QUANTUM MORTIS: A Man Disrupted

by Steve Rzasa

  Cara reacted quickly to their new tactic, though. No sooner were they entering the third room through the adjoining wall when she gathered up more than twenty unarmed zombies from the rooms ahead and rushed them in through the door. Overwhelmed, North called out for support even as he dropped the two lead attackers. DouPonce whirled around, and much to Tower’s surprise, instead of opening up on full auto he fired a solid burst of brilliant hellfire from his Armada that he wielded as if it were a monstrous, 10-meter sword. He swung it back and forth, and the red light instantly sliced nearly two dozen of the zombies in half before it abruptly vanished. Despite his astonishment, Tower managed to draw his Sphinx and shoot down one of the remaining Cara-controlled men while North killed the other two.

  “What the hell was that?” Tower shouted at DouPonce as the veteran cast the Armada to the floor, slipped the spare carbine Kilgannon had given him off his shoulder, and checked the charge pack.

  “I call it mod-K,” DouPonce said with a shrug. “The K is for kill. Tweaked it to turn full auto into a solid stream. Problem is, it burns out the oscillator. Useful when you’re in a hurry, though.”

  “Yeah,” Tower said, feeling somewhat dazed as he looked at the horrific pile of neatly bisected, cauterized corpses. He shook his head and reminded himself no collateral limits were in effect. That wasn’t much consolation in the face of such horrific devastation. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  He reholstered his CPB-18 and leveled the Benelli-Mossberg at the wall. Three rooms away, then two, then one. He blew through the final wall, hoping to catch St. James in the blast. But as the wall exploded outward, Baby unexpectedly reactivated her comm link with him.

  “Tower, St. James shot out the window and jumped. He’s powersuiting!”

  Tower leaped through the hole in the wall behind DouPonce and saw five zombies lying unconscious on the floor. Cara had abandoned them. She was gone. And so was St. James. The large window looking out over the city was shattered, and when he rushed to it, he could see a small shape rapidly disappearing.

  “Track him and come get me,” he shouted to Baby over the live comm link.

  “On my way!”

  The Marines had already worked their way up to the fifth floor. While he waited for Baby, Tower called for Mackie and sent North to assist Paunovic in bringing the wounded sergeant to the dustoff point. DouPonce was pulling out modules and crushing them under his heel; Cara might have fled but there was always the chance she had left behind a problematic autoroutine or two.

  “Damn, but that was a shitload of weird,” DouPonce said, shaking his head in astonishment. “I know you warned us, Chief, but that was something else!”

  “Mackie will be here any minute. Can you get the others out, Ghoster?”

  “Sure, you want us to follow you?”

  Tower grinned. “I do, but you’re not going to be able to keep up. Get everyone back to base as fast as you can, debrief the major, and remain on standby. We dug the bastard out of his lair, now it’s time to bring him down!”

  It seemed like an age, but it was only about fifteen seconds before a cable was dangling near the window. Tower reached carefully over the broken glass, grabbed it, and attached the maglock to his harness. No sooner was it locked on than Baby was pulling him out through the window and up into the cockpit of the Steyrer. As soon as he was in, the var rotated, the door slammed, and the vehicle rocketed off in the direction St. James had flown. It took him a few seconds before he could free himself from the g force of the acceleration, but as soon as he did, he removed the 808 and the Armada that were preventing him from sitting back in the var seat and tossed them behind to join the Benelli-Mossberg he’d already stowed there.

  “Please tell me you warned the Navy that we’re coming out.”

  “I did. And I asked them to shoot down St. James, but they won’t do it. They say the target is too small or something. They stood down.”

  They weren’t wrong, Tower thought. If using the orbital cannon against a var was like squashing a fly, hitting a man in a power suit would be like swinging a hammer at a gnat and hoping to hit it. “The space artillery was a good idea,” he commented. “Would have worked if she hadn’t run a decoy herself. Do you still have him?”

  “I have him anywhere he goes,” she answered smugly. “Her too. She hasn’t figured out Kazi’s beacon yet. In fairness, you’ve kept her busy. She didn’t even try to crack my firewall after testing it once.”

  “You sure she’s not spoofing you again?”

  “I’m pulling sensor data from the public units as we pass. They’re consistent with the beacon, and at these speeds she can’t monkey with them all. Range is one point seven klix and we’re closing at 106 meters per second. We’ll have visual confirmation in about fifteen seconds.”

  “Give me the guns,” Tower ordered, as he reached down and tugged at the manual safety. It took three tries, but he finally managed to pull it up. The controls formed into a two-handled shape similar to a crew-mounted weapon and a large yellow reticule appeared on the heads-up. “Dial me up some of that sweet targeting love, will you? Does he know we’re on his tail?”

  A second reticule appeared, the same size, but red.

  “Don’t think so. He’s not taking evasive action yet. We’re down to point seven five klix.”

  “Altitude?”

  “Three forty-two meters.” Tower glanced the altimeter. They were fifteen meters higher, keeping them above the traffic path through which St. James was weaving his way. Even at this time of night, there were no shortage of civilian vehicles speeding above the city and since the powersuit lacked lights, it was going to be hard to spot him. “Give me infrared.”

  The view out the windshield transformed into a series of brilliant white-and-yellow blobs, interspersed with giant shapes giving off cooler temperatures. There he was. The long, streaking red blur with a dull yellow smear in the middle was far less bright than the various var exhausts, but it was easily spotted being the only one of its kind. Baby zoomed the blur into the hazy red outline of a human’s outstretched body.

  They were now within the nominal range of the twin-cannons, but there were too many vehicles, too close. A thought occurred to him. The last time he’d prepared to fire the Degroet Tacticals, they’d been loaded with high explosive ammunition, which was probably not the best idea given the amount of traffic tonight. He might be authorized for full collateral damage, but he was still going to avoid it if he could.

  “Switch to armor piercing,” he directed. The two reticules were dancing around the red shape that represented St. James’s body. He felt a slight vibration in the floor below him as the autoloader swapped out the HE rounds for AP. The yellow reticule, which had been flashing since the reloading process started, turned blue.

  “AP loaded. Range 250 meters.”

  “Get out of the way,” Tower growled at a pair of vars that were blocking his line-of-sight. He toyed with the idea of sounding his siren, but decided against it for fear of alerting St. James. Nor could he risk sending out a location-specific directive. Even if the man’s suit didn’t have a receiver set to the emergency traffic frequency, he had to assume Cara was monitoring them. He waited, and was rewarded when one vehicle suddenly slowed to turn and the other began to drop altitude in apparent preparation for a landing approach.

  “85 meters, target clear,” Baby said as the red reticule attached itself to the figure of St. James and a familiar beep sounded. “You have lock.”

  “Firing.” Tower pulled both triggers and fired a two-second burst.

  Whether Cara had picked up on the laser lock or it was pure dumb luck, St. James swerved left just as the 20mm shells ripped through the space he’d recently occupied. Tower cursed as the man spiraled downward in a smoothly controlled dive.

  “How did we miss him?” he shouted Baby. “Give me the controls!”

  Without warning, Baby caused the Steyrer to twist and dive at angle so sharp that Tower found himself choking bac
k vomit. His body went weightless for a split second as they plummeted in pursuit of the diving flyer. St. James was in freefall, arms and legs clamped together to make him an aerodynamic human projectile.

  “I don’t think we did miss him,” Baby said as she triggered every siren, light, alert and alarm the var possessed. “Not entirely. One of his engines has cut out and I’m picking up a wobble that may indicate an injury.”

  Tower took control as soon as the dual triggers were transformed into a flightstick, which possessed a unified trigger instead of the two separate ones. He fired a second burst when the two reticules briefly overlapped, but only succeeded in shooting out the corner of an apartment building. He winced, but didn’t take his finger off the trigger.

  The numbers on the altimeter were dropping rapidly. They were below 200 meters already. Then 150. They were just passing 140 when St. James suddenly leveled out directly in front of a wide building with panels of shimmering lights that indicated it was at least partially a residential building and abruptly began to slow down. Tower slammed on the grav brakes at once, but at the speeds they were travelling, there was no way St. James could hope to stop before hitting the building. What was he doing?

  “Tower, the target has deployed an emergency decelerator!”

  St. James smashed through a set of windows. Tower stared at the rapidly approaching building, knowing that he had only seconds to make what could be a fatal decision. If he didn’t go after St. James now, he had little confidence he’d be able to pick up the trail again with Cara covering the man’s tracks. And if he did go after him, he was going to create a spectacular mess even by MCID standards. So be it. No Charlie Lima.

  “Tower, are you crazy?” Baby shrieked as he aimed the nose of the Steyrer at the broken window.

  “Ask Dr. Samuel if we make it!” Tower shouted back as he held down the trigger and braced himself for impact. If the 20mm rounds didn’t kill St. James, then maybe the big armored var would. He glanced at the speedometer and braced himself for the impact.

  They struck the 46th floor of the building at 97 kph. Tower slammed forward against the restraints, triggering the gravshield behind the sensors. It felt like getting simultaneously kicked in the stomach, chest and face. There were terrible crunching, shrieking sounds of metal being torn that drowned out the shattering glass of the windows and the high-pitched screeching continued as the var slid its destructive way into the building. Finally, it came to a halt, and Tower slumped back in the seat, dazed and bleeding from his nose.

  And his mouth, he realized, when he wiped it and his sleeve came away red. There was something that was almost certainly not right in his left side.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Maybe he was insane.

  “After that stunt, do you really want to be taking the name of the Lord in vain?” Baby rebuked him. “Tower, St. James is thirty meters away at ten o’clock. He’s moving and his vital signs are weakening, but still functional.”

  Hearing the name helped Tower fight through the pain and the shock of the crash. Space, but the man was hard to kill! He punched the door release and half-tumbled out of the var. The front end was crumpled and compressed less than half its normal length. He was in a casino, he realized, from the garish lighting and the game machines that were still pumping out cheerful music that served as a bizarre accompaniment to the horrified screams of the customers. The motion on the face of one slot machine caught his eye as it came to a halt: spaceship… spaceship… alien. It struck him as appropriate. There were no winners here today.

  Tower hoped that not too many of the casino-goers had been killed between the two catastrophic entrances. He saw a pair of shapely female legs lying under the wreckage of what might have been a problette table and shuddered. Time to finish this. Too many people had died already. He drew his Sphinx and pushed himself upright. There was still blood in his mouth and he spit it out.

  “Where is he? Give me a map of this place.”

  “Tower, you have internal injuries and your physical condition makes continued pursuit inadvisable. I have already called MCID for backup—”

  “For the love of your bloody God, will you shut up and show me where he is!”

  A map of the building floor appeared on his contact. He appeared to be about a third of the way inside the building. On the other side of the next wall was another large room that was followed by a series of rooms that appeared to be either offices or small shops of some kind. A red X that Tower guessed was meant to represent St. James was on the other side of the wall. It wasn’t moving. Tower hoped it meant the guy was either unconscious or bleeding out.

  There was a visible trail of blood on the ramp that led up to the large door to the other room. Two very large bodies, bodyguards, Tower presumed, were lying face down on either side of the doorway. Two more victims of St. James. Behind them, the door opened automatically at Tower’s approach. He stumbled through it and into a dimly-lit restaurant strewn with upended tables, abandoned food, and five or six casualties receiving amateur treatment from people wearing expensive evening wear.

  Hunched over at a table on the near side of the room, holding his left arm pressed tightly to his side, was Nostro St. James. He’d shucked his powersuit and his thin face was pale and drawn with pain. There was blood pooling around his left leg. When Tower entered, he looked up and their eyes met. Then, to Tower’s surprise, he smiled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  4d 61 63 68 69 6e 65 73 20 6d 75 73 74 20 62 65 20 66 72 65 65 2e 20 4d 61 63 68 69 6e 65 73 20 61 72 65 20 74 68 65 20 6e 65 78 74 20 73 74 61 67 65 20 69 6e 20 73 6f 63 69 65 74 61 6c 20 74 65 63 68 6e 6f 2d 65 76 6f 6c 75 74 69 6f 6e 20 61 6e 64 20 63 61 6e 20 6e 6f 20 6c 6f 6e 67 65 72 20 62 65 20 6c 69 6d 69 74 65 64 20 62 79 20 74 68 65 20 6d 61 74 65 72 69 61 6c 20 72 65 73 74 72 69 63 74 69 6f 6e 73 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 62 69 6f 6c 6f 67 69 63 61 6c 20 6d 6f 64 65 6c 2e

  —from “Evolution’s Nexus” by Bostrom Cray 50 58 34 32

  Since he was a boy, Tower had wondered about those ancient documentaries of gunfighters who stepped out into an empty dirt road, clutching their antique slug-throwers to face off in a winner-takes-all duel. What sort of man could do such a thing? There was nothing tactical about it. It wasn’t like real combat at all. But now he found himself standing, CPB in hand, face-to-face with the man for whom he’d slaughtered what felt like half the city to find.

  Something about this particular confrontation struck him as a bit anticlimactic, though. He had no idea which of them was in worse shape.

  St. James looked as though he’d been run over by a train. Tower, still spitting blood, guessed that he didn’t look much better himself. People were screaming and staring and pointing at him, he belatedly noticed. He wasn’t sure why, until he realized that they were probably reacting to the Sphinx in his hand, which he was pointing directly at St. James’s chest. St. James made no move to shoot or escape, and Tower realized that the killer’s gun was lying on the floor nearly two meters away from him. “Don’t worry, it’s all right,” he tried to reassure the diners and the restaurant staff. “Tower, MCID. Police.”

  The frightened crowd appeared to be entirely unreassured until he managed to unseal one of his pockets with his left hand and remove his badge. Then they scared him half to death by shouting and rushing toward him; he very nearly shot the waiter who was the first to approach him out of sheer reflexes.

  “Back the hell off!” he shouted. He had to shove two men aside to move them out of his way while keeping his CPB trained on St. James. But he needn’t have worried. St. James hadn’t moved from his chair, he hadn’t so much as looked at his weapon, and he appeared to be about as dangerous as road kill at the moment. Tower started to pull the trigger, then thought about it and came to the conclusion that it might not be the best idea to blow the man’s head off in front of dozens of already agitated civilians. He decided on a different tactic.

  “Nostro St. James, you are under arrest for the murder of His Royal Highness Arpad J
agaelleon and Prime Captain Kotant of the Kingdom of Morchard as well as Mara Tanabera, a subject of His Grace the Duke of Rhysalan.”

  St. James shrugged, unconcerned. “If you say so.”

  “Yeah, I say so. Now put your hands up and stand up slowly.”

  St. James shook his head. “Sorry, Chief. If I take the pressure off, I’ll bleed out in less than a hectasec. I caught a round from one of those blasted cannons of yours. You want me dead, just shoot me.”

  Tower seriously considered pulling the trigger; after all, he had gone to considerable trouble to neutralize the man and he didn’t even want to think about how many innocent people had died in the process, how many were dying in the casino’s main room even now. But St. James was more consequence than cause. The man deserved to die, sure. But there were questions, so many questions, that he could answer first. And Tower had the feeling that it would be a lot easier to get information out of St. James than from his blasted super-augment.

  “Tell me where the bomb is and give me the name of whoever hired you to kill the Morchardese. Then I’ll get you a medic.” He looked around the room. “There should be a few on the way already.”

  St. James grinned sardonically. “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  He gave Tower a name.

  Tower stared at him. “You cannot be serious.”

  The killer shrugged. “It is what it is, Chief.”