‘Sorry, I’ll stop now.’
She spotted Cole and Veronica behind Gibson and smiled. ‘Hi, guys,’ she sent through the link.
‘Well done on getting Dion out of here. Do you think they suspect anything?’ Cole asked as he turned to look at her. ‘Ooh, that looks nasty, are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. So, um, no, they didn’t about five minutes or so ago. I heard Hellion talking, and she mentioned they still had one of our group in custody, but this was with Dion hiding right beside me,’ she explained. ‘So she had no idea back then.’
‘Let’s hope that’s still the case,’ Gibson said.
‘It would give us a nice little advantage and a way to surprise them,’ Veronica agreed.
The wall beside Frankie exploded outwards into the corridor as something massive came hurtling through it.
Frankie jumped back as an arm reached out of the falling debris and dust cloud to sweep across the hallway, ramming into Frankie and throwing her back into the wall. Red icons flashed in her vision as she felt the metal ram crunch into her torso. She didn’t really feel pain in the same way anymore, but she could certainly feel the force with which she was struck. She was airborne for a second before hitting the wall and smashing her head against it. Her vision glitched momentarily as she fought to stay on her feet while the mech stepped more fully into the hallway.
Frankie didn’t hesitate. She lifted her gun and fired right away, picking a spot on the mech’s nearest arm and concentrating her fire on that one spot. She used her cyberbrain to track it and was able to keep her gunfire focused on the joint she had picked out, making it spark and actually begin to glow as it heated up. It took the mech pilot a moment to realise that Frankie was still up and shooting at him, which gave her precious seconds while her teammates engaged the mech as well.
As the mech turned back to face her, its right arm suddenly dropped and went limp as her gunfire broke through the armoured plates and into the mech’s internals.
The mech lunged for her again, it's working arm shooting out and grabbing her around her neck and shoulders before slamming her into the wall. The attack felt brutal. The size and power of this monstrosity was well beyond anything she could achieve, and she felt somewhat powerless against it.
With her rifle still in her right hand, Frankie did her best to aim at the mech and squeezed the trigger, causing the gun to buck in her hand as she attempted to hit the huge robot. But her efforts seemed ineffectual and the mech squeezed harder.
Warning icons flashed up in her vision as her cyberbrain reported stress fractures appearing throughout her upper body from the force of the grip.
Dropping her rifle, Frankie grabbed its arm and claws and tried desperately to pull on them and to at least loosen them, but her efforts seemed in vain.
A few more seconds of this and her carbon nanorod endoskeleton would fracture and give way.
3.16
An ear-splitting gunshot sounded in the hallway, and the mech’s arm jerked sideways. The boom was swiftly followed by another, and then another that ripped two more great holes in the mech’s arm at the elbow joint, with a final fourth hit severing it completely.
Frankie dropped to the floor, her legs buckling beneath her as the warning icons in her vision flickered and disappeared, only to be replaced by updates as her nanobots started to repair the damage done to her. The mech’s arm and its powerful claws dropped off of her now that it was severed from its power source. But even without an arm, the mech was still deadly.
Frankie scrambled for and picked up her gun from where she had dropped it onto the floor and opened fire on the mechanical monster. Her three teammates and a couple of the gang members were already spraying the mech with high-powered gunfire, ripping it’s armour off as it struggled to shield itself from the assault.
Frankie went to shift her position to get into a more comfortable stance, only for her foot to slip on something on the floor. She looked down to see the arm that had gripped her, and a huge glob of grease that was oozing out of the destroyed bearings on the joint.
Frankie immediately slung her rifle onto her back and grabbed a couple of grenades from her belt. They were small, tube-shaped, but powerful. Frankie smeared them in grease, giving them a copious coating of the stuff, before arming the first one and throwing it at the mech. She wasted no time in arming the second one with a click of her thumb and throwing that one as well.
Both grenades hit and stuck to the mech’s torso, and two seconds later, still under fire from the people around her, they exploded one after the other in a pair of powerful concussive explosions that flattened the mech, practically cutting it in two.
The giant robot hit the floor and juddered, apparently trying to move and pick itself up, but not quite making it.
Frankie got to her feet, grabbing her rifle.
‘You did that?’ Gibson asked of her.
‘Sticky bombs,’ she said. ‘I saw it in an old movie once, I think,’ she said without turning around.
‘Good thinking,’ Gibson said.
Frankie walked up to the side of the battle mech, her rifle up and pointing at the thing as she approached it. Its armour had been ripped open, revealing its cockpit and the horror within.
The upper torso of a man was in there, hooked up to the mech by hundreds of cables and wires. He was missing everything below the rib cage, and both arms were severed at different points, but he was still holding onto life, with his chest still rising and falling and some of the cables still pumping to the rhythm of his heart rate. He twisted his bald head, making the hundreds of wires attached to it shift as he looked at her with his one good eye, his other one having been replaced by a cybernetic augmentation with a glowing red light on it.
Frankie just looked at him, at the life he was leading, hooked up to the inside of this robot for the rest of his life, and felt only pity for him. He could have had a complete cybernetic replacement body, like hers, but for some reason, he chose this. Or maybe it wasn’t a choice? Maybe this had been forced upon him.
‘Kill me,’ he said, his voice little more than a rough croak. It was clearly a strain for him to talk. ‘Please, kill me. Now,’ he begged again, desperation clearly evident in his tone.
Frankie brought her gun up to her eye, sighted along it, and squeezed the trigger. A fraction of a second later, the man was dead, and the armature he was within fell still.
Gibson walked up next to her. ‘Oh, wow, that’s messed up,’ he said, looking down at the man in the machine. ‘Is this one of Hellion’s group?’
‘I believe so. My guess is that this is Bull, one of the team I heard talk of recently,’ she said.
‘The name fits,’ Gibson said.
‘It does,’ Frankie agreed, as she turned away from the carnage within the mech. She saw Veronica nearby with her huge sniper rifle. It was her high-powered shots that had severed the arm that had been holding her. ‘Thanks for the save,’ Frankie said to her.
‘Anytime,’ Veronica said with a friendly smile.
‘What’s the plan now we’ve taken out this freak?’ Cole asked.
‘Now, we find Hellion and end this,’ Frankie said, walking up the corridor, looking at the bodies on the floor. As she walked, she spotted one of the gang members walking through the carnage up ahead, checking them. She saw him fire at one of them, apparently finding an alive one and killing him. ‘Hey,’ Frankie called out to him.
The man looked up; a slightly bewildered and surprised look on his face. ‘Huh? Oh, no need to thank me,’ he said. ‘Just a few more to check.’
‘Stop shooting them, I need to ask one of them some questions,’ she said.
‘Oh, well, there’s only a few left in here, no idea if any of them are alive,’ the gang member said.
‘Well, let’s have a look, shall we?’ she answered him and checked the remaining few, finding only one of them that was still desperately clinging to life, his eyes rolling about as he slowly bled out.
&nbs
p; ‘Where’s Hellion?’ Frankie asked him.
The man mouthed something, but Frankie wasn’t sure it was anything intelligible. Frowning, she quickly scanned to see if there was a wireless access port on him, meaning he’d have a cyberbrain she could hack, and sure enough, she found one.
Frankie instructed her brain to connect to it and immediately sent in a powerful cracking program, which broke down his faltering system’s firewall in seconds.
Frankie then ran another piece of software, which she instructed to search for the location of Hellion up here on the eighteenth floor, and moments later, she was able to update her own map with the site of Hellion’s base.
It was a quick and dirty hack inside the mind of a dying man, something which, even though it was needed, she couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable about.
Withdrawing from the man’s mind, she stood up and pointed her gun at his head. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a slight smile and a look of relief that washed over his face in the moments before she pulled the trigger.
He might have been on the wrong side of this fight, but no one deserved to die in prolonged agony.
‘You got it?’ the gang member next to her asked.
‘I got it,’ she said. She turned to Gibson and her team. ‘All right, I know where she is. It’s not far from here; let’s move out,’ she said and led the way out of the hallway.
Frankie spotted Razor amongst the gang members with her team. Was she Spider’s partner or girlfriend? She wasn’t sure of the relationship between them, but she seemed to be directing some of the gang members as they started to walk.
‘I have some coordinates for Spider, can you send them to him for me?’ she asked. She felt a little uncomfortable about this woman with her cybernetic legs, leather jacket, and long black hair that had been shaved at the sides. She had been the one to shoot her and force her on the path to getting this cybernetic body. It was clear, though, that Razor either didn’t remember this or didn’t care. Frankie wasn’t sure which, but for the sake of the mission, she wanted to try and put that issue to one side for the moment and deal with the current situation first.
Razor nodded. ‘Sure, babe,’ she said and opened up a link between them. Frankie sent over the map with their destination marked on it.
‘There you go. Can you do that now?’ Frankie asked. She didn’t feel the need to be overly polite to these guys and left off the “please”.
‘One moment,’ Razor said and concentrated as she walked. Frankie focused forward, for the time being, waiting for Razor to say it had gone and trying to forget who it was she was speaking to.
She couldn’t help it, though. Every minute she spent around Razor, every time she looked at her, she was taken back to that raid on the camp and the mocking expression on her face as she laughed and shot her. Frankie could almost feel the gut punch of the gunshot as the bullets ripped into her belly.
It was a horrific thing to experience and something that would be with her for the rest of her life, and working with her like this, as if nothing had ever happened between them, was taking its toll on her mind.
‘He’s got it. In fact, he’s closer than we are, so he’ll beat us there,’ Razor said to her.
‘Thanks,’ Frankie said, glancing up at Razor, who was taller than she was, before looking down again. But, it was too much, and she felt she just had to say something.
‘Razor… you shot me,’ she said.
‘What? When? I didn’t shoot in your direction,’ she said, no doubt referring back to the fight that had just happened.
‘Heh,’ Frankie smiled. ‘I don’t mean today.’
‘Oh? What? What you talking about?’
‘It was a few months back, in one of the camps. In fact, in the one where you found Jude. I was with him, and you shot me, probably because I was in the way of you getting his legs,’ Frankie said, trying to make it sound as none accusatory as possible.
‘I did?’ Razor asked.
‘You did,’ Frankie said. ‘I mean, it’s fine, I’m okay now, but I just wanted to tell you, you know?’
‘Well, I’ve shot a lot of people. If it makes you feel better, it won’t have been anything personal; it’s just business,’ she said.
‘Oh, I understand. I had guessed that you might not remember. It’s nothing special to you, but it was somewhat life defining to me,’ Frankie explained.
‘What do you want? Do you want an apology? Is that it? You want me to say I’m sorry…?’ Razor’s voice was getting harsher as they spoke, she probably didn’t appreciate Frankie accusing her like this.
‘No, no,’ Frankie cut in. ‘I just… I don’t know. I had to say something. I had to get if off my chest, I guess.’
‘You feel better now, then?’ Razor asked, her voice sounding incredulous.
‘I suppose,’ Frankie answered.
‘Urgh, don’t be getting all soppy on me, babe. You’re alive, aren’t ya? You have your new and improved body; what do you have to complain about?’
‘I know, you’re right,’ Frankie agreed, wondering what it really was she had expected from confronting Razor like that. She’d succeeded in pissing her off, but that was about it. She knew she couldn’t push it with Razor. That much was evident. She’d just end up shooting at her again, and Frankie couldn’t afford the split their alliance right now. She still needed them.
‘I know I’m right,’ Razor said.
‘Let’s go kick some corporate butt,’ Frankie said, changing the subject.
‘Frankie, have you called in back up yet?’ Gibson asked through their link.
‘Aaah, crap, no,’ she answered back. ‘I got distracted. Hold on.’ Frankie opened up a new link to William Forrester, the A.C.T. director, and waited for him to acknowledge her call.
‘Frankie. Where have you been? Why have your comms been down?’ he asked once the call clicked through.
‘We were ambushed, sir, by Psytech hired mercenaries. We could do with some backup,’ she said.
‘You’re still in the Bethnal support building?’
‘Correct, upper floors,’ she answered him.
‘I’ll scramble a team to you now,’ he said. ‘But, you’ll have to hold out until they arrive. Is everyone okay?’
‘Copy that. No problem. Yes, we’re all okay, but we’re a little busy. See you in a bit,’ she said, and focused back on the job at hand, but left the link open.
A few corridors later, they started to hear gunfire up ahead and the sounds of fighting. Spider and his team were already in there.
‘Let’s go,’ Frankie said and started to run. Everyone followed close on Frankie’s heels, and soon they were in a long and wide corridor that opened up into a large open plan room up ahead. There were some dead bodies in here, and she saw a couple of gang members in the corridor fighting off a trio of operators, but getting beaten. Frankie opened fire as she ran, dropping one of the operators and quickly turning the tide of that fight.
Lots more gunfire and shouting was coming from the main room, though, as they hopped over the bodies of operators and Jackers, seeing gang members in the room hiding behind machinery and materials, firing on the operators.
Frankie slowed the group behind her down as they approached the entrance to the room, urging caution as she looked inside. There were partitions and great piles of materials dotted here and there, concealing whole sections of the room, but giving excellent cover for people to hide behind.
‘Move in, slowly. Keep low and stay behind cover. Go,’ she said and headed inside herself, moving to the right and toward the Jackers over there, further into the room.
She ran up to a section of cover in a crouch and ducked down beside two Jackers, who were firing sporadically at an operator who had dug himself in.
‘Guys,’ she said as she reached them.
‘Oh, shit…’ one of them said in surprise. ‘Oh, it’s you… What’s your name again?’ he asked.
‘Frankie,’ she said. ‘You got
a problem here?’ she asked, indicating the operator who had them pinned down.
‘He’s a little fucker, this one. Dug in like a tick, he is,’ the closest Jacker said to her. His bald head was covered in tattoos.
‘Our mates are round the other side of this wall,’ said the other, pointing to the partition they were next to. ‘But this dick cut us off from them.’ This second guy had a large glowing red lens where his left eye should have been and a cybernetic left arm.
‘Okay, let’s see what we can do, then,’ she said, moving to the right side and peering around. ‘One of you pop your head out, draw his fire,’ she said.
‘What? Fuck off, are you crazy?’ Red Eye said.
‘Sure,’ said Head Tattoo, and moved, leaning out from their cover to shoot at the operator.
‘What? Don’t be stupid; you’ll get yourself killed,’ yelled Red Eye.
Frankie ignored the remarks and focussed on the operator.
Suddenly she spotted movement and then a burst of gunfire from the operator. Frankie adjusted her aim and fired at the shadow, which yelled in pain and dropped out of sight.
‘Moving up,’ Frankie said and stepped out from their hiding spot, dashing over to where the operator had been. She ran around the side of the pile of materials and found a single man laid out on the floor seconds away from death, but fully incapacitated.
The clang of metal against metal around the other side of the partition wall behind her attracted her attention. Turning around, she peeked around the edge of the wall to see Hellion standing amidst three Jackers, fending them off with her sword, cutting one of them down as she watched.
‘Crap,’ she hissed and took aim as Hellion spun between the two remaining men, making getting a clean hit on her nearly impossible. Hellion spun again and cut down the second man, opening up a gap in the fight.
Frankie fired, but Hellion somehow knew it was coming and whipped her sword about, slapping the bullets from the air with barely a look before she decapitated the last Jacker. She turned and flicked her heeled foot onto something on the ground, and suddenly a pistol that had been on the floor flicked up in the air. Hellion caught it deftly, plucking it from the air with ease and fired at Frankie.
The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3) Page 13
