Among the powers offered by the nanites was the ability for others to communicate with Victor through a special, secret channel. The nanites recreated the sound inside his head, which was either convenient or a huge annoyance depending on his mood. Only two people had access to the channel, and it was easy to guess which of the two was calling this time.
“Hey, buddy.” Kronenberg’s voice was unmistakable on the other end of the line. “You up at the cliffs again?”
Victor smiled. He’d met Kronenberg shortly after returning to Undercliff City. Kronenberg was his roommate, his friend, and one of the most interesting people he’d ever met.
Kronenberg suffered from LIS, or Locked-in Syndrome. What that meant in practical terms was that his brain was completely cut off from his body, limiting his physical mobility to nil.
He was unique in the approach he took to living a full life, despite his handicap. Kronenberg, through the use of embedded brain implants, could still use digital voice synthesizers to speak, and robotic drone bodies to move through the world and interact with his surroundings.
“Yeah,” said Victor. “Just getting some exercise.”
“Like hell you are,” said Kronenberg, through an amused, good-natured chuckle. “You have to give it time, Vic. You’re lucky to be able to use one aura after a month, let alone two.”
“I know…” Victor sighed. “I just… want to be ready. For whatever happens.”
He bit his lip as another gust of wind slammed into him from the east, sneaking its way in through the neck of his sweatshirt. The memory of what had happened the last time he’d used his auras for a good cause burned in his mind, paining him to think about it.
At least I tried. At least I listened to what she had to say, in the end.
“Quit nailing yourself to the cross, Vic,” said Kronenberg. “It’s not your fault. I know how it must feel, but you have to let yourself off the hook.”
Victor shook his head, a useless gesture over the audio connection.
“You know, for a robot, you have a surprisingly well-tuned sense of empathy.”
“Yeah, and for a meat bag, you have quite the way with words.”
Victor smiled. It had been nice enough, living with Kronenberg. At least, as nice as living with a roommate that can’t cook, clean, or carry out the trash can possibly be.
“Anyway, what’s up?”
“Lucy says that she needs you to come to a crime scene,” said Kronenberg. “She sent me pics of the body, Vic. It’s a murder, and not one that’s… typical.”
“Okay,” said Victor. “How so?”
“It’s not something I care to describe.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah,” said Kronenberg. “Get over there as soon as you can. Lucy’s waiting for you.”
They talked for a minute more. Kronenberg texted the address to Victor’s cellphone. It was in the northern outskirts of Undercliff City, up by where most of the bigger parks and nature preserves were located.
Victor took a minute more to look out at the horizon. A small cloud was skirting toward where the sun hung in the sky, low and bright, and it felt representative of something bigger. He frowned, and started climbing down.
CHAPTER 2
A dirt path meandered through the small park and back into the city. The nearest buildings to the cliffs were, for the most part, abandoned.
It was a facet of the area that was rarely showcased on television or in tourism brochures. Victor remembered a little of it from when he’d first lived in Undercliff City as a kid. Compared to the clean, sanitized, modern construction of the downtown sections and city center, the outskirts looked like something out of a war zone.
Few people were out, and Victor ran forward at a decent clip without attracting much attention. The sidewalk had huge cracks in it, along with missing chunks of cement and tiny shards of broken bottles, like sharp gemstones against concrete sand. The houses nearby had boarded up windows, rotting walls, and overgrown lawns.
The city is dying, at least at its edges.
He headed northeast, zigzagging up and across streets, for about twenty minutes. The northern suburbs of the city were more gentrified than the other outlying regions, and it felt a bit like he was coming back to civilization as he entered them.
Victor cut across a street and then followed a bike path up and toward the address Kronenberg had given him. It was a large park on the edge of the Atlas Forest, the nature preserve that Undercliff City had expanded into over the course of the last century.
Cop cars lined the street, and an overly large section of the park had been cordoned off by yellow tape. Victor slowed to a walk as he approached the edge of it, scanning the scene for Lucy.
He spotted her standing next to a cop car, looking pensive. She was wearing a tight gray skirt and a white blouse with a black button-up sweater over it, and she looked cold.
“Lucy.” Victor waved a hand as he called out to her, and she looked up at him. She was frowning, and her expression didn’t change upon seeing him outside of a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
“Victor,” she said, walking over. “Good timing.”
Lucy looked tired, and a little disturbed. She was fidgeting with a pen in one hand, and constantly scanned the park’s tree line as she walked. She stopped at the yellow tape and lifted it up. Victor raised an eyebrow but slipped underneath.
“How did you get access to the crime scene from the police?” he asked.
“I’m a forensic consultant on behalf of Monteiro,” she said. “And you are going to be my assistant, for today.”
Victor followed after her as she started off toward the center of the crime scene. He hadn’t seen much of Lucy since the first incident they’d been involved in, shortly after he’d arrived in Undercliff City.
Part of him wanted to ask her why that was. The two of them had experienced more than a little friction during the events at the start of the month. Victor had gone against her wishes over and over again, but things had worked out in the end.
Yeah, they worked out just fine. The suspect ended up committing suicide, and the killings keep happening. A storybook ending.
“How have things been at Monteiro?” Victor knew that it wasn’t time for them to catch up, but he couldn’t stop the question from leaving his mouth. It had the added benefit of distracting him from his memories and baggage.
“Fine,” she said curtly. “Look, I just need you to keep an eye on the area around here. Even if the odds are minuscule, whoever did this could still be around. You’ll be able to spot them if they’re using nano auras.”
“No hello? No nothing?” Victor let his annoyance show on his face. “We’ve barely spoken to each other over the past month. What happened to me helping you with your-”
“That’s what you’re here to do.” Lucy shot him a look that was clear enough to read.
She can’t talk freely here.
“And it’s not that I haven’t wanted to see you,” she continued. “I just thought… maybe it would be easier for you to adjust to your old hometown if things were normal for you, for a while.”
She smiled at Victor, and in her eyes, he saw her sincerity. Lucy did seem to have his best interests at heart.
“All right, sorry,” he said.
“But anyway, today, I definitely can use your help.”
Victor nodded. The two of them slowed as they approached the body, and he immediately understood the real reason why he was there, along with why Kronenberg had taken the time to warn him.
The corpse was unlike anything Victor had seen outside of a horror movie. It was of a woman, and it was grotesquely mutilated, so much so that it took him a moment to notice what was off about it.
“Her neck…” Victor blinked, unable to believe what he was looking at. “And her legs…”
She wasn’t human. She couldn’t have been.
The woman’s neck was longer than normal by several inches, maybe as much as a half foot. That was
unusual, but between various potential genetic disorders and ancient body modifications, it could have been explained.
Her legs, however, could not have been. They were strangely muscled, and the bones connected more in the fashion of a cat or a dog than anything bipedal. It made the woman look freakish, like something out of a movie, an alien from outer space.
The wind shifted direction, and the smell made Victor feel the warning tingle of an imminent eruption of vomit. He breathed out slowly and forced himself to stay calm and controlled, though his body continued to tell him that he was on the verge.
The woman’s stomach had been viciously disemboweled, and puncture wounds stood out on her shoulders, arms and legs. Her face was contorted in an expression of fear and pain, and the grass around was soaked with blood and chunks of ichor.
“Well…” Victor felt a disgusting shiver run up his spine. “That’s certainly-”
His stomach heaved in mid-sentence. He clamped a hand over his mouth and forced bile back down, falling to one knee a few feet away from the corpse. Lucy walked over to him and set a hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah…” she said softly. “It’s bad.”
Victor took a deep breath, separating out his need for oxygen from the sickening smells floating in the air. He stood to his feet and forced his eyes back onto the body.
Lucy needs my help. I’m not backing down from this.
“Why does she look like that?” asked Victor, in a quiet voice. “Nanites don’t let people change their physical features, do they?”
Lucy shook her head.
“She’s a biosplice.” Lucy turned so that she wasn’t facing the corpse and relaxed visibly. “Monteiro has several departments devoted to biosplicing, editing people’s genomes using viral vectors. The end goal is to be able to use it as a treatment for diseases.”
“It doesn’t look like her biosplicing was to treat a disease.”
“No,” said Lucy. “It doesn’t.”
Victor started to think about what that meant when he saw something strange out of the corner of his eye. It was a spot of blackness in the tree line, darker than shadows would have been.
“Hold on,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He was half expecting Lucy to stop him, or, at least, demand an explanation, but she said nothing as Victor quickly walked toward the trees.
This is what she brought me here for, after all.
The dark spot moved deeper into the woods, and Victor sped up. Most of the police officers were either by their cars or still tending to the crime scene, and none of them noticed him slip into the forest.
He broke into a sprint, gaining enough ground to make out a figure amidst the blackness. It was an aura binder, and they were flaring their onyx aura. Victor gritted his teeth and began summoning his energy and preparing to bind his scarlet aura through and out his hand if need be.
“Stop right there.” Victor tried to make his voice as commanding as possible. “Don’t move.”
The figure took off immediately. Victor raced after, aiming his outstretched palm forward and letting loose with his scarlet aura. A controlled burst of fire about the width of a pencil shot out, striking the ground in front of his opponent.
At least I’ve gotten better at using my scarlet aura, over the past few weeks.
“I said don’t-”
The figure turned, and the outline around them shifted to pale blue. It was a woman, a teenage girl, in fact. Victor blinked, and the girl was in front of him, slamming her fist into his stomach. He let out a choking noise as he flew back, slamming into the trunk of a large tree.
Victor only just managed to dodge her next attack, ducking low as she kicked the spot where his head had been a millisecond earlier. The girl struck a third time, and he had to duck into a roll into a pile of leaves to avoid it.
He pulled his hand up and bound his scarlet aura, not bothering to hold back this time. A jet of chaotic flame burst forward, singing the branches of a thin tree that was, luckily, too cold to easily immolate. The girl held up her hand and the flames stopped in front of her, sapped of energy by a thin white blue shield of frozen air.
She let out a girlish laugh. Victor felt a strangely offended fury flood over him. He ran forward, swinging into a barrage of punches and kicks that the girl dodged with ease.
What the fuck? She’s a girl, I should be able to…
The girl extended her hand and did something unexpected. Her aura was still pale blue, and as she bound it, Victor felt all of the energy leave his body in a single rush, as though someone had released the dam on his awareness. His eyes slipped closed, and he fell to the ground in a limp heap.
CHAPTER 3
Victor’s eyes opened. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. Then, Lucy’s face leaned over his, and she waved her hand in front of his eyes gently.
“I’m awake,” he managed. “Where did she…?”
He tensed up, noticing the girl he’d been fighting standing behind Lucy. Victor balled his hand into a fist, but before he could move, Lucy put her own hand over it.
“Control yourself, Victor,” said Lucy. “That little fight was stupid for a dozen different reasons. Either of you could have gotten hurt, or worse. And the police could have seen.”
“He’s the one who attacked me, sis,” said the girl. “Maybe make it clear to him next time he’s not a superhero, hunting super villains?”
Victor glared at the girl. His eyes came back into focus, and he sat up. Lucy let out a sigh and shook her head.
“Victor, this is my younger sister Kiara. She’s also an aura binder, and she works for my department at Monteiro.” Lucy glanced back at the girl. “Kiara, this is Victor. He’s the son of a former colleague of mine.”
Unbelievable…
The more Victor looked at Kiara, the harder it became for him to deny her similarity to Lucy. Unlike her sister, Kiara had her hair cut short, only slightly longer than a typical boy’s style. Like her sister, Kiara’s figure was full of interesting curves, though she wasn’t quite as well endowed.
She wore black yoga pants and a tight fitting pink and white sweatshirt that slipped down halfway across her butt, almost like a dress. Both of her arms were crossed underneath her breasts, pushing them up and highlighting her assets. Strangely, she didn’t look the slightest bit cold.
“You didn’t tell me that you were thinking of bringing on another aura binder, Lucy.” Kiara frowned and lowered her eyes into an accusatory glare.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” said Lucy. “And Victor came about his abilities by accident. Much like you did.”
Victor raised an eyebrow, but caught his initial question before asking it. He pulled himself to his feet and brushed a leaf out of his curly hair.
“How about next time you announce yourself, instead of skulking in the trees?” he said, waving a hand at the area around them.
“I was helping, and doing a better fucking job of it than you were.”
“Yeah, like hell you were,” said Victor. “What did you figure out? That the leaves on the ground might have been the murder weapon?”
“You’re certainly snarky for someone who just got their ass kicked by a girl.”
Victor gritted his teeth. He didn’t have a comeback for that one, and it infuriated him.
I don’t think the two of us are going to get along.
“There’s no point to this,” said Lucy. “The police are locking down their investigation. The time the two of you just wasted on your scuffle cost us our chance at getting a better look at the body.”
Victor shrugged.
“What does it matter to you, anyway?” he asked. His anger flared up in his chest, directed not just at Kiara, but at Lucy, too. “Do you really care that much about what’s going on in the city?”
“Yes. I do.” Lucy’s voice was stiff and serious.
Both Victor and Kiara were silent for a moment as Lucy swept her gaze across them. She let out a frustrat
ed sigh and then nodded.
“At the very least, it’s good that the two of you have met. Victor, Kiara is going to be your mentor for the next few months. She’s going to help you gain the skills you need with your nano auras.”
Victor felt his mouth drop open in surprise.
“Are you kidding me?” He shook his head. “She can’t be any older than I am! This is ridiculous.”
“I didn’t come back to Undercliff City to be a dog walker!” Kiara, surprisingly, shared his objections. “I should be following my leads outside the city!”
“This is more important.” Lucy gave her sister a serious look and then turned to Victor. “You both need to see the bigger picture.”
“I get where you’re coming from, but I can do this on my own.” Victor waved a dismissive hand at Kiara and met Lucy’s eye. “I can handle myself just fine. You know that as well as anyone.”
“Can you?” asked Lucy. “After what happened with Night Angel? Is that how you want every encounter to play out?”
A stab of remorse bit deep into Victor’s chest.
Could I have done things differently?
“We’re going to call it a night,” said Lucy. “Kiara, we can talk more about this on the way home. Victor, I want you to be on the thirteenth floor tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp.”
Kiara shot him a glare that could’ve stripped paint off a wall and then turned her nose up. Victor had to fight the juvenile impulse to stick his tongue out at her as the two of them began walking back across the park. He was headed in the same direction, but cut off on a diagonal, just for the sake of putting some distance between himself and his new nemesis.
As Lucy had said before, the police were in the last stage of clearing the crime scene. The body had been moved out of the field, thankfully. Victor wasn’t sure if he could’ve looked at it for even a second longer without giving in to his nausea. Most of the police cars had also cleared out, and the remaining two officers were winding up the yellow tape and gesturing to a group of people that looked like a hazardous materials cleanup crew.
The sun was setting in the distance, and a light sprinkling of snowflakes drifted down from the sky. Victor tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt and tilted his head toward the ground as he stepped back onto the street. It was just long enough of a walk home to make him wish he’d worn a thicker coat.
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