by J. N. Chaney
“Fine. I’m tired as hell anyway. Maybe I’ll just rest a bit,” I said.
Tom didn’t crack a smile at my joke.
“What do you think, Singer?” Bug asked from behind me. They were really keeping me at a disadvantage.
“Looks the same as all the others,” Tom Singer said.
“You’re a singer now?” I asked.
“Married a woman. Took her last name. You don’t get to know about her beyond that, clone.”
“Now you made it ugly.” I let out a long breath. “Maybe I’m a clone, maybe all the others are clones of me. Still gathering evidence.”
Tom pressed the gun to my forehead. “Don’t you fucking talk like that. I knew the real Reaper. Closer than blood. He was my brother and my best friend and the only person I wish I could bring back from the dead to talk with one more time.”
I held his gaze.
“You don’t talk about him, ever.”
Moments passed.
“I never heard you swear like that, Tom.”
He flinched, then pulled back the gun to look at me like he’d never seen me before—eyes slightly afraid of what he might find if he kept investigating.
“I told you he says stuff,” Bug said, moving into view but still off to one side where he could gun me down before I reacted. “Acts like the real Hal. And the kid called him Hal.”
Tom stood but didn’t step back. Now he looked like a shadow titan pointing a big ass pistol at me. “Better to kill him and be sure. You know better, Bug. He’s got both arms and both eyes—we kill those on sight, from a distance. What the hell are you doing toying with this one?”
Horse lizards howled at the dying day and charged into the city. By the sound of their cries, they were moving fast and headed this way. From another direction, I heard the stomping feet of a mech, or maybe multiple mechs.
I sat up, then stood. “Kill me or don’t. It’s time to leave this party.”
Tom retreated, still aiming the pistol to cover his move.
“Flatbed. Coming this way. They have this clone’s escape pod. I told you he came from the station,” Bug said, already moving toward an intact building.
“That just proves he is a clone.” Tom hustled backward several steps before lowering the pistol and racing after Bug in earnest.
I decided to follow them since they liked me so much, but first I reached into the hole, grasped for the D3D, and came up empty.
The hunters sounded closer than ever, though the mechs had paused for some reason. Cursing, I hobbled toward the building. The moment I ducked inside the old barbershop on the ground level of the twenty story building, I saw the flatbed truck Bug had detected well before Tom or I picked up on its engine noise. We had been staring each other down and worrying about the monsters and mechs heading our way while the JFT came rolling into town like they owned the place.
“Don’t stand by me, clone,” Tom said. “I’d blast you right now if it wouldn’t give away our position.”
“You could have killed me out there,” I said.
“No. The Destroyers would have seen the body and started looking around.” He stood motionless near the window, looking through the blinds.
“Destroyers? From the JFT?” I asked.
“From Oroth, yes. Bad news. These look like their true warrior caste. Too many for us to fight, and they definitely have an escape pod. Which means they’re after you, and since you’re here, they’re after us as well. Another reason to put you down.”
“You are such a hard ass today, Tom,” I said.
The look he gave me was pure hatred.
I found my own window to peer through. “At least a company, and I see what you mean. These look tougher than the others.”
“Bug,” Tom said.
“Yeah.”
“Knife him.”
They came at me together, without hesitation, although I had the crazy impression that tears were streaming down Bug’s eyes. We tumbled away from the front of the barbershop, each of us conscious that noise would get us all killed.
Nothing was worse than a silent knife fight in a tight space. My head hit the base of a chair, which spun. Tom caught it before it could bang into something but kept his other hand on my throat. Seconds later, both hands were crushing my larynx. He leaned all of his weight down, forcing me to deal with that threat first.
Bug hesitated just long enough for me to see the knife coming. I kept one hand on Tom’s two hands, knowing that wouldn’t keep me alive for long, and caught Bug’s wrist.
He was stronger than I remembered, and so was Tom, but maybe that was because he had a dominant position. Downward force was always dangerous, especially if you couldn’t divert it. If this had been one on one, I could have twisted out from under him or rolled him using his own momentum, but Bug had me locked in on one side. If I turned the other way, I just leaned into Tom’s attack and made it worse.
Stars flashed in my vision. Tom wasn’t just going after my airway, but the arteries in my neck as well. I probably shouldn’t have taught him that trick. There wasn’t much time.
Bug’s knife inched closer and closer to my left eye. The kid from Dreadmax, a veteran killer now, was definitely streaming tears. Tom sobbed and swore under his breath.
“Reaper Cain, please disarm your opponents quietly. Noise will draw a quick reaction force of JFT Destroyers,” X-37 said. “They will murder you when they finish torturing you.”
“Not helpful, X.”
“Anger detected,” X said. “This will not help you. Please break the hold on your throat and redirect the knife blade.”
“I hate you, X.”
“Unnecessary aggression noted and filed for later discussion.”
I sucked in all the air I could hold in my lungs. “Sorry, Tom, but you brought this on yourself.”
“What are you muttering about?” he said, pushing harder.
I let go of his wrist, then shot my hand downward and struck him hard between the legs. His eyes went wide. I hit him again, and he rolled away, moaning loudly.
Bug hesitated, one hand still on the handle of his combat knife and the other pressing down on the pommel.
I struck them both with enough force to pitch him off balance, then rolled him onto his back and straddled his chest. He refused to let go of the knife, so I twisted it free, exerting excessive amounts of torque on his wrists and fingers.
He let go. I stood up and grabbed at Tom’s rifle. Still red faced and miserable, he turned onto his side, drew his pistol, and aimed at the same time I yanked the sword from his back. His motion helped pull it free.
“I would rather have the rifle, but this will work,” I said. “You know there is one person who can beat a pistol with a sword.”
“Yeah, and it isn’t you,” Tom said.
Bug jumped up behind me. I back kicked him in the solar plexus, dropping him instantly. He sounded nearly as miserable as Tom had after the groin strikes.
“This doesn’t mean you’re anything but a clone,” Tom said. “The real Reaper wouldn’t have let us get the drop on him.”
“I’m a bit rusty. Been in a life pod for a long time,” I said. “Now shut up before you get all of us killed.”
Outside, the Destroyers froze, but not because they heard us. The hunters were close, and their numbers tripled at the last moment. Howls filled the air from three directions. The animals were clever.
The first flashed into view, hard to see well from this deep in the barbershop. It looked a lot bigger than a horse, if I was thinking of the right animal. Farm colonies had never been my bag. And books couldn’t be trusted.
The blur of horse-sized lizards could have been from one of those made up stories, a real life dragon come to slaughter virgins and whatever else they found tasty.
JFT soldiers opened fire. Someone screamed.
A noncom barked orders. “Fall back! Fall back! Rally! Get to the Rally point! Move, you fucking gorillas. Oroth isn’t paying you to die!”
“Truce,” Tom said. “But when this is over, we part ways or get back to killing each other.”
I stared him down, then smiled. He hated me, but it was still good to see my old friend. “Can I at least have a cigar first?”
His look was priceless—wide eyes, mouth parted, his entire demeanor converted to stunned silence.
“What’s the matter, Tom?” I asked.
Bug answered for him. “None of the other clones smoked. Never admitted to vices like that.”
“Clearly a bunch of inferior copies. I am a giant shit show of character flaws. You know that.”
“Yeah, Hal, we do,” Tom said, then looked at his pistol as though embarrassed. “We were going to kill you.”
“You were killing me,” I corrected. “But you forgot one other thing about Reapers. We fight dirty.”
“The dirtiest,” Bug said, trying not to laugh for joy.
A fresh wave of hunters and JFT gunfire ruined the moment. Bullets shattered two of the windows. One of the beasts crashed into the door, nearly breaking it down.
I retreated to the back of the room with Tom and Bug, where I learned there was no door.
“Fire safety code violation detected,” X-37 said.
Tom and Bug aimed at the front door.
“Maybe when this is over you could help me get my D3D out of the rubble. Just need to reach in there and pull it free.”
“Go ahead. We’ll wait here,” Tom said.
Less worried about making noise now that all hell was breaking loose on the street, I wanted to hug these guys and laugh like an idiot—but that would ruin my reputation. We were about to start planning in earnest when I heard the approach of mechs.
“Great. That should make things so much easier,” I said.
“Sarcasm detected, Reaper Cain.”
25
Luck was on our side—for about ninety-three seconds. The battle moved away from the front door, and I considered making a break for it. Bug and Tom would follow me. Even if I hadn’t completely won their trust, survival was a goal we shared.
“You think we could—“ Tom asked as the three of us edged toward the exit together. Desperate minds thought alike.
Two of the dragon horses hit the front door, but this time it was no accident of combat. Their keening blows sounded like panic. These natural born killers were fleeing the JFT and the mechs, looking for a place to hide.
I wasn’t convinced the mechs were part of the JFT. Evidence pointed toward mechs versus the world, but maybe that was just my gut instinct—combat heightened everything. Sometimes I listened to the little voices in my head, and not just X.
The powerful beasts slammed into the door again and again, shaking the frame. Force rippled through the wall and broke glass from most of the windows near it.
“Upstairs,” I said. “At least we’ll have the high ground.”
Bug shook his head. “No back door, no stairs. This barbershop is just a little boutique, probably an afterthought.”
“Antoinette told me people use storage units and pass them off as businesses. Code enforcement was always weak in Marsi.” Tom’s mouth was on autopilot as his eyes darted around the room, searching for a solution, yet there was something else in his eyes. I wondered who Antoinette was.
The largest of the hunters hit the door again, shattering the rest of the glass in the door and bending the security bars.
Bug shot the creature as it pulled its head back. Another took its place, trampling the body of its former pack leader. Outside, a pair of JFT fired toward the panicking monsters, dropping several others.
Another piece of the puzzle dropped into place—civilians. They scrambled from hiding places, fleeing down the street in surprising numbers. Men and women, old and young, some of them armed but none of them weak. These were the hardest of Maglan’s survivors—resourceful people who had hidden in the downtown for a reason. Had they been hiding from monsters or mercenaries?
None of them had tried to help Jacob’s group. This realization came in a flash. Had they seen a Reaper clone and written off their friends and neighbors so quickly?
My immediate problem was surviving long enough to fully synchronize my foundational nerve-ware with X-37. Long term, I needed a leader to bring these people together. Ten years of everyone for themselves hadn’t done much for our survival as a species.
I went to one of the stalls and looked up. “We’re going through the ceiling.”
Standing on a swivel chair, I struggled for balance, nearly went over backward, then pushed the panel above me out of the way. The sight of poor quality insulation and wiring greeted me. Ripping it out of the way would tear up my already damaged hand. “I wish I had a metal hand and a badass arm blade. And a suit of Archangel armor. And my rifle. And cigars.”
“Definitely the real Hal,” Tom said to Bug. “Not sure how I ever doubted the man.”
“Kind of a prima donna,” Bug agreed. “Super needy.”
I smashed aside an air vent. “Whatever. One of you wanna climb up here and do this?”
Gunfire and explosions filled the street. This time a hunter tried to leap through the display window. Glass cut apart its snout, but the monster didn’t seem to care.
Tom and Bug opened fire and soon found themselves shooting it out with the JFT across the street as well as random monsters. Muzzle flashes and rifle cracks mixed with the symphony of destruction forcing its way into our pitiful sanctuary.
Climbing up wasn’t difficult once the way was clear. I broke free more insulation and tore the crap out of everything between me and my goal. Getting through the second level flooring was the hard part, but I found a way and was soon in an office above the barber shop. My friends followed, not commenting on the soundness of this plan.
It wouldn’t take long for someone to realize what we had done, but I was hoping the hunter dragons weren’t that smart. If the JFT came after them, that would be a problem.
I rushed to a window and looked down. One of the beasts finally smashed its way inside, but the other didn’t follow. A full squad of JFT Destroyers advanced on the monsters but stopped behind a damaged vehicle.
The new leader of the hunters looked up the street, saw the mechs, then fled with the rest of its pack. JFT troops abandoned their attack on the monsters as chain guns cut loose from down the street and killed three of the horse-sized reptilian creatures.
Blood and chips of bone arced into the air. One of the JFT troopers got caught in the line of fire and went down missing his arm at the shoulder. Medics ran to him. Other soldiers emerged from alleys and buildings but looked nervous.
“What’s happening, Tom?” I asked.
“Besides one of the monsters trying to follow us up your little escape tunnel?” He glanced over to our unconventional entrance and I saw the nose of one of the monsters jumping just high enough to look at us. Wild eyed snarls and keening barks blasted repeatedly from its snout. “I’m not convinced the JFT works for the faceless man.”
“Faceless man?” I asked, though I already suspected who this would be. I’d met the other survivors on the run from Dr. David Scheid, the rogue scientist too morally corrupt to be part of the Reaper Corps. Now it seemed he was riding into town with a small army of deadly mechs and gods knew what else.
“You’ll see,” Tom said. “He wears this ballistic cloak. It’s a lot tougher than it looks and never shows his face. I’m not sure he’s human. The man is either cybernetic or wears some kind of minimalist body armor.”
I watched and waited, wishing one of my friends would shoot the dragon horse trying to burst into our hiding place. It didn’t quite have the vertical leap to make it but wouldn’t quit. Thank the stars it couldn’t fly.
One of the mechs stopped in front of the barbershop, aimed inward, and blew the hunter to pieces. The creature’s death throes shook the room below us. The acrid aroma of its overheated guts filled the scene. Somehow that was more menacing th
an the sight of the dull gray death machines.
The JFT Destroyers rallied farther down the street and surrounded the escape pod they had brought all this way from the coast. Hard eyes watched the newcomers. Hands stayed on weapons. Squads held positions to support each other but not so near one another to be taken out by a grenade or single mech attack.
A man wearing a straight edged cloak emerged from an armored car and walked to the head of the mech formation. Shadows filled his hood. Something about the way he moved made me not want to see the face hidden within that darkness.
Soldiers in black armor followed him. The leader of this group wore a silver helmet, gauntlets, and greaves. Others had red accents according to their rank, or possibly hash marks for how many kills they’d made. I’d seen that before. Union troops were prohibited from defacing their armor with kill counts, but a lot of them did it anyway.
“Those soldiers are the exact same build,” X-37 said. “I have identified ninety-seven indicators they may be your clones, and thirty-two indicators for the mech drivers.”
The flat gray mechs moved aside. I couldn’t look away. The drivers were invisible behind reflective visors, but I recognized the way they stood even in the bulky gear—cocky as hell. It was like watching myself in a mirror. These were the augmented Halek Cain clones forever imprisoned in their war machines—and they moved aside for Scheid’s personal soldiers, who were also HC clones.
No wonder the civilian populace had decided to un-ass the area.
Scheid wore a cloak that hung too straight, as though it was heavy. I couldn’t see his face even if I could feel his malice.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.
A JFT man with the look of a sergeant stepped forward. I didn’t know their rank structure, but I knew a frontline supervisor when I saw one. This group had lost their commander at some point, and this guy stepped up. “That’s me. Squad Leader Ryan Daner.”
The hooded man looked around. I held my breath. His gaze stopped on the rubble that had trapped me for two days. The next place he turned his eyes was on the barbershop.
“Analysis suggests that this individual may be using advanced optics or possess a keen sense of deduction,” X-37 said. “Discovery is imminent.”
