Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force

by Steve Statham

  From one of the floors above him, he heard movement — a footstep causing an old wooden floorboard to creak.

  He looked for a way up and spied at the back of the room a yellow, metal spiral staircase that rose from the floor to a small opening in the ceiling above. It appeared to be the only way up to the next floor. Access to the other stairwells was blocked, and the elevators were clearly long-since dead. Vinicius looked up and smiled. Very well. He would play along. But he would not bother with climbing. He crouched and leaped to the top of the ladder, an explosion of pure animal movement.

  He was feeling better already.

  "Come out little Texan! I'm here to discuss the terms of my surrender!" He laughed in the darkness.

  ****

  KC lay stretched out atop the enormous pipes that snaked throughout the building, just below the ceiling on the first floor. She had slowed her breathing down to the bare minimum, so that no motion or sound would betray her. The hidden location and the stealth fabrics she was wearing should keep her from being spotted, but she had no idea if any of these men had auditory implants that could pick up faint noises. She hoped not.

  She could hear the soft footfalls of the men below, but even more so, her olfactory sensor dot allowed her to smell them, each one as they passed below.

  Lord, could she smell them.

  Fortunately, that was one sensor that could be easily deactivated.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vinicius leap to the top of the spiral staircase, a move that startled her. She should not have been surprised, but it was a prodigious show of strength, and she nearly jerked her head in reaction as he shot up into the air.

  She did not have any optical implants, but the flush Open Sky goggles allowed her to see well enough in the dark. She rolled her head slightly to give her a view of the man.

  He hung on the ladder by one arm, looking up and yelling through the opening to the floor above, taunting Rix. She let out a soft breath.

  I guess now is a good time.

  She fingered the special tool she had saved from her Air Force MI team days, a tool she was definitely not supposed to have. She slid up the sheath of the narrow cylinder and closer her eyes. She gently pressed the switch.

  Even with her eyes closed she saw a slight flash as the lenses of her goggles flared and shut down. Below her she heard swearing and stumbling, and then a loud crash as the great bulky frame of Vinicius Cunha fell to the ground. He roared in anger.

  She smiled in the darkness. She was glad the little device still worked. It sent out a small EMP pulse to disable electronics within a confined area, and had been specifically tuned to cripple advanced optical displays.

  We're going to do this old style, gents. No cheating the night. Well, for you, anyway.

  She reached down into the lined, protective sack that held her spare goggles, slipped them on and powered them up.

  ****

  Big Fella Jackson was sitting on one of the large landscaping stones between the brewhouse and the river. He was studying his E-Thing, watching the view from above as the lone man circled around the perimeter to the back. He looked like one of the bigger men. The direct feed from the Open Sky personal protection drone floating overhead allowed him to zoom in and out, following the man's progress, examining his features.

  He should be coming around the corner about… now.

  As the man slipped into the open and spotted Big Fella sitting on his rock, he halted, tense. When Big Fella did not immediately move, the man circled slowly, sizing up his potential opponent.

  Seeing the man at ground level, Big Fella recognized him as the "green" man. He'd watched the security video of the assault on the Open Sky lab, and had seen the cruelty in the man's eyes as he had waded into the researchers, laughing as he crippled those people with the ferocity of his blows. Big Fella was seeing some of that cruelty etched on the man's face now, although mixed with something else. Apprehension, perhaps? Big Fella liked that idea.

  The man walked toward Big Fella and then took a short step and leaped into the air, executing an acrobatic, twisting flip overhead. He landed behind him, slightly crouched, poised to strike.

  Big Fella had only casually followed the flip, barely moving his head as the man soared above him. He shifted slightly on the giant cube of limestone, turning himself part-way to face the man. He was ready when the man threw a straight jab at him, and reached out with his right arm and grasped the man's fist when it was a mere six inches from his own face. The man tried to pull away but Big Fella tightened his grip, the power of his exoskeleton coursing down his arm, concentrating in his bionic hand. He pulled the man down to his knees. His eyes widened in shock.

  "Don't know how they do it in South America, but in Texas we normally shake hands when we first meet someone," Big Fella said. "Glad to know ya."

  The man cried out as the bones in his hand fractured. Desperation in his eyes, he dropped onto his back and delivered a sweeping kick to Big Fella's jaw. He lost his grip on the man and slid off the rock.

  Recovering, Big Fella stood up for the first time. The man was hunched over, clutching his injured hand, and took a step backward as Big Fella rose to his full height. He spat out a curse in Portuguese, and fumbled in his coat with his left hand. He pulled out one of the flechette pistols but held it awkwardly, a right-handed man suddenly forced to use his left.

  Big Fella stepped forward and swatted the weapon away just as the man was pulling the trigger. With a soft chuff a cloud of glittering blades shot up into the sky.

  Big Fella reached to grab the man, but was too slow. The exoskeleton gave him tremendous strength, but something had been lost in the speed department. The connections from his brain to his musculoskeletal system via motoneurons had to be read and interpreted by his exoskeleton, a process that resulted in a split second slower reaction time than he'd had before his war injuries. He knew to anticipate this, but against a faster opponent he could not reliably compensate.

  Vinicius' "green" enforcer, however, was an explosive ball of fast reflexes, especially for a muscular, six-foot-four man. He leaped onto one of the nearby landscaping boulders and lunged at Big Fella, leading with a left cross that connected with the side of Big Fella's head, sending him stumbling backward.

  The man moved in close and rained a series of blows against Big Fella's torso, the punches and kicks landing so fast he could barely see them. As he moved to a defensive posture to block, he realized the man's reflexes were amplified far beyond normal. And his broken left hand didn't seem to be bothering him now, indicating some sort of subcutaneous pain-blocking agents.

  One more modified lunatic… What kind of bug juice is running through your veins?

  Big Fella staggered backward, feigning injury, allowing the other man to move in close. He absorbed some rattling blows against his ribcage.

  "Hey, big man, I'm going to have you crying like a little girl by the time we're done," the other man said through gritted teeth.

  He aimed a blow up at the taller man's head, but Big Fella anticipated it. He grabbed the man's arm and pinned it to his side and then wrapped him up with his other arm. Big Fella lifted the man an inch off the ground.

  "Now this will be something new for you," he said. "Ever been given a bear hug by a man with an exoskeleton?" He steadily squeezed tighter, and saw panic flood into the man's eyes. He tried to thrash his way free, but Big Fella was planted firmly and held him secure. He could hear the small servos in his exoskeleton humming, and could feel the pressure growing in his limbs.

  "Here's a trick you'll really like," Big Fella said. He concentrated on his bionic hand — and slowly a small compartment on his knuckle slid opened. It was not as easy as commanding the fingers or wrist to move, although what was inside was tied into his motoneuron network like an extra digit. He focused on extending the slender tendril out from its compartment. His other fingers twitched as he struggled with the mental commands to his artificial body part. Gradually, the tendril sna
ked out, and the sharp tip plunged into his opponent's back. Localized current flowed through the man, and he let out a sharp scream. The tiny fuel cell embedded in Big Fella's back that powered the exoskeleton provided the power for the charge. The feedback Big Fella was receiving hurt like hell, but he wasn't receiving a fraction of what the man he held in his grip felt.

  After several seconds the man's eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped in Big Fella's arms. He dropped him on the ground.

  "Huh. That thing works after all. I guess I owe the moles in the lab a steak dinner," he muttered to himself as he secured the man's hands behind him, and tied his feet with the special bands they had brought with them, supplies from Rix's inventory developed specially for restraining MIs. He gagged the man, then tied him to one of the trees near the river.

  After he was finished he awoke his E-thing in order to check the view from the drone. There was a group of men searching around the building that had once served as a garage for the delivery trucks. He started up the hill and headed in that direction.

  ****

  KC could hear the men below her stumbling around the enormous room. Not all the men had optical implants or goggle arrays, so one of the men had brought a flashlight. He had rushed over to where Vinicius had fallen to check on the boss's condition, and Vinicius had snatched the flashlight from his hand. He yelled at the others to make sure no one escaped, and if they found anyone to let him know immediately, for there would be much pain to dispense and so forth and so on. KC thought he sounded rattled, although half his speech was in Portuguese, so she couldn't follow it all clearly. Cunha started up the spiral staircase again, although this time without the dramatic leaping. One of his men followed him. Another left through an exit against the back wall of the first floor.

  From her hiding spot on top of the pipes, she silently rolled over and scanned the floor below. Her goggles gave her a clear view, and she saw that only one man was left in the room.

  She wasted no time. She reached for the net gun, one of the type used by Open Sky's security teams. She aimed at the man, waited for him to wander to an open area, and pulled the trigger. With a soft bang the net projectile flew toward the man, hitting him in the head and then enveloping him with the spinning cables. He collapsed without a word, but KC needed to be sure. She grabbed the synth rope that she had tied to the pipe bracketry earlier and dropped it over the side. She slid down quickly, and gagged and secured the man with the MI restraining materials she had hidden in one of the old cabinets.

  She looked down at him.

  Just a kid, this one, but such a big and lumpy one. Probably a tanker's worth of steroids flowing through those veins.

  Even with her own enhanced strength, she struggled to drag the man to the old brewing kettle and stuff him inside, where he wouldn't cause any trouble.

  She looked around to see if the noise she had made had attracted any attention. The silence closed in on all side. She wondered how Rix and Big Fella were doing.

  ****

  Big Fella Jackson had not yet seen one of the new generation of "personal protection drones" before the planning of this operation, but he was glad he had one on his side tonight. It resembled an old Predator drone used on the battlefield, but scaled for civilian use as a kind of aerial bodyguard. The part he liked best about it was the customizable weapons package.

  It was a modular system, and they had installed the nerve darts, the ones with hydrogen peroxide micro-propulsion and multiple laser targeting.

  This had to be one of the toys Alexander Rohm employed as part of his self-protection cloud, Big Fella decided.

  Memo to self: Never attack Alexander Rohm out in the open. He smiled grimly. On his E-Thing the last of the six men was lit up by the targeting lasers.

  Man, six at once. Hardware. You just can't beat it.

  His finger ran across the screen of the E-Thing, giving the order to fire.

  He didn't need the E-Thing screen to see the six hissing hornets rocket from the sky, hitting six targets. The men yelled in surprise, but not for long. Soon they were just six silent victims, writhing slowly on the ground.

  ****

  KC padded silently across the floor toward the back of the main room. Even with her goggles piercing the gloom there were shadows everywhere from all the industrial debris scattered throughout the room, and she wanted to be sure there were no lurkers. Her olfactory sensor dot detected no scent of men, but she remained cautious. There was probably a Modification out there somewhere that suppressed human bodily odors. It wouldn't be any crazier than some of the other Mods she'd encountered.

  Satisfied that the room was secure, she edged toward the exit at the rear, where one of the men had gone. If she could take him down, and assuming Big Fella was taking care of however many men where outside, Rix would only have to deal with Vinicius and one other man.

  She reached for the door handle but before she grasped it, the door shot open, hitting her arm and spinning her around. A man burst through and in a continuous burst of motion delivered a barrage of blows. She twisted and ducked, her heightened reflexes allowing her to avoid direct hits, but even the man's glancing shots were powerful enough to knock her off balance. She tried to raise her arm and aim the net gun at the man, but he slapped it aside. It gave a metallic ring as it bounced off a nearby brewing kettle and clattered to the ground.

  The man was attacking so aggressively that her every motion was defensive. But it was clear he could not see in the dark as well as she, and the fury of his attack was likely his best chance at keeping her from getting away. She used the night vision advantage her goggles gave her and threw a vicious kick, a solid strike to the man's stomach. She knew he felt it, but it did not slow him down much.

  This was exactly the kind of fight she had hoped to avoid. Her own strength-building Modifications made her stronger than most any normal man, but going up against a large MI reset the equation. Muscle mass still mattered, she knew, and it would not go well for her if she tried to go toe-to-toe in a fistfight with a 250-pound Modified man.

  Like what was happening now.

  She backed her way across the room, parrying his punches, rolling to safer spots in the shadows between the machinery. Thanks to the blood boosts she could keep up this pace for a very long time, but she guessed that her opponent could as well. Once, she got close enough to throw a straight-fingered jab at his eyes, but he moved at the last moment and her thrust landed harmlessly across his forehead.

  She turned and with three longs strides put some distance between them, and leaped to the top of an old cabinet, dust billowing into the air as she landed. There was a slight pain in her foot as she sought her balance, and when she reached down she discovered she had landed on an industrial-size, rusty bolt that had probably been sitting up there for decades.

  The man did not follow immediately, but instead turned his head partway over his shoulder, toward the spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

  "Boss! I've got one of 'em down he-"

  The large bolt hit the man across the mouth, sending a spray of blood arcing across the musty air. He cupped his jaw in his hands and dropped to one knee.

  "C'mon, admit it, that had to hurt," she called out. "I know they haven't come up with any Mods that protect teeth from being knocked out."

  While the man was still down KC leaped across to the top of another of the sturdy metal cabinets and then to the top of one of the old brewing kettles. She slid on the sloped upper section, but caught the remains of the pipe sticking up from the top and steadied herself.

  The man stood back up and looked slowly around the room, trying to locate her in the dark. Between the absence of light and the stealth fabrics she wore, he could not see her.

  She could see the cold fury on the man's face, and finally recognized him from Rix's briefings. This was another of the original raiders on Open Sky's headquarters, the man who had been entirely tinted and dressed in black — the driver. As he had been in the d
elivery truck and then outside by the loading docks at the time of the raid, there were not many security cam images of him, and most of the ones they had been able to access were from high angles. But they had cleaned those up and enhanced the features, and there was no mistaking the man. She was fighting with one of their primary targets.

  A faint shaft of light cut through the darkness as the rear door opened again, the doorway filled by an enormous figure.

  KC recognized the silhouette at once.

  The other man, however, didn't and darted directly toward the door at this new opponent, clearly intending to use the brief moments of light to his advantage.

  "Big! Killer comin' at you," she shouted in warning.

  Big Fella was ready, but the man did not break his stride or pull up at all. He speared Big Fella with his shoulder, carrying them both back into the rear room and sending them sprawling to the floor. Big Fella felt the crunch as the metal and composite frame of his exoskeleton that ran up his spine slid along the concrete.

  The man immediately rained blows upon his head and face, and for the second time this night Big Fella found himself on the receiving end of a faster man's punches, and this one was even stronger than the first. He felt himself losing consciousness, each blow he received perceived through a fog.

  The man was smiling now as he sat on Big Fella's chest, delivering punches that echoed through the larger man's frame. He grasped the sides of Big Fella's head and lifted up, preparing to use the full strength of his Modified body to smash Big Fella's head into the ground. But then Big Fella saw that he wasn't there anymore for some reason, which confused him for a moment. His head rolled to the side and he saw that KC, a small, shimmering figure in her stealth fabrics, was engaged in a furious dance of combat with the man.

  He came to with a sudden clarity and pushed himself fully upright with the aid of his XO. With a snarl Big Fella lunged over and grabbed the man with his right arm and flung him across the room into the brick wall. The impact made a crunch that echoed in the darkness.