Silent Order: Axiom Hand

by Jonathan Moeller

  “No, I don’t really like either option,” said Lorre.

  “Either way, this operation is over,” said March.

  Lorre grinned. “This operation was a success. A complete and unqualified success. The test was so successful that the Silent Order sent an Alpha Operative all the way to Rustaril to find out what the hell was going on. Looks like the new class of drone was a success, wouldn’t you say? Rustaril has a hundred cities the size of Rykov City, all of them full of useless Citizens sucking down Sugar and amusing themselves with their Companions. All I have to do is destroy the evidence here and start over in another Rustari city. In ten years, this world will be part of the Final Consciousness, and we’ll have an army of ghost drones to infiltrate a hundred other worlds.”

  “That will be hard,” said March, “once we’re all dead here.”

  “Destroy the evidence?” said Deveraux. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Lorre took one long step back, the pistol still pointed at March’s chest.

  “What…” started Deveraux again, though he dared not take his eyes from Axiom.

  Lorre flung the grenade in his left hand. It hit the ground between March and Axiom and bounced past them, skittering into the fabricator with a series of clinks. In the same motion, Lorre grabbed Deveraux’s arm and yanked the gaunt man in front of him.

  March and Axiom had both fired at once, and their bolts slammed into Deveraux’s torso, turning his chest into a charred crater. Lorre threw him to the ground and ducked into a gap between two of the fabricator’s tanks.

  There was only a split-second to decide.

  When that grenade went off, the fabricator would absorb most of the blast, but the shrapnel would kill anyone standing too close to the grenade. March ducked for cover, rolling behind a pallet of Sugar canisters, and he glimpsed Axiom scrambling to shield herself behind a parked forklift…

  The grenade went off with a roar, and part of the fabricator ripped apart in a spray of debris. The explosion had been stronger than March guessed, and he heard dozens of clangs as pieces of metal bounced off the Sugar canisters stacked against his back. If one of those shrapnel fragments penetrated the Sugar canisters, it might touch off an explosion and kill him. Or maybe the shock wave would knock over the pallet, and he would be buried alive. Getting buried alive by Sugar canisters would have been an ironic death, save that he had never used the stuff.

  But the explosion died away, and March leaped to his feet and spun around the pallet, leading with the rifle. The grenade had thrown up a cloud of gray smoke, and March couldn’t see through it. Lorre had to be here somewhere, he couldn’t have moved that fast…

  The smoke cleared enough for him to see the wiring cradle.

  The artifact of the Great Elder Ones was gone.

  “There!” shouted Axiom, pointing as she ran around the forklift. March just had time to see Lorre’s dark coat as he dashed around the fabricator’s corner.

  He snarled a curse and sprinted after the Machinist operative, Axiom a half step behind him. March raced around the corner and came to the far side of the warehouse. Three of the truck doors were open, and March saw a truck starting to accelerate away. It was a mid-sized box truck, the sort used for deliveries, and March glimpsed Lorre at the wheel.

  He raised the rifle and fired three times, but his shots hit the side of the truck and failed to do any damage.

  Perhaps Axiom would have better luck, but she had frozen, her eyes wide.

  “Oh,” she said. “That is extremely bad.”

  “What is?” said March, looking around. There were more trucks parked against the back wall of the warehouses, and he headed for one, urging Axiom along. Perhaps they could pursue and overtake Lorre. Lorre’s truck had been accelerating like it had a heavy load.

  “That truck was shielded,” said Axiom.

  “So?” said March.

  “So I did not see what was inside of it until the truck went past,” said Axiom. “There was a low level of radiation consistent with a quantity of plutonium.”

  March looked at her, the truck forgotten. “Plutonium?”

  “Lorre has a nuclear fission bomb in the truck,” said Axiom. “Probably a ten-megaton yield, possibly fifteen. That is how he is going to destroy the evidence. He is going to detonate a nuclear device in Rykov City.”

  Chapter 9: Burn The Evidence

  “A nuke,” said March.

  The sheer brutality of it shocked him. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Ten million people lived in Rykov City, ten million men and women and children. Simon Lorre would murder them all to cover his tracks, convinced of the righteousness of the cause of the Revolution of the Final Consciousness. Likely Lorre would not lose a single instant of sleep over the mass murder of ten million people.

  Then his mind started working through the shock, and grim certainty settled on him.

  “Let’s move,” said March, and he ran the rest of the way to the nearest box truck. The door was locked, but he punched out the window, grasped the doorframe, and ripped the door away with a clench of his metal arm.

  Axiom raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ll drive,” said March. “Get in.”

  Axiom scrambled into the cab, and March jumped after her, wrenched off a panel on the dashboard and started pulling on wires.

  “March?” said Tolox in his ear. “What’s going on? I heard you mention a nuke?”

  “Lorre has the device, and he’s getting away,” said March, twisting together two wires. The truck’s engine started with a low hum, and March put the vehicle into reverse, stomped on the accelerator, and spun around just in time to see Lorre’s truck vanish as it turned right from the rear gate of the warehouse yard. “He’s also got a nuke in his truck.”

  “What?” said Tolox. Her voice rose half an octave.

  March buckled in, as did Axiom. He was pretty sure they might wind up crashing the truck, and Axiom must have shared his conclusion.

  “Deveraux was dumb enough to bring a nuke into Rykov City?” said Casimir.

  “Deveraux’s dead,” said March. “Lorre ran out the back with a box truck and the relic. He’s also got a nuke.” He put the truck into drive and slammed the accelerator against the floor. The electric engine whined, the tires squealing as they spun against the concrete, and the acceleration pressed March into the seat. “Axiom and I are in pursuit. Go ahead and detonate the plasma charges.”

  “If he’s got a nuke, where the hell is he going with it?” said Casimir.

  “Spaceport,” said March. “Has to be.” The truck bounced through the gate and onto the street, and March spotted the brake lights of Lorre’s truck. The Machinist operative was already going at least seventy miles an hour and accelerating. “He must have a ship stashed there, something fast enough to get him into orbit or at least out of the blast radius before the bomb detonates. Probably has the nuke on a timer to let him get away before he cooks the city. Then no one ever knows he was here, and he can take the relic and start churning out ghost drones somewhere else.”

  There was a flash and boom, and March glanced in the rearview mirror to see Deveraux’s warehouse collapsing into itself. Maurice Deveraux would be buried with the nanobot fabricator. Hell of a funeral pyre.

  “Then we’ve got to stop him,” said Tolox. “If he sets off that bomb in the city he’s going to kill millions of people.”

  “Maybe we should contact the Securitate,” said Helen. “This is way bigger than all of us. If we screw up and we don’t stop Venator, a lot of people are going to die.”

  “Yeah, fine,” said Casimir. “I’ll put in an anonymous call. Though the Securitate probably won’t respond, on account of a massive gunfight and explosion at Deveraux’s warehouse. You get the plate number?”

  “No,” said March. “Not close enough yet. I…”

  Axiom leaned forward and rattled off the number.

  “Sharp eye there, missy,” said Casimir. “All right. I’ll call it in. But you two hav
e the best chance to stop him. I’ll call up some friends and try to join you, but…”

  “But it’s probably up to us,” said March, trying to coax some more speed out of the truck.

  “Yeah,” said Tolox. “Looks that way.”

  March focused on driving. There wasn’t much traffic near the spaceport, mostly automated trucks hauling goods to and from the cargo shuttles, but there were enough of them that March had to focus on not hitting the trucks. So did Lorre, but March was gaining on him. Lorre’s truck seemed to have a full load, likely from the weight of the nuke, and March’s truck didn’t have anything in the trailer.

  That meant he could accelerate faster, and they were gaining on Lorre.

  “Do we have a plan?” said Axiom as March accelerated past a semi.

  “Yeah,” said March. “I get close, you shoot out Lorre’s tires. He crashes, we kill him, take the relic, disable the nuke, and then get the hell out of here.”

  “Very well,” said Axiom. She smashed out her window with the butt of her rifle, the glass falling into the street. “But get as close as you can. This vehicle’s suspension is substandard and does not provide a stable firing platform. If I accidentally shoot the bomb, there is a remote but nonetheless real possibility that the resultant power surge might trigger the detonator.”

  “Then we’ll get close,” said March, and he pushed for more speed from the straining engine. The battery charge on the dashboard was draining fast. The truck had only been half-charged when he had stolen it, and the damned Rustari electric engine was an inefficient mess. He only hoped Lorre’s truck was just as inefficient.

  They drew closer, March weaving the truck around the semis. From the direction of the ruined warehouse, he heard the wail of a lot of sirens. It seemed that the Securitate had responded in force. Were any of them coming to stop Lorre? If they did, most likely they would shoot March and Axiom and let Lorre go.

  “All right,” said Axiom. “I calculate I am close enough to attempt a shot.”

  “Don’t fall out the window,” said March as she leaned out the frame, bracing the barrel of the rifle on the side mirror.

  “Then do not change direction unexpectedly,” said Axiom. “Try to get closer.”

  “Trying,” said March. He was going seventy-three miles an hour, the RPM meter’s needle vibrating like an overstrained rope. There were less than thirty meters between March’s truck and Lorre’s now, and they were close enough that March could read the license number for himself.

  Axiom took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.

  The plasma rifle spat a bolt and blew out a crater on the road just behind Lorre’s right-rear tire. March heard the hot shards of asphalt bounce off the front fender. Axiom fired twice more and missed both times. He could hardly blame her. The truck’s engine was pushing at its maximum capacity, and between that and the lousy suspension, the vehicle was vibrating with enough force to make March’s teeth hurt.

  She squeezed the trigger again just as March’s front left wheel hit a pothole. The whole truck bounced, and her wayward plasma bolt blew away Lorre’s right-side mirror.

  “He’s going to notice that,” said March.

  “Obviously he has been aware of our pursuit for some time,” said Axiom. Her next shot took out Lorre’s right brake light. “Damn it! If this truck would stop vibrating for just a second…”

  The back door on Lorre’s truck started to slide open.

  What the hell? Why was Lorre opening the back door? Did he want them to shoot the bomb? Axiom was right that there was a chance a plasma bolt might accidentally trigger the detonator, but it was just as likely that a plasma bolt would disable the weapon. Nuclear weapons, even comparatively simple fission bombs, were complicated machines, and it was a lot easier to disable a complicated machine than to accidentally trigger it.

  Then the door opened all the way, and March saw the naked men and women.

  No, not humans. Companions. Two built to look like men, and two built in the shape of women. Like the other Companions, the artificial flesh had been peeled off the sides and top of their heads, giving them a macabre appearance. Behind them stood a massive black box about the size of a commercial refrigerator, which was no doubt the bomb.

  At the moment, March was more concerned about the plasma rifles held by the Companions.

  “Axiom!” he shouted.

  She fired, and this time her bolt met the target. The shot struck Lorre’s right rear tire. The truck’s heavy tires had been built to withstand the rough conditions of the road and to bear the truck’s weight, but it hadn’t been designed to hold up against plasma fire. The tire exploded, shards of rubber tumbling away, and the truck canted to the right.

  In the same instant, all four Companions fired. March ducked as best he could as two plasma bolts tore through the windshield, blowing it into glittering shards. A pulse of searing heat washed over the right side of March’s neck as a plasma bolt shot past. It must have missed him because he was still alive to feel the pain of its superheated passage. Another bolt drilled through the hood and into the engine, which started making an unhappy howling noise as every warning light on the dashboard illuminated at once.

  Axiom yelped in pain. March couldn’t spare a second to see if she had been shot or not. He couldn’t spare that second because the remaining brake light on Lorre’s truck flared as the Machinist agent struggled to get the vehicle under control. Worse, Lorre’s truck started to tilt to the side, the vehicle beginning to go into a spin from the loss of its tire.

  Which meant March’s truck slammed into it at about seventy-five miles an hour.

  The bumper struck Lorre’s truck at an angle, and the impact was sufficient to flip Lorre’s truck onto its right side, sparks flying from the metal as it skidded along. The hood of March’s truck crumpled like an accordion, and the engine failed with a hideous whining shriek. March was thrown forward into his restraints, and he just had time to be glad he had thought to buckle his seat belt. The strap sawed into his chest and stomach with terrible force, but it stopped his head from cracking against the steering wheel.

  With a horrible shriek of tearing metal, both trucks came to a shuddering halt.

  March was flung back, his skull bouncing off the headrest with terrific force. That hurt like hell, but he didn’t think anything had been broken.

  “Axiom,” he croaked, turning his head to the side.

  Axiom slumped in her seat, eyes closed. She was still breathing, which was good. But she was bleeding from a cut on her right temple, which wasn’t good, the crimson blood stark against her pale skin. March jerked his seat belt free and yanked his rifle from the floor. He didn’t think Axiom was badly hurt, but if he didn’t get moving, they both would be dead.

  A Companion stepped around the wreck of Lorre’s truck, plasma rifle coming up to target Axiom’s head. March snapped his rifle around and fired, and his shot burned away the top half of the Companion’s skull. The android jerked and collapsed to the asphalt. March tried his door handle and realized that the crash had warped the door. He then raised his rifle butt to smash out the driver’s side window, only to see that it had been shattered in the crash.

  March heaved himself through the window, rivulets of broken safety glass falling from his arms and legs, and braced himself on the crumpled hood of the truck. Around them heavy semis rumbled past, hauling cargo to and from the spaceport. March hoped the pseudointelligences driving the automated trucks were smart enough not to crash into the wrecks…

  Two more Companions came into sight around the edge of Lorre’s truck.

  March lifted his rifle and fired, his shot taking the Companion on the left through the skull. The second fired at him, the blast sizzling past his arm, and March adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. His first shot punched through the Companion’s chest, and the second vaporized its skull. March jumped off the hood of the truck and whirled, rifle held ready before him. There had been four Companions in the back of the tr
uck along with the nuclear bomb. He had accounted for three of them, but the fourth might still be active. Lorre might have been injured or even killed in the truck crash, but March doubted that he was that lucky.

  He stepped around the side of Lorre’s truck, looking into the cargo area. The bomb had broken loose from its mounting and landed on the wall of the truck, coincidentally crushing the last Companion. There was no sign of Lorre. Had he survived? Had he escaped?

  A dark flicker caught his eye.

  He spotted Lorre sprinting for the curb, a plasma pistol in his right hand and the alien relic in his left hand. March cursed and ran after him, taking a shot with the plasma rifle. Aiming a handgun while running was hard. Aiming a rifle while running was much harder. March’s bolt came nowhere near Lorre. The Machinist agent twisted, bringing his pistol to bear, and started shooting. March dodged the bolts and fired again just as Lorre jumped onto the curb beneath another warehouse.

  This time he had better luck. He missed Lorre, but he hit the curb. A section the size of a fist exploded into concrete splinters, and Lorre stumbled, tripped, and landed on his face. He kept his grip on the pistol but lost the artifact. The relic hit the street and bounced away, and March shifted his rifle to his right hand and snatched up the alien device with his left.

  His cybernetic arm reported that the thing felt smooth and hard and cold.

  His right arm was strong enough to bear the weight of his rifle unaided, and he swung to aim at Lorre as the Machinist agent scrambled back to his feet. Lorre fired again, and March had to dodge. His bolt missed Lorre, and the Machinist agent dashed into an alley. March started after him, his blood hot for the kill. This time Lorre wasn’t getting away. This time the Machinist agent would be called to account for all the blood on his hands…

  Something small and metallic bounced out of the alley, leaving a few shards on the sidewalk. March thought it was a grenade at first and he stepped back, but then he realized it was a broken phone.

  “That was the detonator for the bomb!” said Lorre, his voice ringing down the alley. “The timer was set for three minutes, March! Chase me if you want. Maybe you’ll catch me before we all burn together!”