by Jak Koke
“Physically, I feel great. Mentally . . .”
“Something bothering you?”
“Bad dreams,” he said. “But you didn’t call me this early just to hear about my nightmares, did you?”
“No. I just got word that Hamilton Asylum has been breached.”
“Is that where they took Burnout’s body?”
“Yes.”
“He’s escaped?”
“No, but someone just broke in. I think they might be after him.” Jane’s icon smiled. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks,” Ryan said. “I did want to talk to Lethe.” Lethe was a powerful spirit who had alternately helped and hindered Ryan’s efforts concerning the Dragon Heart. But ultimately, Ryan believed the spirit wanted the same thing he did: to deliver the Heart to Thayla.
Lethe has seen Thayla. He’s spoken with her, and despite past differences, he might be willing to help.
Lethe was trapped inside Burnout, who by all accounts should be dead. The cyberzombie had not only taken a high-caliber sniper round through the chest, but he had been caught in the middle of the arboretum during the oxygen explosion.
Lethe may have had a hand in keeping Burnout from stepping beyond the pale, but whatever the case, the cyberzombie had not succumbed to the final sleep. He had slipped into a comatose state, but all his vital signs were normal.
If Burnout does escape, or is taken away, Lethe goes with him. I can’t let that happen.
“Jane, I’m going there right now. Where’s Dhin?”
“I took the liberty of waking him; he’s enroute to you. Flying the Draco Foundation’s new Hughes Airstar.”
Ryan smiled. “Remind me to kiss you next time I see you in the flesh. What's his ETA?”
“Two minutes.”
“Perfect,” Ryan said. “I’ll be prepped and ready to roll.”
He punched the Disconnect and turned to lift the Dragon Heart from the velvet pillow on which it rested. The Heart was large, the size of a child’s head and shaped more like a real four-chambered heart than an idealized valentine. Made from pure orichalcum, the color of bronze-tinted gold, and enchanted by some unknown magic, the Dragon Heart was the most powerful object Ryan had ever encountered.
Mana seemed to flow through it like a lens, channeled from astral space and focused wherever the Heart’s wielder wished. Ryan had used its magic to accentuate and increase his own abilities, but he would no longer try to keep it for himself, no matter how much its power enticed him. It had another destiny.
Ryan placed the Dragon Heart into a pouch that he attached to a broad sash tied around his waist. When it was secure, he dug through the closet for his running gear. He found his flexible Kevlar Ill-slatted light body armor, which he pulled over his nightsuit.
He gathered up his carry bag and moved out. angling toward the helipad behind the house. He moved quickly out into the hall and down past the library. He walked along in silence, looking to avoid encounters with security agents or mansion personnel.
He didn’t want anyone to notice his departure. Not right away. If someone saw him, Nadja would find out. Ryan didn’t know if Nadja was awake or not, but even though he desperately wanted to see her, he couldn’t take the time to tell her goodbye. Hopefully, he’d be back before she realized he was gone.
Nadja Daviar was an elven woman of considerable power and beauty. She had been Dunkelzahn’s translator and aide and was now the head of the Draco Foundation. She was also nominated to become the new vice president of the United Canadian and American States.
Ryan was in love with her.
By the time he had made his way through the mansion and out the rear entrance to the helicopter pad, he could hear the deep thwup thwup of the Hughes Airstar approaching. The craft descended in a rush of wind and bone-shaking thunder.
Ryan saw Dhin through the foreshield, a huge grin on the big ork’s tusked face. As soon as the helo’s runners touched tarmac, Ryan ran over it and climbed in next to Dhin. “We’re on a tight schedule,” he yelled over the roar of the rotors.
Dhin turned and nodded. “Got the whole scan from Jane,” he said, simultaneously lifting the chopper into the air. “We should make Hamilton in three minutes.”
“Good.”
Dhin sat in the pilot’s seat. He wore a loose-fitting black jumpsuit and a crash helmet over his bony skull. A thin fiber-optic cable plugged into the datajack behind his right ear. The cable’s other end disappeared into the control console in front of him.
Ryan noticed the glaze of sleep in Dhin’s bloodshot eyes. He’d obviously been awakened from a deep snooze. Dhin saw Ryan’s look and grinned again, a good-natured gesture that showed friendship and genuine affection. “It’s great to see you up and about, Bossman. I thought you were crisped in that explosion last night.”
Ryan clasped the ork’s shoulder. “I got lucky,” he said. “Lethe intervened somehow and pushed me into the water spray at the last second.”
As he talked, Ryan strapped on the Ingram smartgun and its holster, then checked to make sure the clip was full. It held armor-piercing rounds. Nice. He tucked the extra clips into their slots in the holster strap.
Ryan looked over at Dhin. “I think the spirit’s back on our side. He trusts me now, and I could really use his help. I don’t want anyone making off with him.”
Dhin nodded. “Almost there,” he said. “Jane has us cleared with their security, but it looks like the helipad has been taken by the runners. Also, there’re two birds in the air. All Aztechnology Aguilar-EX military-grade hoop-fraggers. Gonna have to do some serious maneuvering to get past them, or to avoid being blown out of the sky if they decide to target us.”
Ryan slid on his bandoleer of narcotic throwing darts and his grenade pistol with six-round clip. The dart needles were hollow and filled with a tiny amount of a rare drug called xenoketamine—an anesthetic that acted on the brain in less than a heartbeat, causing loss of consciousness followed by wild hallucinations.
“Sounds like our old amigo, General Dentado,” Ryan said. “He must have finally tracked down the cyberzombie.” Ryan and Dhin had come across Dentado a few days earlier at the Assets, Incorporated compound in Hells Canyon.
Ryan donned a portable Phillips Tacticom headset, tucking the tiny earphone into his right ear and affixing the pinhead microphone to his throat with mimetic tape. Outside, the first rays of dawn filtered through the blood-brown haze of the city, lightening the blue glass corporate arcologies and the duracrete government high-rises.
The helo pivoted under the whirling blades, angling across the polluted Potomac and toward Hamilton Asylum. Ryan could see the federal facility now with his magically enhanced vision—a squat eight-story hospital of dingy concrete and opaque white windows covered with steel bars and electrified mesh, sitting on the edge of the downtown cluster. Five-meter cyclone fencing topped with spools of monowire encircled the high-security structure.
A military helicopter perched on the helipad like a giant wasp, poised to sting. Ryan could tell from its posture and the speed of its blades that it was ready to go wheels up at any moment. Ryan scanned the surrounding airspace for the other two birds Dhin had mentioned, but he could see only one—hovering a half-klick off to the south.
Jane-in-the-box came on over the helo’s internal speakers. “According to the sec-cam images, the runners have taken Burnout. I lost them a minute ago, though, when they went invisible.”
“Thanks, Jane,” he said. “They’ll probably head for the . . .”
Suddenly, the helo lifted off the pad, taking to the air in a rush. “We’re too late,” he said into his mike. “They’re out already.” Ryan turned to Dhin. “Can you get me close?”
The ork shrugged. “Can’t promise anything,” he said. “But I’ll work my miracles, if you work yours.”
Just then a third helicopter emerged from behind the asylum, looming up over the edge of the structure like an angry hornet. Facing them.
“Dre
k!” Dhin yelled.
The floor tilted beneath Ryan as Dhin banked hard left, just as a barrage of bullets sprayed the space where they had been moments before. Ryan watched as the enemy chopper swiveled toward them, approaching rapidly.
“Frag me, Bossman. This bird wasn’t made for air-to-air combat. We’ve got a recessed minigun, but nothing harder. No missiles, no cannons.”
“Get that minigun online, pronto.”
Dhin nodded. “It’s ready to spit lead,” he said. “Not that it’ll do us much good against these chummers.”
Ryan saw a missile launch from the Aguilar, spitting fire as it flashed toward them. “You got any antimissile defenses?”
Dhin just shook his head. “Null chance. This was the only bird available, and nobody told me we were going into a combat zone.”
“Take us up and out over the water,” Ryan said. “As far away from any roads and buildings as you can.”
Dhin flashed him a look of disbelief. “We’re about to be blown to bits, and you’re thinking of civilian casualties, Bossman?”
They banked right and climbed as Ryan touched the Dragon Heart with his power. He focused his telekinetic strike through the Heart, building mana as the missile rocketed up toward them. When it was nearly on them, he released his power in a massive push.
He felt the magic wave hit the missile with amazing force, backed by the Dragon Heart. The missile stopped dead for a nanosecond, then exploded. Shrapnel and fire shook the air, rocking the helo in the wake of the blast behind them.
Dhin looked at Ryan. “Miss Daviar’s going to have my eyeballs for dinner if I scratch her helo,” he said.
“Quicksilver, are you all right?” Jane’s voice. “Please copy, Quicksilver.”
Ryan spoke into his mike. “Shaken, Jane. But not stirred.” Ryan smiled. “At least not yet.”
The sound of Jane’s sigh reached Ryan’s ears. “There are UCAS fighter jets coming down on your location. I’ve been told that the military has taken charge of the situation. You are to back off.”
“We’ll be out of here in less than five,” Ryan said. Then he turned to Dhin. “Take us as close as you can without provoking another missile attack.”
Dhin glanced over at him, shaking his big warty head.
“You’re the boss, though sometimes I wonder why.”
Ryan laughed. “I haven’t gotten us killed yet.”
“That’s right,” Dhin said. “Yet. ”
“Just get us as close as you can.”
Dhin nodded, then angled the helo forward and kicked in the jets, pressing Ryan into his seat. In response to the oncoming UCAS fighters, the three Azzie choppers had turned and made for the Confederate American States border. Ryan couldn’t see the fighters, but he knew the Azzies would have picked them up on radar by now.
Again Ryan focused his mana through the Dragon Heart. He didn’t know if he’d be able to pull off what he was attempting, but it was worth a try. He shifted his awareness into astral space, using the power of the Heart to amplify his astral senses.
Material objects blurred, the dull gray of the physical images giving way to the colored landscape of the astral. Life force gave off light in the astral plane—auras that were unique to each creature and object.
The astral sky was a flat violet color here as Ryan searched out the auras of those inside the flying machines ahead. He couldn’t move his spirit from his body, but his sight was keen, and the Dragon Heart made it even sharper, magnifying his senses.
Yet, even with the enhanced mana from the Heart, the aura of Burnout and Lethe was at the limit of Ryan’s perception. It was so faint at this distance, he could barely see it through the side window of one of the retreating helicopters.
Lethe, Ryan projected his thoughts toward the aura. Lethe, respond if you can hear me.
“Ryan Mercury, is that you?” came the response. “We are trapped.”
I am behind you, Lethe. I am trying to stop your captors.
“I am not important,” Lethe said. “You must not waste your effort. You must find a way to take the Dragon Heart across to the metaplanes and give it to Thayla. She needs it. I thought you were committed to this.”
I am committed. It is now my singular goal. But, Lethe, I’d like you to help me.
“You don’t need my help,” Lethe said. “I do not know how to get the Heart across the barrier and into the metaplanes. Besides, I am trapped inside this body now. Intertwined with this spirit. You must accomplish this mission on your own.”
A fighter jet slashed past on Ryan’s left, a red and black streak against the neutral gray sky of the astral.
“Ryan Mercury,” Lethe continued, “you are everything you need. I am sorry that—”
A missile exploded close, shaking the air around the helo, and Dhin vectored away from it. A string of expletives came from Dhin.
Ryan pulled his senses back into the physical and looked over at the ork rigger. “What was that?”
“One of the UCAS jets fired a missile that nearly blew us out of the sky,” Dhin said. “Fragging amateurs.”
“Not exactly,” Jane’s voice rumbled through the speakers. “That was a warning shot, Ryan. A deal has been made between the Azzies and UCAS. You’d better back off.”
Another explosion rocked the helo, rattling Ryan’s teeth with its force. “They paid someone off? I hope it wasn’t that easy.”
Jane’s voice was filled with frustration. “Nobody was paid off. The Azzies claimed that Burnout was the property of Aztechnology Corporation, that he had been stolen by a renegade faction that the UCAS was aiding and abetting by holding it in a Federal facility. The corporation promised serious retaliatory measures if they weren’t allowed to take their ‘experimental cybernetic organism’ back.”
Dhin’s voice was harsh. “Excuse my fragging Sperethiel, but what a load of smelly dragon drek!”
“Dhin,” Ryan said, “take us back to the mansion. Jane, see what you can do to track where they take Burnout.”
“You got it,” came Jane’s response as Dhin gladly throttled back on the jets and banked right.
Ryan focused on the astral again, trying to use the Dragon Heart to regain contact. Lethe. . . Lethe, if you can hear me . . . thank you. Thank you for saving my life.
No response came; the enemy chopper was too far.
Frag, Ryan thought. He’d been hoping to get some help from Lethe.
Ever since the spirit had saved his life, throwing him clear of the explosion, Ryan thought he would need Lethe. In the echoing recesses of his mind, he knew that without the spirit trapped inside Burnout, his mission would be a lot harder.
Perhaps impossible.
2
Nadja Daviar stood on the balcony of the Watergate Hotel’s penthouse suite, feeling the morning heat rise up to greet her like a cloying damp cloth. Washington FDC’s downtown cluster promised to be a sauna again today. Since last night’s explosion at Dunkelzahn’s Georgetown mansion, Nadja had decided to use the suite for her Draco Foundation business.
Too many security guards and police and construction workers at the house. She couldn’t work there.
Yet she knew there was more to it than work. Nadja had come down to the site of Dunkelzahn’s assassination at least once a day for the last two weeks since the explosion. She had come to remember, to hold that moment in her mind until it became as much a part of her as her own heart.
She had taken out a long-term lease on the penthouse suite.
Nadja wore a smartly cut business suit, a deep green color, almost black. Her frame was elven—slender and just over two meters tall, with square shoulders and long legs and arms. Her raven-black hair shone in the sunlight as she looked down at Virginia Avenue below. At the prismatic cloud hovering over the gaping hole in the street where Dunkelzahn had been murdered.
Rainbow colors shimmered and danced in the cloud, what her mages called a manastorm. Around the edge of the crater stood masses of people, pressing up close
to the hurricane fencing that prevented them from being pulled into the manastorm. Several people had disappeared into the phenomenon already.
Her experts had told her that it was a puncture—a tear in the fabric that separated physical space and the metaplanes, left by the destruction of Dunkelzahn’s spirit.
Nadja took a slow breath as images of the explosion rushed into her mind. She remembered inauguration night, two weeks ago. The party in this very hotel, downstairs in the Grand Ballroom. She had danced with Dunkelzahn, a splendid, perfect moment as they tangoed across the floor, adored by the crowd.
The onlookers were admiring their new president—Dunkelzahn, in his human form, a young man with beautiful proportions like Michelangelo’s David—flawless olive skin and curly brown hair. Only his eyes betrayed his supernatural origin—metallic blue and silver with pupils that were unnaturally black, like pinpoint windows into a deep void.
He moved with grace and poise on the parquet floor, leading Nadja, the woman who was known as his translator. His voice. She was his aide and campaign manager. His friend and closest ally.
Their dance entranced the crowd, watching in awe and satisfaction. They were the center of the universe for a sublime moment. A breath-holding instant of pure beauty.
Their dance was interrupted by Carla Brooks, the tall black security chief, who informed Dunkelzahn of a crucial phone call. Urgent.
Dunkelzahn had quickly made his excuses and retired to an anteroom to take the call. It wasn’t until later that Nadja learned that it had been Ryan Mercury on the line.
When Dunkelzahn returned to the dance floor, Nadja had felt his thoughts touch her. I must take my leave of you, Nadjaruska. The dragon’s thoughts passed over her like a static charge, and she understood them, not as words, but as an extension of her conscious mind.
That had been the last time she’d heard the dragon’s thoughts in her head, and she missed them. It felt like a part of her had died with Dunkelzahn, like a bit of her spirit had fled.
Now, Nadja gripped the railing and became entranced by the hypnotic patterns in the manastorm below. Images of the explosion flashed through her mind, like a battering of hailstones. Dunkelzahn’s limousine pulling out from the hotel’s circular drive. The explosion ripping through the night, vaporizing the limo in an instantaneous fiery blast as Nadja stood on the curb and spoke with Carla Brooks. The sleek black Mitsubishi Nightsky engulfed by a spiked sphere of plasma and searing orange heat.
