Promethean Files 1: The New Prometheus

by Andrew Dobell

  With each punch, though, Myasma looked like she was getting more and more annoyed, and after about five more hits she wound her arm back, as if ready to deliver another punch but paused as her arm suddenly split apart with panels on her skin levering open along faint seams. Her hand and wrist folded back and away, revealing a ring of six deadly looking barrels that slid forward, clicking into place.

  Frankie didn’t wait, though, she twisted her pinned arms and bucked her body to try and pull a hand free. Finally, she released her right hand from Myasma’s grip as the Agent brought her gun arm forward, the ring of barrels on the Mini-Gun already spinning up.

  Frankie lunged for it and caught the barrels in her right hand as it suddenly fired with a staccato roar that would deafen an organic human.

  Myasma pushed desperately against Frankie’s strength, her gun chewing up the floor next to Frankie’s left arm as the spinning barrels ripped the skin from her right palm. She could feel the barrels heating up as warning indicators flashed up in her vision.

  ‘Arragh,’ Frankie hissed in pain and frustration. ‘Why can’t you leave us alone?’

  ‘Leave you alone? You have to be kidding right. The Doctor and his work that means you, are ours. We own you, Frankie,’ she said.

  ‘That’s why you kidnapped Gibson’s family? To get to us, right?’

  ‘See, you’re getting it,’ Myasma said smiling.

  ‘Just let them go, it’s us you want. I’ll come quietly,’ she offered, feeling desperate.

  ‘Not my choice I’m afraid.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Frankie cursed.

  Adjusting her grip, she suddenly caught one of her fingers in the spinning barrels, which ripped it clean off.

  Frankie yelped and flinched, losing grip on the gun for a second letting Myasma move it across Frankie’s left arm, the stream of bullets cutting it off in an explosion of sparks and cybernetic body parts.

  ‘Aaagh,’ Frankie yelled.

  ‘Haha, I’ll cut you to bits piece by piece if I have too,’ Myasma taunted when suddenly her gun made a strange whine and juddering sound and then went dead, its spinning barrels coming to an abrupt stop.

  Frankie let it go as Myasma lifted it up to inspect it in confusion. Sticking out the side of it, jamming the mechanism, Frankie could clearly see her little finger, or, what was left of it, taunting Myasma.

  ‘Hah,’ Frankie laughed and wasted no time in reaching up, grabbing her attacker by the scruff of the neck and pulling her down. Frankie lifted herself up at the same time, and head butted Myasma on the nose, spraying blood over both their faces.

  This agent clearly wasn’t entirely Cybernetic.

  Myasma pulled away from Frankie on instinct.

  Frankie brought her knee up, catching the Agent in her groin before bringing her foot under the Agent and using her strength and leverage to throw the Agent over her head.

  Frankie rolled over into a crouch over the top of her severed arm and looked at it for half a second. Seeing it there on the floor, no longer attached to her was a curious feeling. Without any real lasting pain the idea that the arm was something other, something not of her grew stronger. Only the lack of a left arm below the shoulder linked it to her really.

  She looked up and saw Myasma coming back to her feet and grab the mess of Frankie’s ruined finger that had jammed her gun and yank it out of the mechanism.

  She threw it to the floor as the barrels sprung to life once more.

  Frankie hadn’t waited, though, she could see what would happen here and charged at Myasma as quickly as she could. She slammed into the Agent’s chest with the stump of her left arm and crushed her against the far wall. Frankie caught the gun arm once more and decided to test the Doc’s claim that limbs with weapons in them were inherently weaker. With Myasma reeling from the collision, Franke shoved her body against the inside elbow of Myasma’s gun arm while also yanking and twisting the gun with her good hand.

  It took a bit of effort, but as she put as much force and leverage into it as she could, joints or pins inside the arm popped and gave way under the strain as Myasma screamed in pain. The gun came out part way, then with another application of force, jerked out some more, and then some more before with a final pull, it came free entirely and Frankie backed off from the Agent, the gun and parts of Myasma’s forearm in her hand.

  Myasma cried in pain and held her ruined right arm to her chest as she bent at the waist and stumbled towards the hole in the wall they had crashed through moments before.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Frankie asked and stepped forward.

  Myasma looked up at her, pain and confusion on her face. Frankie didn’t hesitate, she used the remains of the gun in her hand as a club and hit Myasma with it as hard as she could across the face.

  Myasma stumbled forward and fell through the hole back into the main open plan area of this floor, where a few sporadic gunshots could still be heard.

  Frankie stepped through the hole, following the Agent. Myasma got to her feet and backed away from Frankie towards the row that led to the windows and her friends. Movement to her right caught her eye, and she saw the civilian who had shot at her kneeling, the gun on the floor as he looked at his hands in confusion.

  He looked up at Frankie in horror. ‘What… what have I done?’

  ‘Nothing, don’t worry, you were hacked, but it looks like you’re ok now, someone will be with you shortly,’ she said as she looked back up the row and saw the Agent stumbling along trying to get away.

  Frankie strode after her, quickly catching her as she reached the other formerly hacked civilian. Myasma paused and went for the gun that lay on the floor, picking it up in her left hand in a very clumsy manner, clearly not used to holding it this way.

  Frankie swung the gun barrels and hit Myasma’s left hand. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

  Myasma dropped the gun with a yelp and stumbled back again away from Frankie.

  ‘Where are you going Myasma? Hey? What do you think you’ll find down here?’

  Myasma only glanced back to give Frankie a look that could kill. But Frankie didn’t mind.

  The gunfire out here had basically stopped she realised, so she opened a channel to her friends. ‘Guys, what’s your status? Everyone okay?’

  ‘We’re fine Frankie. The corporate forces have been neutralised, and the hostages freed, we did it.’

  ‘And Gibson? Is he…?’

  ‘Alive and stable, thanks to Georgia, he’ll survive, but he’ll need some prosthetics.’

  Frankie smiled to herself. ‘Good to hear, I’ll be with your shortly,’ she sent through the Neural link before returning her attention back to the stumbling Agent infront of her.

  ‘I take it Psytech is watching this through your Neural link,’ Frankie said to Myasma. ‘So let me make this clear to you Psytech, the Doc and I don’t belong to you, we never will, and if you ever come for us again, we will be ready, and we will shut you down.’

  ‘Hah, you think that’s going to scare them?’ Myasma said.

  ‘No, not really. I’m just fed up with their shit, and I for one won’t stand for it anymore.’

  ‘Your days are numbered Frankie, yours and the Doctors, your friends too. You’re all living on borrowed time. The Corporation won’t let you get away with this, you just signed your own death warrant. You hear me? You’re all living on borrowed time. They will find you, and they will kill you, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘Myasma, dear, do shut up,’ she said, with a quick Neural message to Veronica.

  Myasma’s head suddenly exploded, leaving very little behind as the Agents body dropped to the floor and twitched for a moment.

  Frankie looked down at the lifeless figure and sighed, dropping the remains of Myasma’s arm to the floor. She knew that Myasma was right, the Corporation wouldn’t let this go. They would be after them again and continue to hunt them down until the inevitable happened.

  But until then Frankie swore to do what she could to fight Psytech
and the other Corporations and do what she could to try and bring some justice back to the city.

  She turned and walked over to where she could see her friends and smiled as the Doctor turned to see her. ‘Hey, Doc.’

  ‘Oh boy, what the hell did you do to my beautiful body?’ he said, staring at her missing arm.

  ‘No no, I’m fine, no need to ask how I’m doing, seriously.’

  ‘Where’s the arm, did you leave it somewhere?’

  She doubted the Doctor would ever change and nodded to herself knowing he would probably always care about her cybernetics more than for her wellbeing. ‘It’s over there in a side room,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Be right back,’ he said and strode off.

  She walked around and found Gibson on the floor, conscious but looking terrible. ‘Hey there detective, snap,’ she said, pointing to her arm.

  ‘Hey kiddo, had to get one for yourself did you?’ he joked.

  ‘Well, couldn’t let you have all the glory now could I?’

  ‘Of course not. Looks like I’m going to need that prosthetic now, though.’

  ‘You could get another biological one grown for you.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he sighed.

  Frankie turned to Georgia who crouched nearby. ‘He’s alright?’

  ‘As good as can be expected, but we need to get him out of here and into surgery, I’ve done what I can here,’ Georgia said.

  ‘Of course, let’s get going shall we?’

  1.16

  The lift doors opened and Frankie walked out beside the wheeled stretcher along with Doctor Xenox and Veronica. Gibson held Frankie’s hand as they walked through the lobby of the Police Station. Flashing lights were everywhere, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of the corporations in here, much to her relief.

  A few people they passed knew Gibson and asked how he was, a few others clapped him as a hero.

  Seconds later they reached the two sets of sliding armoured glass doors and walked through them into the plaza outside, the lights of the city beyond still glowing in the dusky early morning air.

  The sun had not risen above the horizon, but to the east, the sky was starting to lighten.

  It would soon be morning and just another day in Neo-London, but who knew what the future would hold. They were being walked down towards some ambulances which had parked in the pedestrianised area and were waiting for them.

  Frankie wasn’t sure this was the best idea. They would be easily found by the Corporations, but she wasn’t sure what the best alternative would be. She figured she could somehow get the ambulance to stop part way through the journey and maybe the Doctor knew of somewhere to take them.

  Up ahead, a large black flyer banked round a nearby building with a roar and with precise skill, it turned and landed before them, between them and the ambulances, the aircraft's side doors yawning open as it touched down and several suited personnel stepped out of it.

  Everyone had stopped, and guns were being pulled and made ready. Frankie felt on edge, but something about this was different. She wasn’t sure what it was, but this did not feel like a corporation affair. This was something else.

  A man in a grey suit and sunglasses walked forward and pulled out an ID that he held up before him.

  ‘I’m Agent Forrester with the Government, coordinator of the A.C.T and I would encourage you to come with us, if only for your own safety if nothing else. Psytech won’t let what you did today, go unpunished.’

  Frankie’s vision scanned the ID automatically and read the data chip inside it, quickly verifying that it was indeed a government issue ID and it did match the person who was holding it. A photo of Agent Forrester’s face appearing in her vision.

  Frankie also did a quick search for the A.C.T but came up with nothing. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve never heard of the A.C.T…’ she said.

  ‘Good, then we’re doing our job right,’ he said, as she noticed that the men who had exited the ship with him were ushering people away from them, leaving only herself, the Doctor, Gibson and Veronica. He looked around him, checking out the area quickly before stepping in closer. ‘Apologies for the secrecy. We’re a newly created covert government task force with little to no oversight that has been set up for one express purpose, to free the government and the people from the stranglehold of the corporations, and we want you to be on that force.’

  Author Note

  Thank you for reading this book, I really appreciate your time in this age of instant gratification.

  This book has been a long time in coming, and actually started off life as a short film that I created at University.

  I have always loved Cyberpunk, with Blade Runner being arguably my favourite film. When I started writing and putting out my Urban Fantasy Series, I had lots of other idea for books or series as well, this being one of them.

  But, it sat on the back burner for a while while I wrote the first four books in my other series, the Magi Saga.

  However, when the trailer for the live action adaption of Ghost in the Shell came out, I know it was time for me to do something Cyberpunk.

  So I went back to my notes on this idea and started to write.

  This is the end result.

  I want this to be an ongoing series and I have lots of ideas about where this will go from here, but nothing is yet set in stone.

  By the way, did any of you get any of the references to other works sprinkled throughout this story?

  I reference one classic work of fiction quite a lot. Did you get it?

  If you enjoyed this book and would be interested in reading more of my work, then please consider joining my mailing list, which you can join by going to my website. In return for signing up, I have a Free Book, a prequel to my Magi Saga books for your kindle.

  Also, once you’re on my Mailing list, I always include a link to the hidden Freebie page on my website, where I have a bunch of other free stuff for you.

  And finally, you could always click like on my Facebook Page as well, where I occasionally post updates and stuff.

  Website: www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/andrewdobellauthor/

  The New

  Prometheus

  The Promethean Files: Book 2

  Coming soon.

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  Thank you for taking the time to read this book. If you enjoyed it, please consider posting a short review on Amazon. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated.

  Thank you.

  Andrew Dobell.

  EPIC CALLING

  The MAGI SAGA

  Amanda discovers a hidden world of Magic and Danger when she is attacked by a 12 foot demon on the streets of New York.

  Epic Calling is the first in an Urban Fantasy Series from Author Andrew Dobell.

  Available on Amazon now.

  Book 1 – Epic Calling

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  Book 3 – Black Dawn

  Book 4 – Infinities Edge

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  Andrew Dobell is a Photographer, Illustrator and Author who lives in Surrey with his wife Louise and 3 children.

  Andrew is hard at work on this and other series.

  You can see more of Andrew’s work at www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

 

 

 
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