans can understand."
