by Piers Platt
Rath's Gambit
By Piers Platt
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1
Rath shivered on the back of the hoverbike, the crisp wind of the mid-altitude slipstream cutting through his clothes.
Should have picked a warmer coat.
The elation of his successful escape was rapidly wearing off, the adrenaline leeching out of him, to be replaced with the familiar bone-deep weariness from his years of nightmare-riddled insomnia.
Stay sharp – you’re not nearly in the clear yet.
On reflex, he accessed his neural interface, and called up the hemobot menu, intending to give himself a boost of caffeine. But the interface threw him an error message, and he punched the hoverbike’s console in frustration.
Can’t access the few hemobots you have left, stupid. And you gotta figure out a way to get them out of you before the Group realizes you’re still alive.
A police cruiser flashed past him headed in the opposite direction, sirens wailing. Rath’s heart skipped a beat, then he realized they were probably heading for the safehouse he had just left.
Where they will find two dead Group operatives … that I killed. If they can find anything at all in the fire that I started. Every cop on the planet was already out to get me after I killed a senator and kidnapped a couple cops … better stop giving them more evidence to find.
On instinct, he dropped altitude, changing course and heading out of the city.
A little warmer down here, too.
He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm.
Okay, let’s do mission planning. First priority: get the hemobots out.
He wasn’t sure why the Group hadn’t activated them yet – his data connection had been interrupted, but it had recently come back on, so he had to assume that Headquarters had reconnected with his cybernetic systems.
Which means I’m still streaming my audio and visual feeds to them, and they can track my location as well. So why haven’t they activated my hemobots and disabled me, like they did before? Regardless, second priority is cutting off that data feed – doubtless they have other contractors en route to recapture me. If the cops don’t find me, they definitely will.
His original plan had been to head straight for the spaceport and hop a flight off-planet; faster-than-light travel interrupted his data connection to Headquarters, so he had planned to use the flight time to figure out a way to permanently disable his data feed.
That’s not happening until I patch up my leg – can’t walk through security bleeding like this. And the spaceports will be on lock-down for a few more hours thanks to me. Was the senator’s assassination only this morning? God, it feels like it was years ago. A flight would give me time to heal up.
He winced and flexed his shoulder, where the gunshot wound from the mission at Suspensys was still healing. The wounds in his legs ached as well, given that most of his hemobots had been extracted and the rest were inactive. He realized they must have been suppressing the pain pretty heavily – it had been years since he had felt pain this raw.
At least I got my Forge back. And I’ve got one auto-pistol with a spare magazine, my fighting knife … and about twelve thousand dollars on my phone. Enough for a flight or two, but not much else. I need to find a hospital – no, the Interstellar Police will be looking for me there, they know I’m wounded. A clinic, maybe?
Rath’s heads-up display flickered, and then a message popped up:
“Oh, shit,” Rath said. He felt a gut-wrenching pain, and his muscles tensed, seizing up involuntarily. The bike screeched to a halt, then something in its protocols must have decided Rath was unfit to continue operating it – the autopilot kicked on, and Rath saw it was descending, headed for a landing in one of the suburbs below. The seizure was debilitating, but Rath found he still had some motor control – with only a small percentage of his original hemobots still in his bloodstream, the Group’s remote disabling procedure was not as effective as it had been before. With an effort, he unslung the Forge and opened it on his lap, sending it a command to build an EMP grenade. He watched, groaning in pain, as the nanomachines whirred to life and the base of the grenade began to appear. The bike landed a minute later and Rath fell off involuntarily, but he kept hold of the backpack, gasping as the seconds wound down and the grenade was finally completed.
When it was done, he grabbed the device and fumbled with the trigger for a second. As soon as the grenade activated, the pain subsided, and he was able to push himself into a seated position, leaning against the bike and breathing heavily. In his heads-up display, the grenade’s timer was already ticking off the seconds, counting down from three minutes. Rath swore, sending his Forge a request to build another grenade.
Each grenade lasts three minutes … but the Forge needs about three minutes to build a grenade. Even if I keep it building more grenades nonstop, I’m probably going to have gaps in coverage. They’re going to be able to cripple me every few minutes, and track where I am.
Rath swore quietly and stood up.
At some point they may just decide to kill me, too – tell the hemobots to stop trying to disable me and just make a lethal toxin.
The timer on the grenade ran out, and Rath gritted his teeth in anticipation. The wave of pain rolled in almost immediately after the grenade died.
Gotta find somewhere.
Rath could barely hold himself upright against the bike.
Somewhere I can just let them disable me for a while, and stockpile some grenades. And come up with a plan.
A woman walking her dog strolled past Rath, and seeing him nearly doubled over in pain, stopped to ask if he was okay. Rath managed to nod and wave to her, grimacing. She gave him a worried look and continued on.
Get out of the street.
He pulled up an aerial map of the city, zooming in on his location. He was in a large residential area, houses set amid tidy yards. There was a school several blocks away – that might afford him some places to hide. But it would probably be patrolled by a night guard, and he was in no shape to deal with that. He caught sight of a large garden shed behind the house across the street.
That will have to do.
His next grenade was ready, so Rath triggered it, straightening and taking a ragged breath. He grabbed his Forge and the keys to the bike and stepped into the street, staggering for a second as his head swam. When the dizziness passed, he dashed across the street, hopping a low stone wall into the house’s yard. The shed was not locked, to his relief – he found it half full of children’s toys and gardening tools. Rath cleared a small space in the back corner, propped himself up facing the door with his auto-pistol on his lap, and set the Forge next to him. He sent it an order for fifty grenades, then took a deep, shuddering breath.
Get ready for a couple hours of fun.
* * *
The sun had set by the time Rath was finished. Two and a half hours of agony had left his body exhausted and sore, but he had fifty grenades in two heavy bandoliers slung under his jacket, and a plan. He popped the first grenade, stuffing it in his cargo pocket, then left the shed, jogging back across the lawn to his hoverbike. He needed five more grenades to get to his destination, a cybernetics research lab several towns away. He parked in the building’s lot, but saw to his chagrin that most of the lights in the building were off.
Can I get just one break today?
The last grenade he had set off had
nearly expired, so Rath set another one off, tossing the used grenade into the bushes in front of his bike.
I’m leaving a trail like Hansel and Gretel with the goddamn breadcrumbs.
A movement caught his eye, and Rath saw one of the lights in the building come on: someone was still there. He increased magnification on his eye implants.
Please let it be a researcher, and not a janitor.
Through the window, he saw someone standing in front of a vending machine.
Someone wearing a white lab coat. Thank god.
Rath dismounted from the bike and walked to the front door, pausing to hit the buzzer. The seconds continued to tick away on his grenade timer.
Come on, come on, come on.
“Yes?” the voice came from a speaker in the wall.
“Uh, I found a key card out front on the pavement, it looks like it belongs to someone who works here?” Rath said. “Just trying to return it.”
“Oh, okay. Hang on, I’ll be right there.”
The door slid open a short while later, and Rath saw a slight young man in his late twenties. He held out his hand for the badge. “I’ll take it, thanks.”
“You work here?” Rath asked, pretending to fish in his pocket for the missing badge.
“I’m a researcher here, yes. I’m a student of Dr. Lepore’s.”
“Sorry,” Rath said. “Can’t remember which pocket. So you do cybernetic implants? Hemobots and stuff?”
“Mostly limb replacement,” the man said. “We’re testing nerve interface solutions.”
Rath pulled the auto-pistol out of his waistband. “Well, I hope that means you can help me.”
The man’s eyes went wide.
“Holophone, now,” Rath ordered. The man started to hand Rath his wallet, too, but Rath waved him off. “No, just the phone. Is anyone else here?”
“N-no,” the man said.
“Any implants of your own? Data connection?” The research student shook his head. “Good. What’s your name?”
“Stam,” he managed. “Please don’t shoot me.”
“I’m not going to shoot you, you just need to listen carefully and we’ll get through this fine, Stam. I’ve got some hemobots, and you’re going to take them out for me.”
“You have hemobots, and you want them out of you?” Stam asked.
“Let’s just say they’ve got a mind of their own,” Rath told him. Another wave of pain gripped him – he had let the timer run out without realizing it. “Shit.” Rath drew another grenade and triggered it, then straightened up. “Let’s head inside – you can put your hands down.”
“I don’t know much about hemobots …,” Stam said, leading the way to lab. “I’m just a doctoral student, and my specialty is in nerves – connecting living nerves to transplants, so patients can feel what their new limb feels, kind of thing.”
“Are you saying you can’t help me?”
Stam eyed Rath’s pistol. “Uh, no … I’m saying, I-I guess I’ll figure it out. We’ve got an old dialysis machine in storage. This way.”
The storage room turned out to be a repurposed classroom, with long rows of laboratory tables equipped with sinks and Bunsen burners leading up to a presentation board. Spare equipment was stacked along the sides of the room, with stools up-ended on top of the tables. Stam rummaged in a cabinet for a minute, and finally pulled out a suitcase-sized contraption.
“Here it is,” he told Rath. He wheeled it to the front of the classroom, and plugged it in, uncoiling several plastic tubes, and then unpacking a medical kit. “Why don’t you take a seat in the chair?”
Rath did so. Stam finished attaching the tubes, and then capped each with a needle. “These need to go into your arms. Well, your veins, technically. But I’m not a doctor, I don’t, uh … the nurses here usually handle the intravenous stuff, you know?”
Rath set his pistol on his lap and rolled up each sleeve, then took the needles from the researcher. “I can do it. I was trained in administering an IV.”
“To yourself?” Stam asked.
“The less you know about me, the better,” Rath replied.
“Sure. Sorry.” Stam coughed, and then busied himself with the dialysis machine.
Rath slid the needle into his right arm first, holding it in place while he tore off a strip of medical tape with his teeth. By the time he had finished his left arm, the researcher was flipping through a paper manual for the dialysis machine. He turned two switches, and the machine hummed to life.
“Well, it’s on,” Stam said. Blood began to flow out of Rath’s left arm, through the tube, and into the machine. “But I’m not sure how to tell it to filter out hemobots. Let me see ….” he turned to a new section in the pamphlet, frowning.
Rath triggered another grenade, then handed Stam his phone. “Look it up online. Just keep the holograms where I can see what you’re doing.”
It took two more grenades, but at last they had it – Stam made the adjustments to the machine, and then gave his phone back to Rath, before taking a seat on a stool.
“How long did it say?” Rath asked.
“About two hours to scrub all of your bloodstream,” Stam told him.
“Fuck,” Rath observed. He opened his Forge and started it on a new set of grenades. “Okay, might as well start on your second assignment, then. Somebody else has access to my neural interface – I’m streaming them a live audio and visual feed. They can see what I do in my onboard computer, all of that. How do I cut them off?”
“Interrupt the connection?” Stam asked.
“No, shut it down. Permanently.”
“But you still want access to all the systems yourself?” Stam asked.
“Ideally, yes. I’d prefer not to go blind and deaf.”
“Sure, right.” Stam tried a weak smile. “Well, that I actually have some experience with – my first research project was with neural interfaces. I’ll have to print out the instructions for your specific model, but it should be an easy fix. We just need to access the hardware – the neural interface chip has to be unlocked. There’s usually a microscopic switch that you flip. It reboots the interface, and that cuts the connection.”
“For good? It doesn’t just boot back up with the same connection?”
“No, it deletes the connection history – if you want to get the connection back, you’d have to set it up as a brand new external connection, start from scratch. But you’ll lose anything you have stored in memory, so if you’ve got any important files or videos you want saved, anything you want to remember …?”
Rath chuckled. “No – I remember enough already. Where’s the chip?”
“Typically at the base of your neck,” Stam said, standing to lean over Rath. “Let me see – yeah, you have a slight scar there – that’s where they put it. We’ve got to cut it open, reach in with a micro-tool, flip the right switch, and then sew you up again.”
“Let’s get started,” Rath told him.
“I wouldn’t,” Stam said. “It’s not a big incision, but it might interfere with the dialysis – I don’t know, the hemobots might cluster there at the site of the cut, to try to heal it, instead of flowing out through the dialysis tubes like normal.”
“Are you sure?” Rath asked.
“No,” Stam admitted. “But ….”
“Okay,” Rath relented. “Get your tools ready. I want to cut in as soon as the dialysis is over.”
* * *
The three men met outside of baggage claim, though none of them traveled with any checked bags – each wore just a single backpack. Silently, they made their way through the spaceport arrivals hall to the rental car agency, found their car waiting in the assigned spot, and climbed in. As the driver pulled out and accelerated up into the traffic pattern, the man in the front passenger seat dialed a phone number on the car’s communication system.
“Identify,” a robotic voice ordered.
The man checked his holophone, and read out a four-digit alpha-numeric code
. He heard a series of electronic clicks, and then the robotic voice returned. “Identity confirmed. The line is encrypted, you may proceed.”
“700 reporting in,” he replied.
“With 883,” the driver added.
“And 804,” the man in the rear seat said.
“Rendez-vous complete, request mission update,” 700 said.
“Stand by,” the robot replied.
A new voice came on the line. “This is Group Headquarters. Mission parameters remain unchanged. The target is using EMP grenades to disrupt our connection, but we are in intermittent contact. His latest location is a cybernetics research facility on the outskirts of the city – sending you the address and building blueprints now. Last transmission was nearly an hour ago. Footage suggests he has kidnapped an employee; our assumption is that he plans to force that employee to remove his remaining hemobots and shut down his connection to Group HQ.”
“That sounds likely,” 700 told the voice. “Do you have ID on the employee, and a list of other personnel that work at the facility?”
“Stand by. Yes, I can have that to you in a few minutes. Other questions?”
700 eyed the other two contractors, who shook their heads. “No.”
“Very well. Recommend you deploy drones in advance, to track the target if he escapes from the facility. 700 has operational command – we’ll continue to monitor and support. HQ out.”
The evening rush hour was nearly over, the skies clearing as commuters finished their trips home. As a result, the three men made good time, landing in the area near the target in just over ten minutes. They parked several blocks away, and the contractor in the backseat rolled down his window, allowing three micro-drones to fly out, heading for the research lab. 700 pulled up their feed on the viewscreen mounted in the car’s console, watching as they split up and began circling the building.
“Just one car and the hoverbike in the parking lot,” 883 commented. “They’re probably alone.”
“Most of the windows are shielded,” 804 added. “Can’t see in to determine which room they’re in.”
