The Gun Golems (Approaching Infinity Book 2)

by Chris Eisenlauer

  Mastering her anger and her fear, Brin looked at Lara’s hand, then looked Lara in the eye. “Let go of me.”

  Lara ignored her. “Did you enjoy your little interrogation routine the other day? Did it make you feel big and powerful? Separate and singularly important? Like a god? He told me what you did to him, you know. I might have thought that your power, because of what it is, eats away at your humanity, excusing you from normal social rules, but having been subjected to that power and knowing how petty and judgmental you really are. . . it just makes me sick.”

  “Take your hand off of me,” Brin said.

  The other cracked a crooked smile, and Brin thought that Lara looked very unlike the sweet, demure girl she had come to dislike.

  “Why don’t you make me?” Lara said.

  Brin struggled to maintain her composure, but she felt her stomach drop. Lara’s grip was, to her, physically unbreakable; there was no hope for her in a contest of strength, and she knew that Lara’s true power lie in her legs. Brin’s eyes drifted to Lara’s wrist, and she saw to her surprise and relief that there was no psi blocker upon it. “Where is it?” she said, confidence swelling over and into her like the tide. “Your new psi blocker.”

  “If you ask me, it was never necessary.”

  “Oh?” Brin was smirking. Now that she knew she could use her power on Lara she was no longer afraid. “Why’s that?”

  Lara shrugged. “That’s my business.”

  “Your business,” Brin said, nodding, adrenalin filling her. She wouldn’t use her power unless she absolutely had to. She would not allow Lara to intimidate her, regardless of what Lara was capable of physically. “What about Elza Steinz and the officer assigned to you? Was it their business, too?”

  “What do you care? You were always jealous of Elza, anyway, weren’t you?” Lara’s eyes dropped momentarily and a frown spread across her face. “She was my friend, though. And don’t you go trying to cash in on simple human compassion; your reputation precedes you.

  “So what is it you’ve got against me, Miss Karvasti? Or am I just a casualty in your ongoing efforts to make Ren miserable? Either way, we’re going to have to fix things, you and I.” Lara punctuated her words by giving Brin’s shoulder a sharp squeeze.

  Brin winced and felt her knees go weak. “I don’t have to listen to this,” she said, voice wavering.

  “Don’t you?” Lara looked around, scanning either end of the corridor. “Is someone coming to help pry my hand from your shoulder?”

  “Let me go,” Brin said, trying to master herself.

  “No.”

  Infusing her voice with her power, Brin said again, this time through clenched teeth, “Let me go.“

  Smiling, Lara released her, seemed to fall backwards, almost clumsily. As she did this, there was a ferocious gust of wind before Brin’s face, leaving a thin, almost invisible crease, like a paper cut, up her right cheek. Lara stepped back, and Brin realized that the woman in front of her had just recovered from a kick delivered.

  Brin touched two shaking fingers to the sting she felt on the right side of her face. Her mouth worked soundlessly. She wanted to vocalize her indignation, but she was too shocked and afraid. Her indignation won out, however, and filled her with a substitute for courage. For the first time, her power was a visible, throbbing aura, something like heat exhaust pouring out of her. She straightened, her face firmed, her voice came cold and hard, “Did you kill Elza Steinz?”

  Lara stared at her, smiling coyly.

  “Answer me.“

  “No,” Lara said simply.

  Brin’s face darkened. No? Did that mean that Lara was refusing to answer or that she hadn’t killed Elza Steinz? In that moment of consideration, Lara moved swiftly into position, cocked her right leg back, and shot it forward. For what seemed an eternity, but was in fact a fraction of an instant, Brin could not breathe. This could not be happening. It was ridiculous, a nightmare, impossible. But it was happening, and Brin did the only thing she could. She found her breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Stop!” as she squeezed her eyes shut, brought her hands uselessly before her face, and unconsciously brought forth the Dharma Engine, its sudden materialization producing a low, bass pop that boomed throughout the corridor.

  For a time, only the discordant yet still somehow musical hum of the Dharma Engine could be heard, until at length it was joined by the retreating sound of Lara’s cruel laughter.

  Brin finally opened her tear-soaked eyes to see Lara walking away, laughter still trailing. She sobbed and stared wide-eyed down the now-empty corridor, and something truly terrible occurred to her: even with the backing of the Dharma Engine, her power had had no effect on Lara. True, Lara had stopped her attack, but Brin’s command had not been so specific. Driven by the Dharma Wheel, the command should have forced Lara to stop everything short of involuntary muscle movements.

  She began to hyperventilate. She looked around wildly as if the dark corridor itself might offer some suggestion of what to do. A thought was repeating in her mind, just below consciousness, adding to her hysteria until it built up strong enough to be recognized: Ren!

  • • •

  Ren stood up straight from his desk chair as if startled to wakefulness by a klaxon. Responding to the sudden thrust of his knees, his desk did a half flip across the room, sending everything that sat atop it scattering about in an explosive flurry.

  “Damn it, Brin!” Ren said out loud, catching his breath. “What was that for?”

  The contact had come via Artifact and Ren heard her continue now. “You have to come here. Now,” she said. Then after a time she added, “Please.”

  “Why don’t you come here?” he replied back through his Artifact, holding his head in both hands. “Why did you shout like that?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not moving from this spot. You have to come. Please, Ren.”

  Ren sighed. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, though you’ve never given me any reason to. Where are you?”

  “I don’t know,” she whimpered.

  “You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrieked.

  His tone softened somewhat in spite of his overriding impatience. “Okay, Brin. I’m going to come get you, but you have to help me. Do you have any idea where you are?”

  “I think I’m near the top, near the Stitch Drive.”

  “The Stitch Drive? What are you doing there?”

  “Just come, please.”

  • • •

  He found her in just under an hour. She sat in the corridor, directly under one of the weak service lights, back to the wall, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees.

  “Brin?” he said tentatively.

  “Ren?” she replied, her eyes sparkling with old tears.

  “Yeah, it’s me. So what’s going on? You want to talk about it here or do you just want me to get you back home?”

  She looked him in the eye, fixed him with her stare. “Your girlfriend is crazy.”

  He pursed his lips. “Is that why you called me here? To tell me that?

  “She tried to kill me,” Brin spat.

  “Did she?”

  “Yes. And her passing my interview two days ago means nothing. Even with the Dharma Engine I couldn’t make her do anything. I’m positive she killed Elza Steinz, just like she tried to kill me.”

  “Brin, what’s going on here? Am I supposed to believe this?”

  Her eyes bore into him furiously. “Does this look like an act?” she said savagely.

  He shrugged. “How am I of all people supposed to know when you’re acting and when you’re not? Everything you’ve ever shown me is an act.

  “I certainly wouldn’t leave you to die, Brin, and I appreciate that this would be my jurisdiction, but if you truly feared for your life, why didn’t you call Vays? Calling me just amounts to a great big and potentially fabricated ‘I told you so,’ which seems like an awfull
y dangerous game to play given what we’ve seen so far. Why not Vays? You wouldn’t even have to convince him.”

  She bit at her lower lip, cast her eyes down, and shook her head, unable to answer.

  “I’m sorry, Brin, but given your attitude towards Lara from the beginning and looking at the way you’ve treated me in the past, this stinks of calculation rather than real fear.”

  “I’m telling you it’s not an act,” she said.

  He smirked. “Maybe. You know, I don’t regret saving you all those years ago when we were kids, but how I wish that had been the end of it. When I look at you and when I think of all those wasted years, I feel dirty, sick under the skin, and I’m tired of it. That’s what I’m going up against right now, Brin. Can you begin to understand that? You really ought to try since you’re more or less responsible.

  “If you want to follow me out of here, you’re welcome to do so.”

  She was gaping at him, eyes wet and quivering with brand new tears. As he turned to go, her strained breath rasped out, “Ren!” Then louder, “Ren!”

  He turned back to face her.

  “You have to believe me,” she screeched in desperation.

  Ren raised his eyebrows then regarded the flashing lights and bleating alarm coming from the device on his wrist. He raised the psi blocker to the level of his face for her to see.

  Brin shook her head, realizing what she had done. It was another reflex, an uncontrollable response to stress. “Ren, I’m sorry,” her voice shook. “I didn’t mean to. Please believe me, I—”

  “Goodbye, Brin,” he said and resumed his exit.

  Ren walked quickly. He couldn’t stand to be near her for two reasons. First, as he had told her, she made him sick; second, and worse, he believed her.

  He didn’t mind leaving her behind. She’d been left alive so wasn’t in any immediate danger, and he knew that she would call Vays now if she still needed assistance back to the populated levels of the Palace. He had preparations to make.

  21. FAILED ATTEMPTS

  10,688.318.0700

  Ren stepped out of police headquarters and was surprised to see Lara there just about to enter.

  “Lara, what are you doing here? You’re usually not getting up for another hour or so.”

  “I stopped by your room. You weren’t there. I thought you’d be here,” she said.

  Ren studied her. She was different somehow. Flat and oddly quiet. “Well, you almost missed me. Would you care to join me?”

  “Oh, I don’t—” she started.

  “Come on,” he said, taking hold of her hand and leading her off down the corridor towards the jump deck.

  “Where are we going?” she asked impassively.

  “Don’t you know?” he said. She shook her head, almost petulantly he thought. “I doubt it’ll be that much of a surprise.” He waited for more from her, but there was nothing.

  They stepped off the jump deck platform, and she followed along side him awkwardly. Twice she missed her step, almost falling into him, and each time he gently caught her and set her right, guiding her by the hand. He pretended not to see that she was gnawing her lower lip and near to tears.

  They entered the offices of the Cultural Studies Division without knocking. No one was about, but it was still early. And yet, there was the unmistakable feeling that these offices had been empty for much longer than the interval between working hours.

  They proceeded into the interior, and came to Ty Karr’s office. Ren pushed the door open without ceremony, and the two found Karr sitting at his desk.

  Karr looked at Ren for a moment, staring. “Director Fauer. . .” Karr said.

  “You seem surprised, Director Karr. Weren’t you expecting me?”

  “W- Yes, of course.”

  “Now, is that because we had an appointment or because you knew I was coming?”

  There was the briefest of pauses before Karr could answer. His tone was smooth and measured, “I don’t see how those are different.”

  “No? Still you did seem surprised.”

  “Well, Director Fauer, it’s just that you are three hours early.”

  “So I am,” Ren agreed.

  Karr leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk, his eyes darting from Ren to Lara. “It is of course a pleasure to see you again, Miss Bester, but what is her business here, Director Fauer?”

  Ren shrugged and was both reassured and sickened by the split-second glance the other two shared. A memory stabbed forth, blotting out the present, and Ren could see the drop of what must have been blood upon Lara’s forehead that day at the cafeteria after she’d come back from her video call. He shook inwardly, thinking rightly now that Lara’s two instances of clumsiness on the way to Karr’s office had been attempts upon his life, half-hearted perhaps, but attempts nonetheless. He felt his stomach twisting, his eyes moistening, but there was no time for that.

  Ren let Lara’s hand fall from his own and raised his left wrist. “These are fascinating devices,” he said, regarding the psi blocker. “Do you know how they work?”

  Karr stared at him, smiling patiently and waiting for the obligatory explanation.

  “It’s simplicity itself,” Ren said. “Just reverberant feedback, an echo of the wearer’s RMP. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I confess that I did in fact know that.”

  Ren nodded, smiling himself now. “Did you also know that they record all instances of physical contact and all attempts at mental?”

  Karr’s smile was becoming strained. “Yes. Seems like an awful lot of useless data, though. Must be an exercise in tedium to sift through it all.”

  Ren shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe that’s what it takes sometimes.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Director Fauer,” Karr said.

  Ren grinned at Karr cagily for what seemed a long time. “I came across my contact with you, Director Karr. I thought that perhaps in our recent dealings, using you in your capacity as an object reader, there may have been more instances of contact, but there weren’t. Just the one time. It was several months back, during the interviews conducted after Professor Cranden’s death. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your reading was very interesting.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “It was zero,” Ren said. “I did some research. Do you know who is capable of producing such a reading? I mean besides yourself, of course.”

  “Why don’t you save us both some time, Director Fauer, and make your point.”

  “I’m sorry. Am I frustrating you, Director?”

  “Please, just continue.”

  “No one. A dead man maybe, but no man alive is capable of a zero reading.” Ren turned his back on Karr and nonchalantly stepped away from Lara as she subtly shifted position. “Even someone with no active psychic power possesses a minimum RMP of fifty to a hundred; it’s proof that they’re alive, their brains are working. Anything lower than that is suspect.”

  “This is really absurd, Mr. Fauer. Obviously I suppressed my power to prevent activating your psi blocker.”

  Ren raised his index finger sharply and said, “On that we both agree, but exactly what power are we referring to?”

  “Object reading, of course. It works on people just as well as inanimate objects, I assure you. You’ll forgive me for attempting to be polite. In the future I shall adjust my manners accordingly.”

  Ren shook his head. “No one is capable of zero. Not anyone with an RMP within recorded levels anyway.” He eyed Lara off to the side, taking stock of her movements as she inched towards him. His eyes drifted back, locking on Karr’s for an instant.

  And then he moved.

  Ren flipped around, like a sequence of still photographs with no in-between motion, avoiding the flash of Lara’s legs, which were sheathed in glittering, spectral steel. He registered the now-recognizable luster of gun golem steel, but could not afford to stop to consider the implications. His course was clea
r. He shut down the part of his brain that allowed him to feel, to worry, to second-guess, and acted, hoping that there would be time later to do those things at leisure.

  He struck Lara as hard as he could from behind, driving an elbow between her shoulder blades and forcing her to stumble forwards on her sharp-edged stilts. He flipped around, back over her head, and drove his knee into her solar plexus, then an uppercut palm into her jaw. Her eyes rolled back, white, and she collapsed, the shimmering blades about her legs fading like a mirage.

  Ren turned back to face Karr, who stared wide-eyed but fearless, and summoned the power of the Riot Knives, bristling in an instant with thousands of blades.

  A fat needle of gun golem metal appeared before Karr’s face and jetted towards Ren, but the blades whirled in furious currents, batting the needle away, sinking it three quarters of its length into the wall directly behind Karr.

  Ren seemed to disappear and then the office was painted with bright red blood. The Riot Driver hit Karr, tore the flesh and muscle from a number of his bones, and pulverized a good number of those bones as it proceeded. There was a grinding sound as the blades got caught in the mire of Karr’s body, and Ren retreated, hovered just over the floor, regarded the mess of his handiwork.

  • • •

  Forbis Vays walked the corridor to his personal training facility, his face set in a dark scowl. He was worried about Brin, now back in his quarters with the door locked, but more than that he had the sense that matters were coming to a head, that all the mystery of the last several months would dissolve and leave the truth raw and exposed, like an open wound, and he wondered if the Palace could survive such a revelation and all that it would entail. He wanted to talk to Kalkin, had left a message for him, but practice was a balm for all things and so he stuck to routine. When he arrived, though, he saw that while he might get some practice in, it would be anything but routine.