Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  “I wouldn’t try… not with that kind of hardware. Suggestion only goes so far.” She looked at Evan. “Hey kiddo. Feel anything bad?”

  He looked at her, tilted his head, and returned to his assignment. “Nope.”

  “I’m two minutes out, Captain.”

  “All right. I’ll have an A3HV waiting for you in the garage by the time you drop little man at school.”

  Evan saluted him without looking up from his work.

  “Yes, sir.” Kirsten stared past her HUD, the numbers, lines, and icons, a meaningless blur. Her sudden dose of luck in the arrest and interrogation of the men who killed Charles Prentice all but guaranteed an immediate portion of bad. She glanced at Evan. I hope you’re right, kiddo.

  xpecting a long day, Kirsten decided to trust the advice Nicole gave her a few weeks ago. In the locker room, she stripped down to her underwear before donning a mesh stim suit and Psi Armor. It felt odd putting on the armor with so little cloth between her skin and the rubbery material connecting the protective plates, but her friend did have a point. The armor was a full suit of essentially the same material (plus cushioning). Putting the Division 0 ‘blacks’ back on would be like she wore two uniforms. Any more than an hour or two in the armor plus the uniform would be dreadful.

  With the equivalent of five stimpaks strapped to her body, she enjoyed a degree of confidence; the system would trigger them even if she lost consciousness. She re-checked her arm guards, gloves, and leg plates. Satisfied, and feeling invulnerable, she hurried down to the garage where Nicole, Morelli, Nila, Cortez, and Forrester waited by an enormous, gloss-black hover van with sinister lime green searchlights.

  The A3HV resembled a MedVan, only larger and armored. Wheels, tiny by comparison to the vehicle, remained fixed behind thick shrouds while in flight, unlike the retracting ground tires of patrol craft. It looked imposing, but it traded protection for mobility. An A3V couldn’t fly, but it could drive through buildings.

  Captain Eze emerged from the A3HV’s side door and climbed a ladder to the ground level. “Good morning everyone. Has anyone not read the briefing?”

  Kirsten looked among her friends, and Morelli. None of them reacted. Dorian appeared next to her patrol craft. He walked over and stood at her side.

  “Good,” said Eze. “Division 5 is already en route to the location, but they’re on the ground. You will fly into a disavowed sector, proceed straight to the designated waypoint, and attempt to detain the primary suspect with minimal loss of life. It’s important to bring him in alive. Lieutenant, you are cleared to use suggestion to encourage compliance with lawful detention. The only reason I’m going along with this is you have advantages Division 5 does not. Suspects with major cybernetic enhancements lose their natural defenses against psionic abilities.”

  Kirsten nodded. “Understood, sir.”

  “How much time do we have?” asked Cortez.

  Captain Eze raised his datapad. “Five will be on site in approximately sixty-one minutes. Factoring in your flight time, you’ll have about a half hour of quiet time with Mardrake.”

  A bust appeared in hologram over Eze’s datapad of a pale-faced man with wrinkles on both cheeks, one purple cybernetic eye and one blue living one. Thin black hair hung to his shoulders, split by a central part. His face had an overall squarish shape, and the teeth-baring grimace of a smile on his face hinted at a man who enjoyed inflicting pain.

  “This is the primary suspect. Ian Mardrake, presumed age fifty-nine. We have no record of his arrival in the UCF, though we were able to get some information via Division 9’s connections with the United Kingdom. He fell off their radar four years ago, at which point the assumption is he set up operations here.”

  “All due respect, Captain,” said Nila. “This suspect’s dossier had no mention whatsoever of psionics. Why are we involved?”

  “That,” said Captain Eze, “is a question for the Lieutenant. We have minimal intelligence on his facility or what defenses you may encounter. Indications are that he has at least four augmented individuals providing ‘security,’ none of whom are of the type inclined to respect law enforcement. Time’s running short, people.”

  Kirsten jogged to the rear ramp door of the A3HV. The interior seemed too cramped for the massive size of the vehicle, though armor, electronics, and ion engines made for thick walls. A giant of a man in a green tank top and blue-camo pants leaned into the narrow doorway leading from the back to the driver’s compartment. He had a large Division 6 tattoo on his shoulder.

  “Morning, Lieutenant.” His salute could’ve been mistaken for shooing a gnat from his eyebrow. “Guess none of your Tac boys have the balls to fly into the black. You psi-ops people ready for the ride of your life?”

  “You’re about eleven years late, son.” Forrester chuckled as he flopped on one of the benches running along the inside walls. “This lunchbox ain’t got nothin’ on a DS2 goin’ down Lucifer’s throat.”

  The driver blinked. “You slalomed Io?”

  “Ganymede too. That bastard made Io feel like a nice Sunday drive. Whoever got the bright idea to put the damn base in the middle of that canyon oughta be shot.” Forrester shook his head. “God damned fourteen years in before they realized I had ‘the touch.’”

  “Touch?” The Division 6 sergeant hit a switch to raise the ramp once Morelli took a seat.

  “Technokinesis.” Forrester wiggled his fingers. “Probably the only reason my ass managed to pull off forty seven landings on Gany without clipping a wing. Got sent over here when they figured out I ‘had the psionic.’”

  “Heh. All right then, maybe you’re not all cube dwellers.”

  The big man focused his attention forward. The A3HV rose off the ground slow enough not to feel much inertia. Kirsten held her helmet in her lap and leaned her head against the cushion behind her.

  “Okay, spill it, K. Why are we going after a ripper doc?” asked Nila.

  “I was wonderin’ that too.” Cortez smiled.

  “Because I need a living suspect to turn witness against the man who ordered a murder. He’s pretty high up the food chain. If Div 5 gets there first, the biggest piece of Mardrake left is going to resemble a potato.”

  “When was the last time you saw a potato?” asked Dorian. “The synthesized growth ones are bigger than Evan before they’re cut up.”

  “Something doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure this hop is a good idea.” Morelli fidgeted.

  Kirsten smiled at him. “That’s just because Dorian’s making faces at you.”

  “I am not.” Dorian feigned offense.

  Morelli broke out in a sweat.

  “Tom. Hold it together please. I know you two didn’t see eye to eye when he was alive, but try not to let your superstition get the better of you.”

  He gazed up at the dim blue-grey LED bars recessed behind an armored mesh overhead.

  Nila kept tapping her fingers. Nicole wore a face like a six-year-old about to be grounded. Forrester slumped a little to the left, seeming about ready to fall asleep.

  “Okay guys, I know you’re all… well mostly all nervous,” said Kirsten.

  Forrester smiled but left his eyes closed.

  “We’re expecting augs and at least one full-conversion cyborg.”

  Nila shivered.

  “Oh, crap.” Nicole stared at her.

  “Fuck.” Morelli checked his laser rifle. “We’re going to need something bigger than these E641s.”

  “Not true, Tom.” Dorian clucked his tongue. “That thing’ll go right through a Class 4 cyborg chassis, and I highly doubt Mardrake has those kind of parts. Granted, little holes, so you’ll actually have to hit the right spot. I know you’ve never been big on marksmanship.”

  Forrester laughed, and Morelli scowled before going pale.

  Kirsten gawked at Dorian.

  “Every helmet has speakers.” He winked.

  Kirsten checked the charge indicator on her borrowed E641. She’d only used one twice, bot
h times at the training course. While it was one step up from her E-90 pistol, most of its energy went to greater range, some three thousand meters (with appropriate optics to see a target) as opposed to the two hundred or so for the pistol. That, of course, and the rifle was capable of rapid fire. Twenty pulses per second. “Don’t worry about the cyborg. If it’s got a living brain, I’ll mind blast it. If it’s an AI, Dorian will turn it off. I’m less worried about cyborgs than normal people.”

  “Heh. Don’t say that too loud or we’ll wind up doin’ Five’s job,” muttered Cortez.

  Being reminded he shared a small chamber with a mind blast-rated psionic seemed to make Morelli even more nervous. Rumor had it a cyborg reduced to a ‘brain in a jar’ had almost no ability to resist it, as the body’s natural protective auras and psychic energy fields were absent.

  The A3HV wobbled, jostling them.

  “Two minutes. We’re about to cross into the black zone. Gonna come in high, skimming rooftops. Orient on target, and do a hundred ten story drop. You may experience a slight period of weightlessness.” The big guy up front held out a thumbs up in the doorway.

  “Slight period of weightlessness.” Forrester buckled his harness. “That means you’ll be French-kissing the roof.”

  Everyone snapped in and put their helmets on. Amber HUD elements flickered to life before Kirsten’s eyes, and the sound of her breathing grew loud in the enclosed space around her head. The faces of Nila, Forrester, and Nicole glowed yellow out of their visors, behind a thin layer of fog. Nicole still looked terrified.

  “Killjoy,” said the driver. He laughed.

  Forrester smiled.

  “Wren,” said Eze over comm. “Division 5 is reporting twenty-eight minutes out. Looks like traffic was light. If you encounter more resistance than expected, wait for them. I recognize what you’re trying to do, Kirsten… but this case is not worth your lives.”

  Kirsten closed her eyes. Evan didn’t seem scared. I’ll make the right call. “Understood, sir.”

  “One minute,” said the driver.

  Are you sure this is a good idea? Nicole’s voice entered her head.

  Kirsten looked at her friend. What’s wrong, Nikki? I’ve never seen you afraid of anything before.

  You know how some people are like phobic of psionics? I’m the same way with cyborgs. Saw this stupid vid when I was like eight… I shouldn’t have watched it. It was for adults, but this cyborg killer… Nicole shivered. I still have nightmares sometimes about that. Metal skeleton tore a woman’s spine out.

  Kirsten cringed, but grinned. Bet that girl wasn’t a badass telekinetic with an attitude.

  “Nope.” Nicole laughed.

  The driver flashed another thumbs up. “Ten seconds.” The interior lights went out, and came back on red.

  Forrester looked up at the roof. “Damn, what is this, a spec ops drop?”

  Gravity inverted, slamming Kirsten upward into her harness. The rifle almost shot out of her grip, but she clamped it to her chest. Morelli and Nila screamed. Nicole’s scream changed to cheering after a second. Forrester looked bored. Kirsten grunted, clenching her jaw. After about four seconds (though it felt like twenty), her ass hit the bench. The sudden switch in gravity twice in rapid succession made her regret eating breakfast. She tried to resist the urge to vomit by fearing what throwing up inside an enclosed helmet would be like, though that pushed her closer to erupting.

  The ramp door deployed so fast she thought it had blown off. Forrester jumped up first and jogged down, yelling “Go, go, go” over the comm.

  Kirsten shook off a mild sense of panic and hurried out into a scene that could’ve been a set from a post-nuclear war disaster holo. The street they’d landed on occupied a canyon of smashed buildings, most of which had no walls on the sides facing the road. Bare floors dangled in chunks from rebar; wires, pipes, and snapped cables swayed like whiskers.

  Standard procedure put the nose of the A3HV toward the target, so as not to create a situation where the crew wound up as fish in a barrel to incoming fire. Four panels on the van’s exterior opened outward and angled to touch the road, providing cover barricades. Kirsten rushed around the left side and took a position behind the rear flange, which came up to her chest, and aimed her rifle over it. Nila ran past Kirsten and tucked in behind the forward one. She also sighted her rifle over the two-inch thick armor slab.

  Mismatched hunks of plastisteel plates covered the windows of a long-ago abandoned commercial property in front of them. From the general design of the ground floor, it looked much like a Nippy Nom convenience store. The improvised protection bore as much graffiti as it did dents from bullets. Two large gouges surrounded by scorch marks suggested someone in the area had shoulder-launched missiles. Vacant windows covered the bulk of the remaining sixty some odd stories, some with tattered curtains billowing outward.

  Three men in long coats, one with two metal arms, popped up inside, concealed up to the waist by the reinforced windowsill. One pointed at the van and shouted as the man next to him sprinted deeper into the building.

  “Attention,” said the driver over a loudspeaker. “This is the National Police Force. Place your weapons on the ground and walk outside in a single-file line, hands in the air.”

  The thug with metal arms raised a rifle.

  Nicole grunted, and the weapon lurched, but didn’t break out of his grip. Her attempt to disarm him with telekinesis redirected his shot into the ground.

  Morelli, Nila, and Forrester opened fire with rapid pulses. Blue-violet laser streaks left finger-width holes ringed by glowing orange in the metal plates grafted to the building. The man fell, landing out of sight behind the plastisteel wall, screaming in agony.

  Kirsten aimed at the remaining man, a clear picture of his chest appeared in zoom courtesy of her HUD, a floating-point aim dot glowing red at its center. Don’t do it. Don’t.

  When he raised a ballistic rifle, she triggered twice, putting two laser streaks center mass. The dead body fell out of his ghost, who remained standing there attempting to fire a nonexistent rifle at her.

  “Incoming,” yelled Forrester. “Two tank bots and a class 3 ‘borg with a god damned Nano sword.”

  Kirsten shifted her aim a few degrees to the right. A six-foot tall humanoid shape made entirely of dull unpainted plastisteel stomped down the main central aisle of the old store. Like something out of the Monwyn fantasy, he carried a giant clear-bladed greatsword. The sight of it froze the blood in her veins. A Nano knife in her tiny arm cut a one-inch thick steel pipe like hard ice cream. A sword that size in the hands of a cyborg could take big pieces out of the A3HV, and shred Psi Armor without even slowing down. He could probably cut all four of them in half in one swing if they stood close enough.

  On either side of the cyborg, a pair of tracked bots, each about the size of footlockers, rolled forward. Both had miniguns mounted on struts, flanked by a pair of two-pack missile launchers loaded with 60mm ‘soda can’ rockets.

  “Now it’s a party,” yelled the Division 6 driver. He stormed out of the back of the A3HV carrying an enormous machinegun with a backpack for an ammo supply. He didn’t bother putting it on, dropping the pack on the ramp before grabbing the squad-support weapon in two hands.

  Kirsten reached out with telepathy, confirming the metal figure had a living brain. “The ‘borg is alive. I got him. Dorian, zap the bots before they fire those missiles.”

  “On it.” Dorian blurred forward.

  Drop the sword and stand down. I don’t want to kill you, but I will melt your brain if I have to.

  The telepathic message made the cyborg stop. He tilted his head at Kirsten. Yellow-glowing cybernetic eyes whirred wider. All four of the bots’ missile launch pods angled toward her.

  Kirsten snarled. Her friends were in danger because she had to go after the senator. Her eyes flared with white light as a barrage of rapid, random sensory input erupted from her brain at the speed of thought. She focused on the presence of
a sentient mind within the metal skull, and tapped her resolve to protect her squad. Mental energy streamed out, feeling like warm snot flowing around her eyeballs, peeling away from the inside of her skull.

  “Ngggh!” roared the cyborg. The enormous sword fell from his grasp. His body twitched and convulsed in a rapid jittery rotation to the left. Metal hands slapped and pawed at his face for three seconds before he collapsed over backwards, lost in an endless repetition of shouting a word like “nyarp” interspersed with groans and high-pitched trilling noises. A panel on his thigh opened, spitting out a giant pistol; claws sprouted and retracted from his forearms over and over, and his right leg locked immobile at the knee.

  Hair-thin threads of blue lightning snapped from both tracked bots, lapping at Dorian’s outstretched arms.

  One missile fired from the bot on the far right, though it veered almost straight up the second it cleared the windows, leaving a trail of white smoke fifteen stories up to an orange fireball. The boom of its detonation reached ground level seconds after the flash.

  “Fuck.” Nicole gasped. “That was a missile.”

  “Nice catch,” said Forrester.

  “Hey, that was me.” Cortez grumbled.

  “That was both of us,” said Nicole.

  Kirsten pressed the heel of her armored glove into her helmet, failing to soothe a sudden, intense headache as though a metal spike had pierced her brain. Ngh. Mind blast…

  Four more men came from a back hallway, armed with rifles and copious amounts of cyberware. The Division 6 driver unloaded with his machinegun, peppering the interior of the store with 8mm rounds. Fist-sized holes appeared in the metal walls, the high-velocity projectiles shredding steel, pulverizing concrete, and causing machinery inside to explode in showers of sparks. Three feet of dark azure muzzle flare erupted from the front end of the weapon, glimmering off nearby metal. Despite her helmet, the gunfire punished Kirsten’s eardrums and pounded on the air in her lungs. With any luck, the local wildlife would be more afraid of a weapon that loud than interested in stealing it.

  Mardrake’s thugs dove for cover amid a rainfall of shredded steel, as the machinegun chewed apart shelving and interior walls. Despite the driver’s immense size, firing a continuous burst forced him to inch backward.