Shedding the Demon

by Bill Denise

  He hadn’t realized how dependent he had become on the technology that he used every day without thinking.

  A few minutes later, he found himself hemmed in between two squads of troops and the wall. He sat on top of a concrete pillar near the wall and could just barely see over the machinery to locate the men stalking him. Damon realized he had no options other than revealing his location, but if that was the case, then he decided to make it worthwhile. Holding up both hands he deployed his entire array of slug guns and then cursed as he remembered the left was completely disabled. He launched himself into the air, executed a neat somersault, and landed on his feet running across the open area in front of the nearest squad. He was surprised how quickly they reacted, and he felt the impacts of autorifle rounds even before his feet hit the ground.

  He fired his slug guns into the ground in front of the nearest soldiers, kicking up concrete shards and dust, creating a smokescreen of sorts. Some of the men would take lacerations from the flying debris, but at least he wasn’t killing them. He stopped briefly near one of the hidden charges and cursed again because he only had one set of weapons to deploy. He had to stop firing the slug guns in order to use the laser on his right hand to melt the controls of the high explosive and render it useless. In the few seconds it took him to disable the charge, he absorbed multiple hits from the powerful assault weapons in the hands of his enemy. They did not damage the D-SAP, but they hurt more than usual. These men either had more powerful weapons than he usually faced, or there was a problem with his armor integrity. Damon moved as quickly as possible out of the line of fire and tried to get lost in the complex machinery around him.

  He hadn’t gone far when he realized he was cornered and had nowhere to go without killing people in the process. He stopped after turning a corner and leaned against the frame of the machine behind him, breathing heavily. There were three corridors approaching his location; one from around the corner he had just turned, one straight ahead and another offset from where he stood and running off at an angle. His chest hurt, and his wrist was useless which eliminated about a third of his offensive options. There were three squads converging on him, one from each corridor around him. He thought about breaking through the machine itself, but when he remembered the heavy gears and shuddered.

  He ran through the inventory of his available weapons, a list he rarely bothered to study in depth. While looking at the various grenades loaded in his magazine, he found a couple of non-lethal options that might get him out of this spot. He launched three smoke grenades, his entire stock, down the three adjoining corridors to give some cover. He then followed up with a gas grenade down one hall, which should knock the men unconscious if they weren’t wearing masks. Down the other two corridors he fired concussive grenades that might slow down the pursuit, although they probably wouldn’t have a big effect. Once the grenades detonated, he fired a few slug gun rounds to make the soldiers take cover and ran down the hall after the gas grenade.

  Sure enough, he found prone bodies in the hall, and he was glad these soldiers were sloppy in that respect. He didn’t have long to think about his good luck but made a beeline for the next explosive. When he arrived at its location, he melted it as well with a small laser.

  “. . . 41% . . .”

  He sighed and hung his head. I’m never going to get to the rest. These guys are good.

  Damon called up the sensor map of the area and tried to find a Debar reactor that he might use to recharge. Finding nothing nearby, he crouched down next to a wall and tried to think. He couldn’t help looking at his wrist again, and squeezed it tightly with his right hand. He rocked gently on the balls of his feet and his vision jumped from one readout to another on his HUD. The control system couldn’t decide what to display since his thoughts were so scattered.

  He took a few quick breaths, but still couldn’t breathe deeply due to the pain in his chest. Finally, he sent a few quick pulses from his active sensors to find his pursuers.

  He watched their movement on the HUD for a few moments and realized the grenades did very little to slow them down. He stood in the intersection, trying to decide which way would be best to avoid confrontation or at least minimize the loss of life. The nearest targets were still a minute away since they were being cautious in the smoke clouds, unsure if they contained more gas.

  Damon snapped his head up as his HUD beeped and displayed a new target, a mere ten feet away. How did he get so close? was all he had time to think before the man fired his strangely bulky gun.

  It made an unusual sound, like a puff of compressed air rather than a typical explosive report. Damon dodged and fired back taking the man down. A sharp stinging sensation bloomed across his right arm.

  He didn’t see any damage, but the sting turned into burning. Running his left hand over the area, he felt an intense stabbing pain and quickly withdrew his hand.

  He examined the area with full magnification and saw a number of extremely fine hairs sticking out of his arm. Fascinated, he gripped one and pulled. It hurt as it came out, and it appeared to be more of a needle than a hair since it was stiff and pointed. His arm continued to burn, so he removed every needle he could find. His HUD flashed a warning that poison had been detected in his blood stream, but had been effectively neutralized.

  Poisoned needles that can slip through my armor. The thought made him queasy and his knees nearly buckled. Obviously, this weapon was the biggest threat.

  He decided to risk an active scan to ensure no more snipers were hidden in the area. The scan revealed two more surprisingly close, but Damon dispatched them quickly with anti-personnel mini-missiles guided unerringly to their targets by the active sensors. He only had three more of the specialty missiles, and he made sure they were armed and ready to take out any more snipers. Before leaving the area, he grabbed the gun used by the first sniper and put it in his pack for Ken to examine later.

  Clearing the immediate threat gave him a momentary feeling of relief, but he had revealed his location, and the targets all around began to converge on him. Watching the red dots on his HUD, he tried to find a way out. Even though he didn’t see any lone snipers, the others could also be armed with these needle guns. He shuddered.

  Reviewing the results from the last scan, he found the quickest way out of the factory, and began to run down the pathway leading out. He came to the end of the path and smashed through the wall into the corridor beyond. Looking around he saw a group of people, some of whom he recognized from the religious group he discovered during his recon.

  “What are you doing here?” he nearly yelled, incredulously, “I told you to get out!”

  No one spoke, but simply stared at him, looking confused. I need to get them out, now!

  Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he made an effort to speak in a normal voice, “You have to listen to me,” he said, “you’re in extreme danger. The area next to you is going to be demolished, using high powered explosives that will destroy this entire area.” The forced calmness wavered as he spoke, and sounded slightly hysterical by the end.

  He could tell the people thought he was insane.

  “Look,” he said, trying anything to convince them, “I spoke to Leland McKrae just the other day, and warned him of the danger, didn’t he come speak to you?”

  Finally someone spoke up, “We haven’t seen Pastor Leland since you disrupted our service the other day, we were actually afraid that you were responsible for his disappearance.”

  A small man emerged from the crowd, apparently unafraid of the obvious threat that Damon represented. He approached Damon and stood a mere two feet from him, glaring up into his eyes. “Well, are you? Are you responsible for his disappearance?”

  “What, no, of course not! He found me, talked for a little bit and then left. I haven’t seen him since.” He shook his head and tried to get back on task. “Never mind that now, though, we need to get out of here.” He gestured to encompass the group around him. “Is this everyone, or a
re there more?”

  The group looked around at each other and offered up a few names, presumably of those missing from present company. The de facto leader spoke again to Damon. “We’re missing a couple of folks, some are outside, some in their rooms, I presume—”

  “Go get them,” Damon interrupted. “You need to get out of here, all of you, now! Get above ground and away. Fast!” He felt the urge to push them physically, since none appeared to be in much of a hurry.

  Nearby gunshots echoed down the corridor outside the room and finally motivated the group into action. Damon encouraged them to hurry while moving toward the direction of the gunfire. He wanted a new active scan, but didn’t want to give away his position at the moment.

  He turned back to the group, half of which had exited through the opposite door and said, “I’ll lead them away from you, but get out as fast as you can! Then we can find Leland.”

  Damon moved quickly down the hall, deciding that he had no other choice but to engage these soldiers directly.

  “. . . 38% . . .”

  Damon cursed. He glanced over the map in his HUD again and gazed longingly at the Debar reactor on the far side of the factory. I’ll never make it there, he decided, but I can engage them long enough to let the people escape. He finally gave up on removing the remaining charges.

  Rounding a corner, he came upon a small group of soldiers and opened up with his slug guns. The five men went down quickly, and he moved off toward the next group. Now that his position was discovered, he pulsed his active scanners for one last detailed view of the area. He didn’t want to spend the power to keep it active, but settled for his regular suite of passive sensors instead. They provided enough information when coupled with the recent active sweep to provide a decent tactical advantage in the confrontation. He quickly programmed an attack plan that would force his adversaries to maneuver away from the civilians and also open up an escape path for him to follow. He estimated ten minutes of strike and move before he would need to go quiet and head for the exit.

  Gunfire erupted behind him, and he was taking autorifle hits from very close range. Ducking and spinning out of the line of fire, he consulted his HUD to find out where these units could have been hiding. He felt a moment of surprise as he realized it was the last group he just mowed down. He switched to energy weapons and attacked the group again, this time making sure they were dead. Upon closer inspection, he found that they wore military-grade armor that protected them from his slug guns.

  Damon revised his tactical plan. He ran down the corridor with all weapons activated. He decided he now only had about three minutes worth of power and that would be cutting it close.

  Entering one of the large rooms that housed the machinery of the factory, he heard a sound that now scared him to his core. A “whoosh” sound like an air cylinder and he felt a stinging and burning sensation, this time all across his back.

  He twisted around awkwardly and fired all of his weapons blindly, missing the target completely. He dove for cover just before hearing another shot from the mysterious weapon. Luckily, he felt no more hits, the shot must have gone wide. He hugged his arms to his chest and tried to calm down.

  Stop fighting the targeting controls, just flow with them he told himself from his weapons training, which seemed so long ago.

  The shooter still did not show up in his HUD.

  Why can’t I see him? He couldn’t understand why his targeting system was failing him at this crucial time. Their armor must be cloaked somehow, but I thought my systems could defeat cloaking. He wished he had a chance to discuss this personally with the designers to impress upon them the distinct failure in this respect.

  His back really started to burn now, and there was no way for him to remove these needles. His HUD indicated a quantity of poison was in his blood, but it only showed a yellow alert, the system calculated that it could counteract the effects again this time.

  He still hadn’t located the latest sniper, and he decided to try something a little different. He really wanted to burn the whole area down with a Trip-PC shot, but he didn’t have to power available. Instead, he programmed the three remaining anti-personnel missiles to hunt and seek out targets matching the profiles of the last two snipers. The missiles could loiter in the area for almost ten minutes, which should give him enough time to get away. Once programmed, he released the missiles to their own devices. For moment he watched them move around the area slowly, looking a lot like hummingbirds, but far more deadly.

  Checking his tactical plan, he felt a strong desire to abandon it completely and escape. But he felt he owed the religious freaks more time.

  He felt lethargic and his limbs were heavy as he tried to stand. The pain in his back caused him to cry out as he moved, and he couldn’t stand up straight due to back spasms. More urgent was his need to get moving, especially when one of the missiles suddenly disintegrated in a cloud of needles. One of the remaining missiles flew off at high speed, apparently toward the shooter. The last missile turned in the same direction, and looked like it was watching the activity.

  A small explosion told Damon that the first had hit something, but he didn’t want to investigate to find out if it was the sniper.

  He forced himself to move, although the pain was intense, making him clumsy, loping along in an ungainly stride. He turned a corner and almost collided with a group of soldiers who responded more quickly than he could and opened fire at point blank range with their powerful autorifles. The impacts knocked Damon over onto his back, which made him scream as hundreds of small needles were shifted inside his skin under the armor. The soldiers didn’t back down and maintained a continuous barrage. Damon felt the impacts and they hurt almost as much as his back. He couldn’t bring his guns to bear, but kicked himself around so his head faced the group and dropped two grenades armed for instant detonation from the launch tubes at his shoulders. The explosion sent Damon sliding across the floor, which further aggravated his back but the pain was beginning to lessen. Rising to his knees, Damon looked through the smoke to see the inert bodies of his attackers.

  His HUD still showed yellow on the poison, it was taking longer to counteract than he thought it should. More worrisome were two innocuous-looking warnings he had never seen before about “minor system failures.” Apparently the poison was interfering with his controls, but he really had no idea how it would affect him. One more reason to finish this and get out of here, he told himself yet again.

  Another message showed up on his HUD, this one welcome - it was time to make his exit. Praise Kyndra’s kindness! he thought as he calculated the quickest way back to the path the religious group would be taking to the surface.

  He returned to the point where he’d last left them and found with satisfaction that they had effectively cleared out as instructed. His feeling of relief soon disappeared when he felt and heard the muffled explosions of the charges finally being detonated. Worried now that the people wouldn’t be far enough in the clear, he began to run as best he could with the pain still throbbing in his back.

  Far too soon he caught up with the fleeing civilians. They were not even halfway to the surface and were milling around in confusion as the explosions shook the corridors and debris began falling all around.

  He waded into the chaos and began directing people, vocally and physically, in the direction of the exit. The time between explosions told Damon that the controllers had to detonate each charge individually, but he had not been counting how many had already been activated. He could tell, however, that they were getting closer with each subsequent explosion.

  One explosion shook the floor and knocked the lights out, plunging the group into darkness and outright panic.

  Damon activated his spotlights, but they were relatively small and offered little help in the gloom. Dust and darkness hindered their movements although he could see using his sensors. He tried to move people along in the correct direction, but found himself doubling back repeatedly to gather so
meone who took a wrong turn. Finally, they entered a corridor with some emergency lighting still operating. It was not much, but it made a huge difference from the total darkness they had come from. Damon found that the group was moving better now, and a few individuals had taken up leadership roles to help those afflicted with fear and panic.

  Gunfire erupted unexpectedly from behind them and some of the civilians went down.

  Anger burst into his chest with red-hot intensity. He spun quickly and directed short, controlled bursts from his slug guns into the shooters. He didn’t believe for second that the casualties were accidental.

  He yelled to the stragglers to hurry up and took up a rear-guard position while cursing himself for not anticipating this threat earlier.

  He pushed, pulled, cajoled, and threatened the people to go faster, but they seemed to be moving in slow motion. He knew that there were still charges to be detonated, but he didn’t know how many or how close.

  “. . . 19% . . .”

  He decided he had to energize the active scanners regardless of the dangerously low power. Without scanner data he felt lost and useless. He closed his eyes and his shoulders sagged as the sensor returns painted a bleak picture of his tactical situation. The group was getting close to the surface, but there were soldiers closing in on all sides, and one of the last three charges—he now knew how many were left—was directly below them and could bring down this entire area. He decided to address the more immediate threat of the soldiers since there was nothing he could do about the explosives now.

  His tactical programs ran through the options, but could not devise a plan that would protect the people from the three hostile groups converging from different directions. He chose the nearest group and rushed headlong toward them, hoping to surprise them with a sudden offensive strike. While on approach he quickly inventoried his ammo. Four high-explosive and two gas grenades, two anti-vehicular missiles, and five hundred rounds for the slug guns. I’ve never been this low on power and ammo at the same time. Damon began to wonder if he really could actually lose in a fight, but quickly dismissed the idea with bravado. I’ve still got my combat blades! He grimaced, oh - make that combat BLADE, as he remembered his damaged wrist.