Skyler Grant Anthology

by Skyler Grant

  The Knights charged a mech. It seemed an absurdly foolish thing to do, one getting tossed bodily across the battlefield with his armor smoking. Swords shouldn't have been a match against the enemy shields, but judging from the red flares they were having some sort of an impact.

  This had to be a case of being twenty years behind the times. By accident, Camelot had come up with a solution to shields, if not a great one.

  "The Knights are drawing their attention," I said.

  Diva peeked from behind the burning vehicle and opened fire.

  A mechs shield unit had a lot more power than any individual, but between Diva and the Knights they were able to bring it down. Three more knights went down in the process and I wasn't sure that they would be getting back up. When at last the shield faded Hammer stepped out.

  The subversion round looked like nothing so much as a small missile as it slammed into the mech's side. The results were almost instantaneous. The limbs jerked and it looked as if it were having some sort of seizure.

  "Got it," Hammer said over the Comm.

  "Don't suppose you've got the other one as well?" I asked.

  "No luck," Hammer said.

  "Pass over control. You aren't going to win a shootout with the shield batteries exhausted and I've got an idea," Sparks said.

  The first mech had stopped firing, but the second hadn't. Knights swarmed it, but as their numbers dwindled so too did the threat they posed to it. Another four were down with alarming speed.

  I hoped Giles was well. I already regretted bringing the Knights. They were brave and bold, but this was no place for them.

  Behind another barricade I saw four guards still firing towards the vehicle, attempting to get a shot off at Diva. I had to trust that Sparks could handle the mech. I was getting used to the Silversmith, I adjusted the penetration to a level that should let me get through the guard's visors. I only got off two shots at that intensity before it needed to recharge, but that was two less. Then I was among them with the spear.

  In close quarters with a spear I remained beyond deadly. One tried to bring his rifle to bear on me, but had been skewered before he could. Then I was knocked off my feet by a massive explosion.

  Sparks had somehow managed to overload the batteries of the mech. I'd actually gotten off light, the barricade soaking most of the damage. Out there on the battlefield there was a smoking crater, but at least the explosion seemed to have taken out the other mech. Small favors.

  "Did the Knights get clear?" I asked into my Comm.

  "We did," Giles said, pained. "We've lost a great many, Milday."

  "Pull back. You and yours have done enough. Get your people clear," I said.

  "No can do. We pissed them off something good. They've got reinforcements inbound," Sparks said.

  Reinforcements. For some reason it had never even occurred to us that they might call in more forces. They were supposed to be ashamed of the facility, disavow knowledge of it.

  "What is on the way?" I asked.

  "Five heavy vehicles. I'm estimating fifty men all combat-equipped," Sparks said.

  It was a small army, but it was an army.

  Ours was exhausted and gone. The White Rabbits had been wiped out and the Knights were injured.

  "Show me," I said.

  Ismene brought up a tactical interface for me. This facility had been placed so that you had a limited avenue of attack, unfortunately that also meant a limited avenue of retreat.

  We'd been cut off.

  I cursed myself for not planning for the eventuality, but there wasn't time for recriminations.

  "Fall back into the facility. Stay cautious," I said.

  "I can scout ahead," Masque said.

  With her stealth suit that was a good idea. "Do it."

  115

  Masque was very nearly invisible with the hood pulled up over her stealth suit. The material didn't try to perfectly simulate the environment, it didn't need to. The human eye is used to getting incomplete data all the time and to filling in the blanks. It's how optical illusions could be so effective. Stealth suits operated on a similar principle, they gave the human eye data it was programmed to filter out.

  The last generation of Olympian genetics had some upgrades that helped. I still couldn't make her out, but when she walked past me I got the intense sensation of something being not right. A sickening twisting in my stomach. It still didn't help me to see her, but at least it let me know the stealth was there.

  "We're clear," Masque said through the Comms and the rest of us advanced with weapons at the ready.

  The interior was massive. There were rows after rows of tubes that looked identical to the one I'd pulled Masque from. Each was filled with a naked body floating in fluid. I tried to do the math on how many there must be. Hundreds at least, possibly as many as a thousand.

  I didn't see an empty tube in the place. How long had they been working to fill this place up?

  "Quite the collection, aren't they. You won't be joining them, you've seen I like special facilities for my special prizes," said a voice booming through speakers.

  "Green?" I asked, looking around. I didn't spy any cameras, but that didn't mean anything.

  "The one and only. I knew you'd come, did you think you accomplished something by letting me cut on you so long? All you did was bring yourself right to me," Green said.

  "Do you have a location on him?" I thought to Ismene.

  "I do. You're not going to like it," Ismene answered.

  In a corner of my vision I got what must have been a surveillance feed. A corridor leading to what looked to be some sort of control center. Barricades were spaced evenly and I counted fourteen guards. In the office behind moved a figure in a support suit.

  "Not going to come out and play?" I'm disappointed," I said.

  "You've got nowhere to go. If you want to shoot yourselves in the head, you've still got time. Otherwise, I'll just be waiting for us to have our fun," Green said.

  "I'm not going back in one of those tubes," Masque said.

  "We need an exit, Sparks," I said.

  "We need to free these people," Giles said.

  "Anyone have any explosives?" I asked.

  "I've got some," Hammer said.

  "Good. Set them around the entrance. Make sure not to damage the tubes, but let's take out as many of those reinforcements as we can," I said.

  Sparks had been tapping madly away at his tablet and he shook his head. "No basement. No sewer."

  "There are a thousand people in those tanks. I don't care how good their recycling is, they're putting out something," I said.

  "Shall we play a game while we wait?" Green called.

  "Fuck you asshole," Diva said.

  "That isn't nice. Let me set the terms," Green said.

  In one of the nearby tanks the woman within began to thrash violently. The water surrounding her turned crimson. I didn't know what he was doing, but a moment later the tank slid open. In a rush, fluid spilled out and half-dissolved body parts. Some sort of acid must have been pumped inside.

  "Ismene. Get those people out of there," I said.

  "You want to dump a thousand freaking out naked people into the middle of what is about to be a gun fight?" Ismene asked.

  "You goddamned fucking monster," Masque said, starting to hyperventilate.

  "That isn't nice. That was just an example. I could have killed so many more. Next time it will be ten, but it is so very easy to stop," Green said, his voice taunting.

  He was just trying to distract us from what needed doing. I also couldn't ignore him.

  "What do you want?" I asked.

  "Why don't we mix our pleasures? I want you to take your gun there and shoot my former pet in the knee," Green said with a malicious glee.

  "Give me a better option," I thought to Ismene.

  "I'm working on it. I can maybe cut him off from the control system. I'm working on it," Ismene answered.

  "Do it," Masque said.
/>   She was serious. Ismene would handle this, but it would take her time. Green wouldn't wait long, he wanted to make his point. If I knew him he was just waiting for his moment to demand something even worse.

  I didn't draw it out. I thumbed the penetration of my rounds to a minimum before squeezing off the shot. It would still shatter bone, but at least she'd keep the leg. Bones could be set right.

  Masque let out a cry and dropped to the floor.

  "You did it. I liked that more than I thought I would. Perhaps when you're both mine I'll turn you on each other," Green said. "You've bought yourself a few minutes for being a good girl."

  Ice. I had to keep being ice.

  Hammer cried out and spun to the side. Half of his flesh-and-blood arm was gone. The reinforcements were streaming into the facility and they'd caught him before the charges had been fully planted.

  Hammer ran from the arriving guards and with a flash of light and a deafening roar the entrance exploded. Concrete and debris fell, and soldiers died. With his cybernetic arm he picked up the whimpering Masque and flung her over one shoulder.

  "We are so out of time, Sparks," I said.

  "I've got it," Sparks said, and rushed past us. Between a row of tanks he pulled up the grating and then tapped out a code on a keypad. With a hiss a hatch in the floor opened. The stench was terrible, it smelled like sewage and rotting meat.

  It was better than waiting here. Diva led the way down, lighting the way with a lamp mounted to the barrel of one her many guns. The rest of us followed.

  It was a sewer, at least in part, although the ground was filled with more ominous debris as well. Partially dissolved bones and meat that looked far too much like what we'd just seen happen to the girl above.

  "What the fuck," Diva said.

  "It is a venting system. Sometimes they die in the tanks, when they do they built in a system to dissolve them and flush them. I've disabled it. He won't be killing any more people," Ismene said.

  "We can't worry about it now," I said.

  Diva led the way forward. The tunnel was mostly straight. On one side was a raised platform with thick and heavy cables.

  "Hold up," Sparks said.

  "We don't have time," I said.

  "This is their Network junction. Whatever they're experiencing is running through here. If I can have some time to study it, I can learn a lot," Sparks said.

  "It is worth doing," Ismene said, answering a question I hadn't even asked yet.

  My best friend was getting bossy.

  "Do it," I said.

  "I've been shot in the leg. I may as well lie down in human waste and decomposing remains. Help me set up my rifle, if anything pokes a head into the tunnel I'll blow it off," Masque said.

  I helped her to get set up. Masque was not having a good day.

  Diva leaned against the wall and glared at me. "We shouldn't have come here. I told you this was too big for us."

  She had and I hadn't listened. I was just so used to having the backup from a Corporation always nearby. When you were an Independent the whole world changed. Everything became disconnected.

  "We voted. You voted," Hammer said, leaning against a wall. He'd extracted a medpatch from his kit and was pressing it against the stump where his arm used to be.

  "You just lost an arm. How are you going to argue with me that coming here was the right thing to do?" Diva said.

  "You saw those people up there. We couldn't leave that. Not knowing that they were there," Hammer said.

  No. No, we couldn't.

  "Sparks. You said it's a Network node. Can you get me a signal from here?" I asked.

  "I should be able to. You looking to pop in to whatever they have going or elsewhere?" Sparks asked.

  "For now, elsewhere. I need to talk to Columbia. People need to see what is happening," I said.

  We weren't alone. Not really. There was a whole big world out there and they just had to see. If I could make them.

  116

  Columbia took my call at once. I materialized in her office. Columbia looked like she had just crawled out of bed, in the flushed and disheveled sort of way.

  "Did I interrupt something?" I asked.

  "Yeah. But I was just killing time hoping to hear from you. You've been off-grid. The facility you found. Don't move on it," Columbia said.

  "Moved on it. Killed a lot of people inside of it. Am currently trapped in the sewer beneath it while an army of soldiers moves in above," I said.

  "Fuck," Columbia said, brushing her hair back and pacing around the desk. "You don't realize what you're into. I didn't realize what you were into. Green isn't some mid-level executive. He's Senior Executive in SantaFe, the sort of old blood that never goes away. You can't touch him. I can't touch him."

  That wasn't good news. If he was that highly placed I really couldn't, not without invoking the full fury of the corporations. We might be able to shut down his plans, but he was going to walk. That was a shame, because I really wanted to hurt him.

  "I guess that explains where all the resources are coming from," I said.

  "And how their whole roster wound up getting turned on us," Columbia said, starting to pace before her desk. "Marry me."

  "You moved on from wanting to make out awfully quick," I said.

  "It's not about that. Liberty won't let you in the door. Not that quick and not that easy, but it's a completely different matter if you're a spouse. Marry me. Right now and I can file the paperwork. We'll get you out of there alive," Columbia said.

  "We're not doing that," I said.

  "Damn it. You know what he is going to do, if he gets his hands on you and I won't be able to do a thing to stop it," Columbia said.

  "I want to show Liberty what he is doing. I want to show everybody what he is doing. I'm parked right outside the node to whatever bit of the Network he is doing. I can get in, I can get us in," I said.

  "And do what? It doesn't matter, Persephone. He is too senior and too well-connected, and no matter what he does he is going to be able to get away with it," Columbia said.

  "Olympus would have been horrified. Olympus would have stood up and as a Corporation stepped forward," I said. "I'm with a group of Independents who, when faced with the scenario, couldn't step back. Are you telling me Liberty will sit back and do nothing?"

  Columbia gave a pained laugh and sat on the edge of her desk, shaking her head. "The ratings were good for what he did to you. It's all entertainment, all of it, when it is happening to other people. They love a bad guy."

  I wondered if she had a point. They had seen exactly what was being done to me and there had been no sort of outcry.

  "What am I missing?" I asked.

  Columbia gave me a thin smile. "Too much. Why do you think Liberty was willing to take you on? The rape of Persephone is the most common tale associated with you. You were to be a victim from the start, the beautiful, tragic defenseless figure abused again and again. People love that you fight back, but they all think you're a tragedy just waiting to happen. It isn't that they don't care, that they don't see. They enjoy it."

  That all made too much sense. How Mars had treated me, as if almost offended that I fought back. I'd had my role cast for me from the start. They'd really picked the wrong girl.

  "I'm still trying to figure you out. Still working to put the pieces together of where Abigail stops and Columbia begins," I said.

  "The lines are pretty blurred these days," Columbia said.

  "You're a fighter. Maybe trying to make people care and do something is a lost cause, but I'm not going to give up. They are doing such awful things and I just won't sit back. Please, stand with me," I said.

  "Then we're going on-camera," Columbia said, before snapping her fingers. Her outfit shimmered. A low cut top and shorts with pistols at the hip. Columbia was going full vamp.

  "To all my fans, I'm here with Persephone. Liberty's newest champion and the sexiest Nature Goddess I know," Columbia said, crossing her legs. "Persephone
here is just dying for a challenge and I'm looking for the bids to make it happen. Why don't you tell them what you have in mind, Persephone?"

  Way to put me on the spot. I leaned back in my chair, "You remember that man from SantaFe with the knife? I haven't forgotten. In fact, I found his private little playground. I'm wanting to storm in and show him what's what."

  Columbia tilted her head. "Well, what do you know. Mr. Green is on board, but he has a few terms and conditions."

  That was fast. It was no surprise that he was alert to anything involving me, but still, that was fast.

  "What does he want?" I asked.

  "Death timer lifted for him so he can be a part of things. He's willing to face you in his playground with four chosen heroes versus four of yours," Columbia said, and I could hear the strain in her voice. "Should Persephone prove successful in killing him, she and her team are assured safe passage. If she loses, she agrees to become boxed and have her fate be streamed to all interested parties."

  I knew that it could not in any way be a fair fight. I was not of any sort of level to provide a real challenge to another sponsored heroes, my last run-in with them had proved that. He likely had some of the very best at his disposal.

  I tried to read from Columbia's expression if she thought I should say yes or not. I got nothing.

  If I wanted this to happen there was only one way forward.

  "I'll agree to that challenge," I said.

  "Liberty does not agree to sponsoring this encounter, so if funding is going to come it has to be from you," Columbia said, and she shook her head. This pitch wasn't quite working.

  Well, I knew what would.

  "There is going to be an awful lot of making-out with Columbia, if I win," I said.

  "Topless making out," Columbia said, without missing a beat. "Bottomless in her case, because seriously, Persephone rolls that way. So do you know what heroes you'd want to bring with you or shall I make some suggestions I think would make for a thrilling team up?"

  Columbia knew who were the biggest and the baddest, and who we could actually depend upon. That wasn't really a contest.