Shedding the Demon

by Bill Denise

  It didn’t take long for his target to show up in one of the rooms in the main house. She was easily visible through a large picture window, and made no effort to conceal herself. Too easy, Damon thought to himself and a familiar voice came to mind.

  Never believe something that looks too easy; there’s always an unrecognized threat. Take your time, look again, if you don’t see anything the second time . . . look again.

  With the memory of his first mission still too fresh in his mind, Damon decided he would approach this one as if he didn’t have armor at all.

  He checked the positions of the guards, confirmed that they had not altered their routes or times, and tried to find the anomaly. There must be something I’m missing. He retraced his path around the ranch, slower this time, trying to find something different or unusual. The only thing he found that he missed on his first transit were two bunkers on either side of the access road armed with ancient large-caliber, rapid-fire slug guns. He had missed them initially since they weren’t manned, and now he wondered if this rebellion could truly be this amateurish.

  Something’s not adding up here. He couldn’t shake his misgivings, but he truly had no choice but to trust what he was seeing. His doubts about the opposition changed to doubts about his orders. Why would they use me to take out such a soft target? He wondered, unless it’s simply a reaction to my performance on the first mission. This idea made sense, but he could not convince himself that it accounted for everything he observed.

  Moving carefully back to his best vantage point, he found that more people had entered the main room, but his target was still easily visible. They asked for quick and quiet, I’ll give them exactly that.

  He deployed a targeting laser from his left wrist, and trained it on Correale. The laser was invisible and provided valuable feedback to his targeting system.

  He extracted a second laser from his left wrist, this one called the Assassin. It was a long-range, single shot weapon that delivered a high-powered pulse to the target. Rarely useful since it took a long time to charge and required the targeting laser, Damon felt it was the perfect option in this particular case. Once deployed, it automatically integrated with the targeting laser and practically guaranteed a perfect strike.

  He only had to wait a minute until Correale was in a favorable position. Once it appeared that she would stand still for a few moments, he took the shot.

  The invisible beam made no sound, covered the distance instantaneously, passed through the window without any evidence and burned a neat half-inch hole completely through Correale’s skull and into the wall ten feet beyond her. Immediately, and for no apparent reason to those around her, she crumpled to the floor. The intense heat of the laser cauterized the wound leaving no telltale blood and the occupants of the room were thrown into panicked disarray when they discovered the neatly-cut hole in her head.

  No alarms sounded, and Damon wondered again about the rationale behind taking out this particular target. He kept hearing the voice of Shrigauri Krych saying “pawn, pawn,” over and over. After only a few seconds of indecision, he devised his best escape route and started following it to the rendezvous point.

  Once he reached a safe distance, he contacted Gregor by sending the data packet from the mission, he did not speak directly to the man. For obvious reasons, it took Gregor only seconds to evaluate the mission log and exclaim “What? You’re leaving?”

  “Yup.”

  “But all you did was kill her! What about intelligence, what about weapons and equipment?” Gregor was incredulous.

  “I reconnoitered the site; there were no stockpiles and no weapons. I think your information was wrong. I took out the target, which in my opinion was the only viable objective.”

  Gregor sighed, “I’ll take this to the Council. I’ll tell them you were unable to find anything useful and we consider this uprising terminated.”

  **** ****

  “He finished the mission, in any case,” Jeffrey Allen stated matter-of-factly, “but I would hardly call it a success.”

  “Did he kill Correale?” Renard asked harshly, unable to contain his irritation.

  “Well, yes, but he didn’t get any intel on their activities, members, or weapons.”

  “Does it matter? She’s dead, and we both know that they were poorly armed anyway.” Renard didn’t want to quibble over the details of levels of mission success. He and Jeffrey had argued over this latest mission plan, and Renard was tired of the subject.

  “Most importantly,” he continued in a gentler tone, “are the missionaries in place?”

  “Absolutely, they are ready to help Correale’s followers with their grief and fill the new void in their lives with Kyndra,” Jeffrey replied.

  “Then we could consider this a success,” Renard concluded.

  “I suppose so, but I wish he’d gotten more.” Jeffrey looked at Renard and a small smile crept onto his face. “Are you becoming a Demon supporter?”

  “No.” He smiled despite himself. “Not exactly. The idea behind the Demon program is a good one, since it eliminates threats to the Council— actually the whole Consensus—without full-scale military involvement. In fact, it works against the Pryke style of control, and I like that a lot. Being able to take out specific targets covertly makes it the perfect tool.”

  “Then why—?” Jeffrey started, but Renard continued before he finished the question.

  “Because we can’t control it. The Demon himself is outside of our direct control and we have only diplomatic influence over the mission targets. Sure, we got what we wanted on this one, but look at how hard it was to get the others to agree. If we lose any Council influence to Pryke, he’ll gain greater control of the Demon and use it as his own personal army. The idea of covert surgical strikes will be gone, and the Demon will become a public symbol of terror instead of a secret weapon of peace. And you know Esme Burdekin is already in his pocket. All it takes is a little waver from Stacey Magourik and everything tips his way.

  “We need something else, something that I can control and direct myself, only then will I feel comfortable.” He paused, and all traces of humor left his face before he added, “Something that can take out the Demon.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “We have the team working on new weapons, and they’re making good progress, but I firmly believe that Dr. Baksa is the only person who can come up with a sure way to stop the Demon.”

  Renard sighed, “I know, but will she do it? And how do I ask her? This is her life’s work.”

  Jeffrey’s screen beeped and he looked down at it. His eyes widened and he said, “Well, we know one thing, she met with Pryke and felt the need to leave in a big hurry. Alexander scrambled warships to intercept her and two of ours had to come out of hiding to cover her escape.”

  Renard stood up and asked with genuine worry in his voice, “Where is she now, is she safe?”

  “She got away, but we lost her in the tunnel. No idea where she is currently, but she’ll turn up. She’ll probably come to us.”

  “What was that bastard up to? Trying to kidnap her . . . or worse.” Renard clenched his jaw as the anger built inside him, “Can we take him out?”

  “Who? Pryke? Are you serious?” Jeffrey’s voice betrayed amusement which only angered Renard even more.

  “DEADLY serious. Cut the personal commentary and tell me. Can we take him out?”

  Jeffrey stepped back as if Renard had slapped him, offended by the implication. He turned formal and serious. “We can’t. If we hit him with everything we’ve got, it would be an even match. The problem is that our forces are spread throughout the Consensus while his are mostly concentrated at Lorah.”

  “all right, how many ships on post near Lorah?”

  “Twenty-three now since the two that had to break cover have left.”

  “Can we take him out . . . personally? Can we take out that rock he lives on?”

  Jeffrey hesitated before answering, “Well, yes we could. However,” Renard trie
d to interrupt but Jeffrey rushed on, “think about the implications. It would be obvious who did it. Could we survive that kind of fallout on the Council?” After a moment of thought, he added, “Someone would replace him; it wouldn’t end with him.”

  Renard’s hands clenched and unclenched in rhythmic motion for almost a minute before he sat back down and put his head in his hands. Finally he spoke, “I’ll have to talk her into it. We can’t let him have that kind of power. But first we need to find her and Dr. Tashus before Pryke does. You know he’s going to be looking for both of them.”

  When he looked up a Jeffrey, his eyes softened and his shoulders slouched under unseen pressure. “I’m sorry Jeffrey,” he said, “I need your personal commentary, please forgive me.”

  “Of course, there is nothing to forgive.”

  Renard chuckled, “You know that’s not true,” and then added, “Find her. Bring her here. We’ll protect her, reunite her with the team, and convince her to do the right thing.”

  “Consider it done,” and he made his way to the elevator.

  Renard stood before the portrait of Izar Trueblood. After a moment spent staring at the serious visage in the picture, Renard said out loud, “Uncle, what would you do?”

  **** ****

  Finding Ken Westron took much longer than Damon imagined. He had only a couple of days between missions and much of that time was spent on public transportation that was slow and inefficient. Many times he arrived back at the Abyss just in time to head out to his next assignment.

  Finally, his schedule allowed for a few extra days off, and Damon traveled to Sangupt where Ken was last sighted.

  The AI reviewed the public records of the capital city at Damon’s request, looking for areas of trouble and patterns in the crime logs. He believed that a person with Ken’s skills would be found near areas of high-tech violent crime. The AI’s search told Damon where to find the right kind of trouble.

  He wandered the streets late at night waiting for a likely target. He had his sensor suite on line and was not afraid to run active scans to help with his search. It took an hour to find exactly what he was looking for. About a block from where he was standing a group of four men and two women sauntered down the street toward him, acting as if they owned the place. The few other people still on the street were careful to give them space and tried not to draw attention to themselves. The group’s apparent target was a small cluster of hookers on the opposite corner.

  Damon was specifically looking for street thugs like these that had combat enhancements. He figured that if he was going to find an infamous Biolectrician like Ken Westron, he’d start with people who were most likely customers of his. Anyone in this city that had decent implants would either know him or they would know people who did. Damon began a slow walk in their direction.

  One of the men spotted Damon and made a quick and quiet whistle to get the attention of the others. They all stopped, looked at the whistler and then at Damon. Once they saw him, they all tensed up, alert, and spread out a few feet in each direction. As a group they moved toward him, the men on each end moving farther out to form a loose semi-circle.

  The man in the middle of the line stopped while the ends wrapped around Damon to encircle him. Damon admired the smoothness of the maneuver.

  The center man spoke first, “Hey man, what you doin' here?” His accent was heavy and Damon referred to the text translation in his HUD to ensure he understood.

  “I’m looking for someone,” Damon replied, noting from his sensors that the two men behind him had drawn long knives. Damon tried to be non-threatening, “I don’t want to cause any trouble, I just want to know where to find someone.”

  “Cause trouble?” the girl to the left of the original speaker now addressed Damon. “You don’ cause the trouble around here, we do.”

  “Fair enough.” Damon conceded. “Are you willing to help me find someone? I’ll pay you.”

  They glanced around the circle, apparently unsure of what to do with Damon and his calm demeanor, but none of them spoke.

  Damon felt quite sure that diplomacy would not work with them, but he had to try. He noticed the two assailants behind him were inching closer. He stood his ground and made sure his armor was hardened sufficiently for the impending attack. Predictably, the two knife-wielders moved with enhanced speed and strength to strike the center of his back.

  “Oh now that should have been a killing blow,” he said as the blades hit and deflected off his armor. Surprised, but undeterred, both men swung for his neck. Damon never moved and the blades rang as they were bent and notched by the D-SAP. “Maybe you should buy better weapons,” he said and spun to face his assailants. Moving faster than they could react, he thrust a hand into each man’s chest, sending them flying backwards to fall unconscious to the ground.

  He turned casually to face the remaining four. One man had drawn a sword, both women had small handguns, while the man who spoke first took up a fighting stance from a martial arts discipline that Damon did not recognize. He put his hands on his hips and said, “One more time, I don’t want any trouble, just answer a couple questions.”

  The martial arts man moved fast, almost as fast as Damon, and delivered a killing blow to Damon’s throat. He barely felt it through his armor, despite the man’s obvious strength enhancements. That must have broken some bones, Damon thought as the man pulled back a mangled fist. The man continued his attack however, using an odd jabbing kick to Damon’s abdomen, which was ineffective against the D-SAP. Obviously in pain from his hand and now his foot, the man kept pushing forward, executing a flurry of combinations to various parts of Damon’s head, neck, and chest. The blows were powerful, but they were not enough to make Damon even sway from his stance. The man fell back, panting with the pain of broken bones, but still ready to attack again.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Damon said and the girls opened fire at point-blank range. Not as powerful as the autorifles he often faced on his missions, they were also completely ineffective. The bullets burst into tiny shards as they impacted on his armor. The clips were exhausted quickly, and the smoke slowly drifted away from them in a slight breeze.

  “Are you ever going to listen to me?” Damon asked them, laughing at the confused looks on their faces. He raised both hands and fired small caliber rounds into the lower legs of each woman, causing them to collapse with shattered tibias. The man with the sword stepped in front of the still standing martial arts guy, brandishing his weapon menacingly.

  With a quick flick of his wrist, Damon extended a single ECB to its full three-foot length before popping it off into his hand. “Try if you must, but I really just want to talk.” Sword-man came in whirling his blade with impressive speed, but Damon was able to track and parry the blows easily. He let the man press the attack for a couple of seconds, and then he shifted his targeting program to begin applying small cuts and strikes all over the man’s hands, arms, shoulders, and chest. He refrained from anything lethal, but eventually the man was cut and bleeding so badly it was hard to find a new place to hit. After a couple minutes, the man simply could not continue and dropped to his knees in pain and exhaustion. Damon struck him in the side of his head with the flat of his blade, knocking him unconscious. Then he touched the handle of his blade to the fairing on his wrist and retracted the plastic back into its reservoir.

  He faced the battered martial arts fighter and spread his hands out toward him, palms facing outward.

  “Now,” Damon said to the man, “can we talk?”

  The man dropped to the ground in a defenseless sitting position, but looked at the ground. “Where’d you get them implants man? No one around here did 'em.”

  “That’s right—better than military-grade, my friend. But I need to see Ken Westron, do you know him?”

  “Course I do, everybody knows him.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “That a completely different question, man, he don' stay in one place for long.”

&
nbsp; Damon stepped on the man’s foot, breaking bones. He cried out and pulled his feet back. “Where can I find him?”

  After that, Damon found him to be quite helpful. He gave names of people to ask, places to look, and night clubs where he might find Ken.

  It took Damon two more nights of skulking around dangerous corners of the city, frequenting seedy bars and night clubs, and convincing sometimes recalcitrant people to help, until he finally found Ken himself. Now he sat across the room from the man, and watched him ‘holding court.’

  Ken was smart enough not to be loud and flamboyant or to draw attention to himself, but it was obvious that the other patrons all paid him a great deal of respect. Small groups would stop at his table for few minutes—exchanging a few words, setting up an appointment, or giving a contact name—and then move on. Damon listened in with passive sensors, catching most of the conversations despite the fact that Ken was running an interference scrambler that was no match for Damon’s implants.

  He observed Ken for a full two hours. The man was kind of short, average build, and appeared to be middle aged. His light brown collar-length hair was messy but clean, and had some gray in it. His face was thin and angular, his expressions neutral and closely controlled. He smiled occasionally, sometimes with genuine pleasure. His eyes scanned the room slowly and casually, giving the impression of calm control, never nervous or shifty.

  Damon hadn’t spotted a single visible bodyguard in those two hours, and it spoke volumes about the respect that Ken garnered. Finally, Damon decided to find out more about the man’s weapons and implants, so he brought his active sensors online. He directed a deep scan toward Ken.

  Immediately, Ken looked up and stiffened in his seat, turning his head to face Damon directly. When he tried to read the returns from his scan, he found that they had been blocked. According to his telemetry, Ken was not even there.

  Shielded? Damon thought, but how? Realizing he was not going to be able to keep this quiet, he stood with hands held down and palms outward trying to be as non-threatening as possible. Damon slowly approached Ken and detected twelve others converging as well.