Ure Infectus

by Caleb Wachter

  Masozi cocked her fist back and fired an overhand left punch into the glass. It shattered instantly, and the strangest part of when it happened was that she couldn’t hear it at all. The window’s fragments flew out into the mild wind which whipped across the building, and Masozi took a step forward to peer over the edge.

  It was a long way down, and Masozi felt butterflies begin to riot in her stomach as she considered the daunting height, “Ok…now what?”

  “Now you climb down,” Eve said with an emphatic roll of her eyes. “Six seconds to get clear of the room. Just grab onto the ledge and I’ll show you how to do the rest.”

  Masozi grabbed the window sill and swung her leg over the edge, acutely aware that a fall from her current height had the very real potential not just to kill her, but to outright dismember her when she impacted.

  “Good,” Eve said, “now, I’m just going to take over for a second…”

  Masozi’s hands opened very much against her will, and she shrieked in alarm as her body began to plummet downward.

  “Stupid controls,” Eve growled and after what felt like an eternity—but was less than two floors’ worth of descent—Masozi’s gauntlets thrummed and her armored fingertips somehow grabbed hold of the building’s sheer, vertical exterior. “There,” Eve said, miming the wiping of sweat from her digital forehead, “sorry about that; I didn’t expect the protocols to require handshakes in quintuplicate.”

  Masozi looked down the face of the building, but before she could say anything there was an explosion above them and her body was forced downward a few feet by the power of the blast.

  When she looked up she saw that the corner penthouse they had just been in was now a smoking ruin, and Eve said, “We’d better climb down outta here, bakeshop. We’re so exposed out here without the secondary systems online that this position would make a porn star blush.”

  Masozi actually agreed with Eve’s assessment, so she slid her right hand down the wall before doing likewise with her left. After a few repetitions she thought she had the hang of it, and she began to descend to the street below.

  “That-a-girl,” Eve approved. “Now, at this rate of descent…I should be able to get the secondaries online just before we get to the ground.”

  The minutes ticked by as Masozi’s pace improved, and she found herself standing on a small, squat structure she took for a maintenance shed which was attached to the main building.

  “A little extra wattage here…” Eve said as her digital fingers flew this way and that, rearranging the minimized icons in a seemingly random fashion, “…and a little less draw there…and we’re done!”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’re done’?” Masozi pressed. Her legs quivered from the descent, since even though she had barely used them she found that her muscles had all clenched tightly during the descent.

  “Take a look for yourself,” Eve urged proudly as she folded her arms over her chest.

  Masozi looked around and saw nothing different, but then she did notice something and she waved her hand before her face to confirm what she had suspected. “I’m invisible?!” she blurted in amazement. She had heard of stealth systems that could bend light around a custom made suit, but the reality of being in one was enough to appeal to the little girl in her that had long ago wished for super powers.

  “Well…technically, no,” Eve replied belatedly, “but it would take someone looking straight at us to see more than a warble of light. More importantly, this suit’s based on an Imperial Infiltrator design so it’s unlikely that anything we run into will detect us—nothing except a pair of focused eyeballs at close range, that is.”

  “So…where do we go?” Masozi pressed, knowing the time had finally come for her to do what she had come to do. She was still uncertain how she was to accomplish the mission, but she actually did trust that Jericho had devised a plan that was far superior to anything she could come up with.

  “Hop on the A-11,” Eve said, and an overlay of the nearby streets appeared beneath Masozi’s visor section. A vehicle appeared to be moving toward their position, and it was indeed marked ‘A-11.’ “Just hitch a ride across town and I’ll tell you when to get off.”

  “Ok,” Masozi said, moving to the edge of the building and seeing the mass transit vehicle approaching quickly—too quickly, in her estimation. “It’s moving too fast,” she said hesitantly.

  “It’s all just energy, honey pie,” Eve said, cracking her digital knuckles in anticipation. “This suit’s secondary systems are online so it won’t be a problem. Just take another ‘leap of faith,’ girlfriend,” she said with a wink.

  As the conveyance approached, Masozi took a deep breath and leapt from the roof of the maintenance shed. Her armored body sailed through the air toward the approaching maglev train, and just before she impacted on its fuselage Masozi reached out to shield herself from the impact.

  But a strange sensation overcame her body and it was almost like she had struck a soft, invisible cushion surrounding the train—or, more likely, the 'cushion' had surrounded her armored body. The deceleration was dampened such that she was able to grab onto the rail which ran the length of the vehicle’s roof with both hands, and she hauled herself up on top of the vehicle before regaining control of her breathing.

  “Now just lie flat and relax,” Eve instructed. “This will take a while.”

  Chapter XXV: Disappointment vs. Endurance

  Jericho sat in the maximum security detainment cell and looked around as he tried to clear recent events from his mind.

  He had learned decades earlier that regret—or even what most people thought of as nothing more than ‘retrospect’—would kill a person’s soul as fast as a knife to the brainstem would kill their body. But even so, he was unable to keep from replaying every interaction between himself and Masozi in an effort to glean where he may have gone wrong.

  Everything had been going according to plan up to the fateful moment in the tavern. She had sympathized with, and even offered verbal support on several occasions for, the Timent Electorum and its function in the Sector’s society. He had constructed and vetted her psych profile personally, and had even had the other experts on H.E. One confirm his findings before proposing his plan to Director Hadden.

  The Director had always placed a great deal of trust in Jericho, and it was a trust which Jericho dearly hoped he had not squandered. But, locked away in his current cell, he was unable to make any necessary corrections—at least not until he left the facility.

  The door to the cell opened and Jericho was torn from his thoughts as a short, muscular figure wearing an all-black bodyglove stepped into the room. There was a single, red light above the doorway which suggested that the man’s entry was not an authorized one.

  “Adjuster Jericho Bronson,” the man’s familiar, perfectly-pitched voice said into the shadows as he closed the door behind himself, “I must say I’m disappointed.”

  “Agent Stiglitz,” Jericho said grimly, knowing that the restraints he had been placed in would prohibit him from putting up an adequate defense—not that there was much that a ‘normal’ human could do against a heavily-augmented operative like Stiglitz, assuming that was even his name. “I’m sorry I failed to live up to your expectations.”

  “As am I,” Stiglitz said wistfully as he approached the bed on which Jericho was seated. The agent pulled up the only chair in the room and swung it easily around in front of Jericho before sitting down and leaning across the chair’s back. His eyes snapped up and down Jericho’s shackled form and he shook his head before sighing, “I suppose you know why I’m here?”

  Jericho nodded. Ever since his capture at the hands of the police quad he had known it would only be a matter of time before Stiglitz would arrive—and, for better or worse, he had done so almost precisely on Jericho’s presumed schedule. “You were overseeing Governor Keno’s security,” he said, and Agent Stiglitz nodded approvingly, “but once the only real threat to your assignment was confirmed as
being captured, you decided to perform the interrogation personally. You couldn’t risk whatever information I might have getting out in the open.”

  Stiglitz sighed again, this time in bitter disappointment. “Such a keen mind,” he said wistfully. “It will almost be a shame to dissect it…you could have been so much more. You know that, yes?”

  “I’d prefer we get down to business,” Jericho said, meaning every word. He knew that Stiglitz had the ability, opportunity, and motive to kill him in that cell, and Jericho wasn’t going to beg for mercy in what may actually be his final hours of life.

  “As you wish,” Stiglitz agreed casually as he stood from the chair. “I assume physical coercion will prove less than fruitful with you as a primary interrogative measure. And I cannot risk the possibility of hidden failsafe chemicals built into your body which would react…” his lips twisted in a dark smirk, “undesirably with truth serums.”

  “So far, so good,” Jericho said evenly.

  Agent Stiglitz picked up the chair and carried it to the far side of the room, where he placed it neatly in the corner. “Of course, I don’t have time for the standard psychological breakdown methods,” he continued easily as he assessed the room with a critical eye, “and neither do I have the required materials to conduct direct nervous stimulation without running the risk of damaging you irreparably prior to my extraction of whatever might be locked away in that beautiful brain of yours.”

  “Keep going, Stiglitz,” Jericho said smugly, “it sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.”

  Stiglitz gave Jericho a feigned look of having been wounded. “My dear Adjuster, what do we have if we abandon the social pleasantries?”

  Jericho grimaced as the other man approached, removing his black gloves as he did so to reveal unnaturally pale hands. “I think the answer to that question would be ‘meaningful exchanges of information’,” he replied evenly. He very much did not look forward to what was about to happen, but he knew he had no choice but to endure it.

  Sitglitz sighed again before shaking his head. “Very well,” he tossed the gloves onto the bed beside Jericho and reached down to place a hand on either side of Jericho’s face. He seemed to search Jericho’s eyes for several moments, while Jericho met his gaze evenly as he fought to keep his breathing under control. “Nothing but prey,” Agent Stiglitz said with a genuinely crestfallen look after peering through the metaphorical windows into Jericho’s soul.

  Jericho’s entire body was then wracked with a violent spasm that was so powerful he actually blacked out—the first time that had happened since he was a boy—and when he came to he was lying on the cold, stone floor of the cell with his face in a puddle of what he assumed was his own vomit.

  “But don’t worry,” Stiglitz said as he wiped his pale hands on Jericho’s jacket, “a true hunter never makes its prey suffer unnecessarily.”

  Jericho felt a cold sensation on his leg but before he could realize what it was his body was wracked with another overpowering jolt of electricity, and once again he blacked out.

  “Adjuster?” Jericho heard Stiglitz’s voice at the edge of his awareness, and he shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He became aware that he was seated on the chair which Stiglitz had placed in the corner, and he rolled his head around until he saw with no small measure of relief that the bed was still in its original location.

  “I’m sorry,” Jericho said, his words coming sluggishly as he fought to work his jaw up and down so the words would form properly, “could you repeat the question?”

  Agent Stiglitz chuckled lightly. “Twelve rounds of directed neural-interference charges and your prefrontal cortex is still firing on all synapses,” he said with a note of genuine respect. “I’m impressed, Adjuster…it’s a pity we can’t donate the remains of your nervous system to science. You’ve likely got some unique anatomical structures in place.”

  Jericho focused on Stiglitz and saw that he was holding a small blade in one hand and rolling something between the fingers of his other hand which seemed to have drawn his absolute attention. As Jericho’s eyes slowly locked in on the object, he realized it was a disembodied finger.

  He unnecessarily looked down at his left hand and saw that his index finger was missing, but there was surprisingly little blood around the wound.

  “You didn’t even scream,” Stiglitz said with open appreciation before tossing the finger off to the side of the room like an unwanted snack wrapper. “I must say I am impressed with you, Jericho Bronson—if that is even your name.”

  Jericho chuckled as he closed his eyes and lolled his head back. But before he could even relax his neck, Stiglitz’s hand was behind his head and the Agent forced Jericho’s face forward to meet his eyes. After a moment Jericho nodded, “That’s my name, all right.”

  “We’ll discover the truth of that—and much more—soon enough,” the Agent promised. Jericho glanced up to the wall above the door and saw that the light was still red. Stiglitz’s eyes tracked with Jericho’s and he snickered softly. “You’re the most dangerous criminal in the Sector, and they only posted three guards between the lobby and your cell,” he said as he took Jericho’s mutilated left hand in his own and gently isolated the thumb. “Unfortunately for them, it’s a mistake for which they can longer atone.”

  Jericho’s left thumb erupted in pain and by the time he looked down he saw Stiglitz’s delicate-looking fingers had crushed the first knuckle and blood was oozing out of his skin. With a slight adjustment of his cybernetically-enhanced grip, Agent Stiglitz crushed the nerve bundle between the now-ruined thumb and the first metacarpal, and Jericho was bathed in an unremitting wave of nausea and vertigo. He was vaguely aware of something hot being pressed against his thumb, and when his vision returned he saw that his thumb was also missing but, again surprisingly, there was very little blood.

  “Remarkable,” Stiglitz said ecstatically. “Not even one sound of protest,” he mused as he examined Jericho’s thumb thoughtfully, “are you sure you’re human?”

  Jericho would have quipped something in reply, but he was still fighting the nausea which threatened to empty his stomach once again.

  “It’s no matter,” the Agent said before Jericho heard a muffled thunk, which he assumed was his thumb hitting the floor, “we’ll unlock your secrets soon enough.” Stiglitz took a hold of Jericho’s ring finger, and his grip was almost delicate as he caressed the back of Jericho’s hand and said, “I’ve got all night.”

  Masozi clung to the top of the maglev train as it sped across the sprawling city. It stopped every five minutes or so, and going by her helmet’s displayed chronometer nearly an hour had passed.

  “Coming up on our stop, babe,” Eve said as her image re-appeared after a lengthy absence—an absence which Masozi had considered a mixed blessing. “Get ready to hop off on the L-street junction; we’ll reach it in ten seconds.”

  “Can you please cut with the ‘babe,’ ‘sweetie,’ and ‘bakeshop’ crap?” Masozi snapped. “It’s really demeaning.”

  “No can do, sugar,” Eve replied promptly. “It’s just the way I am. Besides, it wouldn’t be any fun talking the way you do,” she quipped. “Three…two…one…jump!”

  Masozi saw the L-street junction and leapt from the maglev toward a nearby alley. Her body hurtled toward the far wall of the alley some forty feet above ground level, but once again her impact was dulled significantly by some sort of invisible field. Her hands locked onto the building’s surface just like they had done on the apartment building, and after taking a moment to catch her breath she crawled down to the street level below.

  “Good work,” Eve said approvingly as a small, three dimensional map appeared with a route already plotted out. “Head to the sewer junction three hundred meters from our location and I’ll open the lock. Get inside and we’ll be one step away from laying an epic smack down on Ms. High-And-Mighty Governor.”

  “The sewer?” Masozi repeated as she stepped warily out onto the sidewalk. There
was bustling foot traffic just thirty meters away as people appeared to be filing more or less uniformly toward the city’s center. She was amazed that no one saw her, and nearly jumped out of her suit when a man and woman walked past her. They had come within two meters of touching her but neither had made any indication they had seen her.

  “My mission packet says we’ll gain access to our final protocols once we’ve reached the point at the end of Waste Removal Tunnel B-5,” Eve explained. “I can’t wait to see what other toys this baby’s got in store for us.”

  Masozi steeled her nerves and, after looking both ways, crossed the street. Weaving through the horde of foot traffic became difficult when it was necessary to cross the seemingly endless flow of people, and Masozi muttered, “Where are they all going?”

  “The Governor’s having a concert,” Eve replied matter-of-factly. “All seventy thousand tickets sold out in just twelve minutes when they were made available over a year ago. Off-world critics rate her music anywhere from ‘offensively bad’ to ‘a public health hazard’,” Eve added with obvious sarcasm, “but the people here just eat it up.”

  Masozi looked down the L-street after weaving her way through the press of bodies—thankfully avoiding physical contact as she did so—and saw a massive coliseum with the words ‘Keno Live!’ emblazoned on what looked to be a permanent display built into the facility’s structure.

  When she found the sewer access hatch, Masozi waited for a trio of passersby to round the corner before kneeling beside it and asking, “How do we open this?”

  “Just put your right arm down next to it and I’ll crack it open,” Eve replied confidently. Masozi did as Eve suggested and a series of images swirled around Eve’s digital avatar in the helmet’s display system. Eve manipulated the images almost too quickly to see, and as she did so her face scrunched with what looked to be annoyance. After a few seconds the hatch popped open and Eve mimed dusting off her hands, prompting Masozi to lift the lid and descend the ladder into the dark tunnel below.