Masaru’s neural amplifiers kicked in as his spatial sensor detected a fast moving object on a trajectory toward him. Accelerated to the point where time appeared to slow, he clapped his hand onto Joey’s shoulder and yanked his friend off his feet to the rear. A stream of billowy cotton smoke folded out from the end of the rotating missile. It passed; one fin tracing a crimson line across Joey’s cheek. For nanoseconds stretched to seconds, Masaru stared into the roiling serpent of fog, watching a droplet of blood leap into the air off the end of the fin. Time resumed; the rocket careened into the windshield of the nearby Floyd’s Bakery truck.
Dale was not so lucky. The 60mm armor-piercing warhead hit him in the face before he even looked up at the sound of the shattering windscreen. It carried his body backwards, not detonating upon the soft human tissue until it struck the armor plating behind him. The bloody spray of his crushed head became a robust explosion as a hot jet of plasma burned into the electronics compartment. Most of the front end, as well as Dale, flew into the road with an orange flash.
Joey could barely get a “what the fuck” out of his mouth before Masaru arrested his fall and hauled him to his feet again. His cheek burned, his nose blackened with soot, and blood trickled from where the fin had grazed. He sprinted ahead through the taste of exhaust, and crossed the street amid a rain of debris.
Two men in black suits, leaning against the front of the hotel, moved forward, pulling silver handguns out of their jackets and sending streaks of green laser towards the man with the missile launcher. The beams seared through his chest armor, burning the nylon weave from the exterior and leaving smoking trenches of char in the flesh. Dermal armor fibers glimmered in the wound.
Division 9 comm channels erupted in a flurry as the agents called for backup.
Halfway across the road, Joey dove into a forward roll as the rotary cannon opened up at him. Laughing in an uncontrolled nervous fit as pieces of car flew past him and ricochets tore holes in streetlamps behind him, he slid into the rear of a parked car. Riding a bike without a helmet seemed boring now.
With rocket man’s attention focused on the suits, Masaru sprinted to engage the other heavy. The big man saw him coming and swerved his continuous fire in an arc. The front windows of the hotel shattered one after the next as projectiles bounced off the road and tumbled through them. Masaru ran in a circular path, avoiding the brunt of the attack. Two slugs clipped his leg, though the angle was weak enough that his Dragon Chitin armor stopped them.
The impact swept him off his feet and sent him sliding along the road into the front wheel of the van. The assassin let off the trigger and shifted to take better aim. With the cannon focused elsewhere, Joey popped up and fired several shots into his back. The big man gave Joey the same glare one would give an annoying child. Joey’s gun could not make it through the thick body armor, and the man’s size and augmentation trivialized the impact of the slug.
The glance away gave Masaru an opportunity. His Nano katana flew from its scabbard into an upward slice. The first stroke passed through the ammunition feed connecting the rotary cannon to its backpack. Loose caseless ammo cascaded out, as hundreds of four-inch blue sticks scattered to the ground. The blade spun in his hands as he rose up onto his toes. Edge down, he used his weight to bring another slash across the massive man’s body. The assassin lifted his gun in an attempt to defend himself, sacrificing the weapon into halves but reducing the damage to his chest to a bloodless slice in the armor.
The Division 9 agents at the door kept firing at the man with the rocket launcher. One of them paused and took careful aim just as the assassin sighted his second missile. Top grade neuralware brought time close to a standstill, a targeting reticule floated wherever the laser pointed, settling atop the remaining missile’s warhead. When the first traces of smoke sputtered from the back end of the launcher, an emerald streak went into the nose, detonating it before it cleared its tube. Smoking fragments of rocket launcher seared into the huge man as large patches of skin melted off his face from the force of the explosion. Metal mesh flapped out of his wounds where subdermal armor tore.
He staggered backwards, and then advanced despite having no skin left on half of his upper body. Blood oozed through the metallic weave around the muscles of his right arm. He tossed the pistol grip―the only remnant of the launcher―aside as he went for a large handgun.
Masaru did not expect his opponent to be as fast with his hands as he was, given his size. A quick punch to the chest sent him flying into the van with enough force to rock the vehicle and leave a dent in the sidewall. Masaru grimaced; his opponent was as strong as a forklift; combat muscle grafting provided short bursts of superhuman strength. With some distance now, the man went for a sidearm.
Speedware launched Masaru into a black blur, flying behind a cyan arc of Nano blade. He lunged past the near stationary target, scoring the katana across the assassin’s chest. To his accelerated perception, a spray slid forward; a sheet of crimson hung suspended in time. The curtain of blood had just started to shift from lateral to downward motion when Masaru completed the slice and reversed the blade into a stab that pierced the spine from behind.
The giant staggered. His grip faltered, the pistol slipped out of his fingers.
The entire motion ended in a fraction of a second in real time. Blood and weapon hit the ground as the speedware deactivated. Masaru gave the sword a final wrenching twist that brought forth a satisfying crack.
The ogre convulsed on his feet as cyberware went haywire. He slid off the sword and dropped to his knees where he teetered for a second before falling forward. Masaru remained motionless, sword still held out in the killing stroke, blood still dripping from the tip of the translucent blade.
Fire pulsed through his limbs in a lattice of painful threads that traced his neural wiring. The cyberware pushed his body a few hundred percent past what humans are supposed to be capable of, and now he felt the price.
Joey waved from behind the car.
Masaru took a deep breath, tuning out the pain. Now was not the time to acquiesce to its demands. The thought of a hot tub and a bevy of women made the burn go away.
Joey fell in alongside him as they ducked around the corner, shaking his head at how Masaru felled one of them with a sword while the other still stood through laser fire. Of all the chance friendships to come along in Joey’s life, the air of lethality around Masaru was the most intoxicating.
A steady serenade of laser blasts and gunfire continued behind them. Neither had the first clue why men tried to shove a missile up Joey’s nose. The van that had taken the hit had not blown to scraps of metal, a result that only confirmed Joey’s suspicion of military or police involvement. Whoever had just tried to kill him had made a big mistake catching that van in the crossfire.
“You okay?”
Masaru frowned. “I am fine. Did you get what we came for?”
Joey nodded. “Yep, and you got to make some sushi.”
Masaru snapped at him. “A katana is not used for―”
“Yeah, yeah… Take a fuckin’ joke once in a while.”
“I am a Ronin of the Kurotai Keiretsu, I have been trained in the ways of Bushido―”
“Since before you were born, yeah, yeah. In Japan you’re untouchable.”
Masaru stopped, glaring.
In the UCF, he could almost get away with anything; it just took his company throwing a lot of money around to gloss over things. This little outing provided real world experience that could prepare him for assassination attempts once he returned home. He needed to stay at the top of his game. Alas, at home, assassins would be far more subtle than a pair of oxen with heavy weapons. He relaxed, allowing his indignation at the thought his sacred blade would be used on raw fish to fade.
“It is my way,” Masaru said without emotion. “The day may come when you realize that this world does not exist solely for your personal amusement.”
Joey pondered for a moment, tapping his finger to his
chin “You mean it doesn’t?”
Masaru sighed.
Joey patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for that.”
The truth that Masaru had spared him a tongue kiss from an armor-piercing rocket hung in silence between them. Masaru welcomed him with a simple nod.
“I’ll call you as soon as I get this to Alex and get paid.”
They turned at a tremendous crash, as if a car fell from a third story window. The clatter of concrete bits fell to the ground somewhere in the distance.
“Do you know who is after you?”
“Not a damned clue.” Joey laughed and turned his bike on. “Whoever they are, they got worse problems than me now.”
nxious silence filled the void in the command room left by the explosion outside. Several seconds ticked by as the techs stared at each other, wondering if they were the only ones to feel and hear it. The fragrance of coffee teased at the senses, wafting from a puddle created by a cup jarred from a desk by the blast. Nina had not waited for anyone to say anything―she ran back up through the auditorium at a pace that blurred the seats. The poor woman expecting the basket weaving convention wound up bewildered and lying on the floor amidst the contents of her many large bags, not seeing what ran her down.
As Nina bolted for the street, Samantha Cole pushed a petrified newbie out of the way and took his chair. On the terminal in front of him, a plume of smoke rose from the van. The tech had witnessed Dale’s death and frozen in place. The feed from the electronics suite still came, despite the missile. She reoriented a redundant holo-cam away from the Diplomatic Tower to monitor the situation in the street. The two operatives outside yelled for backup. Aside from Cole, only one of the brand new staff in the ops room had the presence of mind to react; the rest sat paralyzed by disbelief.
Unfazed, Samantha added her voice to the fray. “Basket Weaver has been compromised. Repeat, we are compromised and under assault. Request immediate area saturation. I confirm two assailants visible with heavy weapons. Jeffries and Marshall have engaged at the perimeter. The Lieutenant is en route.”
Cole took a deep breath, pausing at the thought of Nina running for the front. In the best-case scenario, the whispercraft would take a little over a minute to get here. This would all be over by then. She stood up, pointing around the room. “Alright people, snap out of it! You, open a link to Whispers 4 and 6. You, I want eyes from Overwatch on that screen. You four, keep your eyes on the Diplo Tower in case this is a diversion.”
“Command, this is Hawthorne at point C3―Looks like we got some civilians caught in the crossfire.” The man’s voice crackled as the signal enhancers struggled to clear it up. “Wait, one of the shooters is trying to hit the civilians…”
“Carter at C1. Second that, command.” A woman’s voice. “Looks like one of them is firing at the civilians, probably don’t want to leave witnesses.”
“Command, this is Marshall.” The man sounded agitated. “Engaging shooter one. He’s got a 60 mil missile tube. My E82 is just pissing him off, looks like Indirium-weave subderm plus external body armor; this could be a problem.”
“Oh, we definitely got his attention.” A different, deeper voice came over the comm. “This is Jeffries. These lasers ain’t gonna do the job.”
“Hawthorne, Carter, why are you not engaging?” Nina added herself to the chatter as she continued her forty mile per hour sprint through the hotel hallway. “Your MSR-49s should tear right through that.”
“No range, Ma’am.” Hawthorne’s voice came back. “We’re running observation; we didn’t get clearance for sniper weapons.”
“What?” Nina barked. “Who the fuck’s call was that?”
“Hardin’s.” Carter’s voice, annoyance as thick as syrup. “He’s riding me about sniper re-qual. This was only supposed to be a training exercise.”
“Unbelievable.” Nina growled louder at the bald-faced idiocy of it being thought of as a training mission with two dangerous mercenaries in play. “Did anyone else bother to read the goddamned dossier on who it is we’re supposed to be observing?”
Nina glanced at the tactical overlay in the left side of her field of view; a swarm of dots traced the position of everyone involved. She had to slow down in the face of an oncoming crowd flooding the hallway. The Imperial Hotel lobby was as full of chaos and panic as it was of civilians. The smell of burned flesh and plastic, as well as the acrid chemical fragrance of non-Earth explosives, floated on smoke amid scores of coughing and crying people.
Nina dove behind a stone column as the front windows of the hotel shattered in line from right to left, sending a brilliant rain of thick glass shards flying to the accompaniment of automatic weapons outside. The thunderous report of the cannon was so loud it drowned out the voices from her implanted comm. When it stopped firing, she set herself against the crowd and tromped forward, her inhuman strength forcing a path through the sea of people.
“Cole, this is Duchenne. Get a couple of MedVans out here, civilians are bleeding all over the lobby.”
“Command, one of the civilians has a Nano sword―he appears to be engaging the second shooter.” Hawthorne sounded interested, like he was covering a sporting event.
“Nina, this is Cole. Roger the MedVans. Can you confirm the hostiles’ target?”
“Nano sword? Who the hell does this guy think he is whipping around one of those?” The voice sounded like Hawthorne. “Is he one of ours? C-Branch maybe?”
Carter’s sarcasm was almost too thick to fit through the comm channel. “No way, C-Branch would be two blocks away with a cigar and plausible deniability.”
A man tried to grab Nina and “help” her figure out she went the wrong way. She stiff-armed him six feet into the air, over a bench seat, and he made first contact with the tile floor on his cheek. His face slid along with a strained squeaking noise from the force of his impact before he flipped over and came to a halt on his back.
“Got an idea.” The voice belonged to Jeffries. “Soon as he fires… Incoming!”
Nina squinted as the NE6 explosive flooded the lobby with a flash. Her eyes filtered out the intense light within a thousandth of a second, enabling her to perceive the flesh sear away from the assassin’s face as his coat reduced to a smoking ruin. Nina shrugged off the blast wave as it knocked the people around her flat to the ground and sent them sliding. Her coat fluttered around her legs as she raised her arm to shield her face from flying glass. When the debris passed, she leapt through a blown out window.
One of the shooters lay on the ground, positioned at the center of an expanding pool of blood between two halves of rotary cannon as if placed by the hand of an artist. Just as she looked in the direction of the two civilians, they disappeared around the corner. Laser fire came from her left as the first shooter had survived the missile detonation.
Nina ignored the two men running in favor of the immediate threat. “I want eyes on those civilians. Who are they, where are they going; I want to know what they had for breakfast this morning.”
“Copy.” Acknowledgement came from both Hawthorne and Carter.
“Lieutenant, this is Whisper 4―we are en route to your location and have your two friends on the long range. Please advise if you want us at the hotel or if we should observe the civilians.”
“Observe.” She ran towards the remaining assailant.
The blast swatted Marshall and Jeffries to the ground, sliding them almost twelve yards away into the wall. They offered hesitant shots, having rolled behind cover; Jeffries settled for a lamppost while Marshall had taken refuge in a stairway cut down through the elevated courtyard to the sidewalk below. The assassin carved gouges out of the post with a handgun. Watching the agent cringe away from streams of liquefying metal gave Nina an all too familiar reminder of her last night as a normal human.
She had no faith in her sidearm, even if it was a Class 6. Having huge men laugh as she shot them was the material from which her nightmares were weaved. Nina roared with a mixture of
old fear and new rage, and charged. The goliath looked at her, his face contorted into a disbelieving eyebrow lift at the wispy girl that ran at him. He smirked, not finding her cry the least bit intimidating. He must have thought it somewhat cute as the burned scraps of flesh that remained on his face attempted a grin. She leapt to the side of the lamppost, clinging for an instant before springing sideways into a downward punch.
Much to her surprise, he caught her with one palm in her chest and held her aloft. Unlike cyborgs, the rigid parts of dolls were made of plastisteel, and they did not weigh much more than a person. He shifted in a way that made her anticipate him slamming her into the ground. She kicked her leg out for momentum and spun up and over him before slithering across his shoulder. Her feet hit the ground just as he threw all his weight into a downward pound intended to drill her into the pavement. He crushed his hand into the concrete, the force sending a radial crack two feet in all directions.
Her systems entered combat mode and the streaks of light from cars passing overhead changed to slow-drifting globs. His head turned to look back as her leg came up, driving a kick into his gut before he could get his arm in the way. Unlike the other night, she did not hold back. The strike lifted him into the air, spinning his body like a log. Amid the rapid flutter of his coat, he careened into the courtyard wall, creating another pattern of cracks before he thudded to the ground.
That kick would have bisected an ordinary human; her leg did not have to be sharp to crush its way through a body given the force involved. She stalked after him, paying little attention to the list of detected cyberware her scanners provided.
Even with all his augmentation, he remained a human being―not a full conversion doll. A cyborg would be worrisome; despite being ponderous, they had a significant strength advantage over her. This man, however, was still far from a contest. He had been emotionless to this point, but worry crept into what remained of his face once he realized what she was. Two raised eyebrows told Nina that he had not expected to run into a doll, and made her believe what the comm chatter suggested about the civilians. If they meant to attack Basket Weaver, they would have anticipated at least one person like her.
Virtual Immortality Page 17
