by William Cray
Duran watched as a figure-eight shaped cylco drone with twin counter rotating blades moved away from the balcony, climbing up and giving some distance. It's electronic eye focused on the obvious lunatic below it, standing on top of a police cruiser, hovering nine stories above the street and half a kilometer above the cold Reserviour below.
The rise of the car stalled, hovering at the ninth floor. Gathering himself, Duran pulled the slide on the thumb sized flash grenade with his right hand, holding it down until armed. With a low gravity toss, he lobbed the grenade the ten feet up to Daren Rachenko's condo balcony. Duran crouched on the roof, holding his ears and putting his head between his elbows, waiting for the shock. A violent crump slammed the thin air with a blinding flash and the sound of shattering pressure glass shooting off the balcony.
The crack and spray of debris cleared the car. Duran coiled, then leapt into the air. He hung in the low gravity for an instant, the leap propelling him away from the car and towards the balcony, as the railing slipped below him. He was exposed in the air before gravity reasserted its hold and dragged him down. His forward momentum carried him too far and he came down onto the jagged glass along the balcony’s opening. The shattered remains of the balcony’s sliding doors pierced his flesh, cutting a red sash across his unprotected left arm, but the increased adrenalin blocked any pain. He rolled onto the tiled floor across the shattered glass, the Talon snapping into his hand.
Entering the condo's upscale living room through the broken windows he scanned the room in one quick take, gun up and sweeping from side to side, using his forward momentum to transit the room, making his way around an ivory colored couch, now smeared with deep red blood. The fire control system fed him a continuously calculated point of impact point and displayed it on Duran's eye filament as a green cross hair with a dashed line indicating the flight path of the bullet.
Duran moved towards a blood stained door that his data net schematic indicated was the master bedroom. He kicked the door in, barely breaking stride. There, tied up on an large old fashioned canopy sleeper, was the gutted remains of a young blonde woman, split open from neck to pelvis, her organs neatly removed and arranged on the bed. She looked up at the ceiling, her lipless mouth agape with teeth fiercely grinning through. Her face tattooed with bloody punctures, the black vinyl dress sheared down the middle, and opened like flaps to expose her gutted and hollow form. Duran wrote her off on the first glance but the viciousness of the mutilation turned his guts. Duran moved forward, clearing the room.
A muffled scream erupted from an adjacent room. Duran darted towards it, utilizing speed and violence as security. He smashed the door with one enhanced kick, entering the room at a low crouch, gun up.
He felt the presence before he saw it. Sitting in front of Duran was the woman identified as Asa Rachenko. She was tied to a chair, across from a large vanity mirror. Her face was cut in long, flesh pealing gashes. She was covered in blood, but it didn’t seem to be from the vicious cuts mauling her face. She was still alive, her wide eyes were smeared with tears and desperation.
Crouching behind her, a man held a large knife at her throat that glinted off the reflection of light from the adjacent room. The other hand gripped her chin and mouth tightly, tensing as Duran rose up from his crouch.
Daren Rachenko.
Duran raised the Talon and Rachenko jammed the blade against her cheek, flesh pealing away. Asa didn’t cry out, her lips quivered as further damage was inflected on her vulnerable flesh.
Duran felt the presence of the other like a malicious pox. The Intruder was controlling Rachenko, guiding his movements by manipulating his mind. He stood motionless as the knife in his hand slowly inflicted more harm. Then he spoke, looking up at Duran.
“I know you.” He said.
The firing solution was locked in. But the low velocity squash ammunition he had armed would almost certainly kill Asa as the round smashed into Daren Rachenko’s skull and shattered it into fleshy shrapnel. With a thought, a high velocity armor-piercing flechette round revolved into the chamber with a silent click.
Rachenko, reeked of the alien malice. Duran could sense an inner torment from him, but his mind was gone. There was nothing he could do but end it. Duran pulled the trigger.
The ten-millimeter round exited the barrel of the magnetic repulsor at five thousand meters per second, the slide absorbing the recoil. The warhead of the hypersonic round was disabled, but it struck through the eye, its kinetic energy carrying the dense penetrator through his skull and out of the back of his head. Daren Rachenko, seemed to recognize the damage done to him, falling back as motor control was severed from his brain with a glancing slice as the round passed through his cranium. Before his stuttering form struck the floor, a second round crashed into his head, this one the low velocity anti-personnel type, exploding when its miniature guidance computer calculated that it had entered dense tissue of his brain, showering Asa with the remains of her husbands face and skull.
Asa screamed as the Talon clicked, SAFE.
The alien malice was gone from Daren Rachenko. Duran relaxed his mind, feeling for its presence again. He caught the feeling moving away. Below him!
Duran darted out of the room, leaving the bleeding and horrified Asa Rachenko alone with her decapitated husband. Duran would get help to her, but he had to make sure the Intruder was far enough away before help could be sent in. Darting for the condo’s exit, he left the horrific carnage of the Rachenko apartment behind, Asa screaming in anguish.
The Intruder presence was weaker now, moving away. He concentrated, trying to relax the adrenaline rush throbbing through his veins, searching for the presence he felt earlier. He wasn’t sure if the figure he saw move past the two NMCPD cops earlier was his target, but he the feeling was unmistakable.
Duran checked the tactical data net for the positions of the N.M.C.P.D. officers positioned around the building. They were holding position and additional units were arriving every minute. Duran cued the microphone on his vest. “All NMCPD units this is Special Agent Rory Duran, Ministry of Codes and Enforcement. I have assumed tactical control of this situation. All units are to pull back five hundred meters from the building. The hostage situation is clear, but one suspect is still in the building.”
Duran headed out of the condo, startling the four officers at each end of the hall heading towards the innermost exit. Duran continued, “The suspect is male, approximately 5'11 to 6'2 wearing a black redcoat. He is somewhere in the building. If you see someone fitting this description, do not attempt to approach him. Put his location on the data net and notify me on this frequency immediately. Duran out.”
“Agent Duran, this is Captain Delk. On what authority are you assuming command?”
Duran didn’t have for a spat with Delk so he blew him off with as much authority as he could muster over the network, “My authority …this is now an M.C.E. crime scene. Fire lock the building elevators and get a medical team into the Rachenko apartment, but approach from the roof only!”
Duran switched off the com as he darted down to the stairs. Two dumbfounded N.M.C.P.D. officers followed behind him. Duran stood at the top of the stairs, looking down two flights. He leapt over the handrails and down the open column, falling in the two-thirds earth gravity, but still landing with a solid thud, his reinforced muscle structure absorbing the shock of the impact. He felt for the presence again before leaping three more times, each leap sending jolts of pain through his body, but each jump brought him closer to the presence hovering at the edge of his senses. His target had to be using an elevator; he was traversing the floors to street level too fast. Delk and Floss had failed to follow his instructions, Duran thought. If they had shut the damn elevators down, he would have the Intruder trapped.
The data net continued to update the picture of Duran's surroundings as he descended. He watched through the eye filament as the officers started to pull back from the building, but too slowly. Duran reached the bottom floor simultane
ously with the elevator. Ignoring the pain to his knees, Duran sprinted through the reception area lobby towards elevator exit, near the front entrance. Two N.M.C.P.D. officers were displayed on the data net in the condo’s main lobby, ignoring his orders to move. Duran came around the corner, yelling a warning for them to get out, but as he rushed towards them he felt the veil of domination surround them.
Duran slipped against the wall, narrowing his profile as a storm of shock flechettes ricocheted off the wall, chipping paint flakes with tiny electrical pops as he dodged the incoming fire, sliding back behind the corner. A new sensation yanked him to the floor as one of the tiny non-lethal flechettes discharged its shock coil into his flesh and jolted him like a million needlefly stings. Duran rolled on the floor in pain as the electricity surged through him. Reaching for needle sharp barbs he jerked the stinger out of his impaled left tricep and regained his motor control as the flechette continued to spark and pop on the floor.
Duran could hear the two cops working their way around the corner, boots clicking on the floor as they came around. Duran switched modes on his Mag-gun, the tiny red crosshair on his eye filament switching to concentric circles. More of the tiny darts continued to flail the far wall, causing the hall to reverberate with the snap of electrical pops. Duran stood, feeling the alien influence growing stronger. He edged the nose of his weapon around the corner, allowing the micro-imager mounted under its barrel to give him a view of the approaching gunmen. He centered the aiming circle on one of the approaching officers and he pulled the trigger once to load the target into the guidance system. He prepared to fire.
As he was about to pull the trigger a second time to send the guided projectile into its uniformed target, the pings of crashing flechettes on the far wall stopped. The Intruder influence faded into an echo.
Duran risked another look around the corner. The two dominated officers were now on the floor, lying limp, their weapons on the ground next to them.
Kicking their auto-flechette guns away as he passed, Duran rushed down the hall. He pursued the fleeting feeling, turning left around a series of archways in the broad foyer of the apartments entrance.
Nothing. He could feel nothing from the Intruder. Turning, Duran hurried back into the buildings interior, heading down a corridor leading to the condos private parking garage. He ignored tactical movement and rushed ahead, checking in all directions as he rushed through.
Nothing. He could sense nothing. The Intruder had slipped into the many adjoining passages and tunnels that led into the trench walls like an anthill. He was gone.
Duran cursed to himself, hitting the transmit switch on his vest, “Officers down, front entrance. Did anyone see the suspect?”
Rapid-fire chatter burst over the network, but no sightings.
“Rahhhhhhh!” Duran punched the wall with his left hand, crushing the dryplaz interior. His hand rocked with pain as the impact broke skin and compressed bone. He winced as the pain bit through the adrenaline in an angry blitz. Duran cursed again, then depressed the transmit switch. “This is Agent Duran, the building is clear, send in the medical teams A.S.A.P.”
Duran holstered the Talon and walked back down the corridor to the two officers who had assaulted him earlier, kneeling beside them, checking them as medical technicians rushed in, followed by M-Teks carrying triage equipment.
Duran stood back and gave the Teks room to work, already aware of the futility of their efforts. Delk and the tactical team burst through the doors, followed by a squadron of P-Teks that fanned out in the corridor. Delk leaned over his two men, down on the floor, their blank stares and bodies convulsing as technicians attempted to revive them. A moment later Delk stood, his anger pulsing through the veins standing out on his skull. He whirled on Duran with violence in his eyes.
“What the fuck was the idea of that Duran?” he yelled.
Duran listened absently as Delk ranted against him, quoting all the jurisdictional rules that Duran broke by assuming command of the scene without authority, the stupid unsupported entry into the Rachenko condominium and the litany of reasons why M.C.E. was interfering in an N.M.C.P.D. crime scene …The tirade went on for minutes as Duran stood over the two Med-Teks working to revive the comatose officers. He kneeled down as the Med-Teks worked in vain. He looked into their blank faces, their minds so overwhelmed by the Intruder that their most basic functions shut down. Hundreds of thousands had died in the same manner on Earth the day the Intruders left. Duran had seen the aftermath and wondered why he wasn’t like the two men below him now, staring into complete oblivion after succumbing to the Intruder control.
Delk finally subsided, sensing Duran had blanked him out which enraged him further. As Duran stood, the paramedics looked up at him and the steaming Delk, shaking their heads as M-Teks loaded the limp forms onto gurneys.
Delk stared at Duran, “What the fuck just happened here?”
Duran’s anger started to rise. “I told your men to pull back. If they had, they would still be alive.”
Delk pointed to the far wall, “Who were they firing at?”
“Me.” Duran said, as he turned to head to the elevator.
Delk barked at him again. “You?” As Duran turned, Delk screamed, “I want some goddamned answers Agent Duran.”
Duran walked into the elevator closing his eyes as the doors closed, the adrenaline rush subsiding. He felt the pain of his cut left triceps for the first time, blood still flowing as the nanites in his body made their way to the wound, coagulating the blood and starting minor tissue repairs. Duran disconnected the info-board relay from his central processor and the myriad of images displayed on his eye filament faded. He could still see the blank faces of the two comatose officers downstairs.
They would still be alive if I hadn’t rushed in.
There was nothing to be done about Rachenko and the girl, but the two cops downstairs were dead because he had rushed in and pursued his opponent. Duran looked at his shredded and bloody arm, removing a readipack from his vest and applying it to the open wound on his arm. The wound stung, but was pitifully small, almost embarrassing. The readipack, congealed the blood and started stitching the openings with microfibers. A local anesthetic soothed the sting.
His frontal attack had failed miserably, although Asa Rachenko was probably alive because of it. Saving her was incidental and secondary to his objective. There would be casualties in this, and most would be innocents, caught in something they didn’t understand. Blind pursuit would not work in this case. The closer he got to the Intruder the more innocents he would clasp in his influence and throw at him. Duran would have to shred and smash his way through them, unable in anyway to help those clutched by the Intruder, leaving a scorched path of innocents in his wake. If that was the price to succeed then he would do it, but he had to be smarter. What he needed was an advantage.
Again everything points to Celeste. Could she lead him to the Intruder, or was she part of his plan? What was Celeste? She was human, but why didn’t the Intruder mind control leave her dead or comatose? Was she even under his control? She called herself, different. What was she? Did she have her own will or was she a pawn in this contest? If she had her own will, could she be turned against the Intruder?
The elevator opened and Duran walked onto the tenth floor, a group of medical personnel were taking a hysterical Asa Rachenko to the roof for evacuation on a gurney. M-Teks sedated her with an I.V. She was terribly disfigured. Bandages covered her face, pink ribbons of blood slipped through the dressings edges in rivulets. Her eyes were rivers of sobs and anguish.
As Duran entered the Rachenko apartment he saw the Med-Teks in the master bedroom, staring at the ruined body of the young girl, her blonde hair streaked with red, eyes open and flushed with the scowl of lipless teeth glaring back. Investigators and P-Teks imaged the gruesome scene. Duran bypassed them and walked straight onto the balcony through the broken plaz windows. He stood overlooking the edge, down to the street below and the chasm beyond
. Emergency vehicles and arriving lifters moved about the buildings exterior, flashing bright strobes in the shadows of the cave, powerful beams streaking the exterior.
Duran watched as the two N.M.C.P.D. officers were loaded into an emergency lifter waiting below on the street level. A moment later the craft climbed off the street and dove into the darkness of the cave. Duran looked up as a cyclo surveillance drone hovered near him, staring back with a cluster of eyes.
Lieutenant Floss came up behind him, his shoes crunching on the broken plaz, shattered by Duran’s assault, handing him his redcoat. “Not a good start to the day.”
The sun, so far away, had just begun to shed light into the reflectors lining the trench rim, reflecting the dim glow down into the chasm. Duran looked up through the darkness.
He took the redcoat, searching an inside pocket until he found the pack of cigarettes he had purchased in the hotel lobby as he waited for Floss earlier in the morning. He pulled the freshness tab and removed one cigarette, taping it twice on the packs striker. The cigarette flared to life and Duran took a first acrid drag, letting the corruption fill his lungs. “I've had worse … but not like this.”
A spotlight flashed to the balcony, blinding Duran. He covered his eyes in irritation. The light and cold drove Duran back into the carnage inside. Officers and crime scene technicians moved around inside with methodical slowness, taking in the night of horrors, fingering tiny bits that could be clues to the rampage, sifting through personal belongings lying about on tables and countertops as imagers ran in silence. Both men walked into the living room as the investigation team arrived, followed by a brooding Delk. Three officers stooped over the beheaded body of Daren Rachenko, crumpled against the blood and brain scattered wall. Delk looked at the wreck, repulsed for the second time in less than two days. He looked at Duran.
