Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  They could ignore everything I threw at them and just keep going, making me as vulnerable to them as most androids would be to me. They were military hardware, just like the coilgun we took from that first Nightwatch officer who tried to kill us. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but August Marcenn had managed to get his hands-on weaponry capable of taking out a Sol Federation Arbiter without even needing a lucky shot.

  If I went back out on the rooftop, I’d be killed the same way Gabe was killed. If I went out on the street, they’d take me even easier. I had to keep moving, counting on my skills at escape and evasion. If this building had a skyway, I might even have a chance to get out unnoticed.

  I looked around the room and noticed for the first time that I was in someone’s living quarters. There was a bed and a bureau, and I could dimly see a kitchen. There was a poster from the New Visions exhibit down on Level 250, and another one for a popular movie. This was someone’s living space, and I had no idea whether they were alive or dead.

  I was in an apartment stack, and one that appeared to be completely deserted. The place was dark, with no exterior windows. Whoever had lived here, they had either escaped to a lower level or been killed in the massacres. There was at least a small chance I’d come across a survivor somewhere in this building, but there was nothing they could do for me even if I did, and nothing I could do for them. All I could do was get out quickly, assuming there was any way to do that. I had a look at the schematics, hoping for a skyway or any other clear escape route. I didn’t find a thing. The street outside was too wide to slip across, and there were no skyways leading to or from this building. There was only the street, or the equally deadly rooftop. I was trapped.

  8

  Of the 36 hours we’d originally had, I was now down to about 25. I couldn’t stay trapped here or the mission was lost, but I couldn’t escape either. I slipped out of the apartment and into the hallway, then cocked my head to the side to amplify sound. I needed to know who was coming after me. When Gabriel and I had been sneaking through Level 250, I had noticed something odd, but I hadn’t had the time to think about it. The Loyalist officers didn’t seem to talk, not even when they were conducting a search together. A lot can be done with standard hand signals, but not enough to replace speech completely.

  I wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but it seemed strange. And it seemed to be happening again. As I listened for any noise, I heard a door open on a lower floor. A pair of footsteps came through, lighter than the feet of an android. A Nightwatch Loyalist? It seemed likely, and that first pair of feet was followed by five more. An entire squad, coming in to clear the building.

  Just like before, they were not communicating, or they were doing so silently. I could hear them fan out, searching the stack by sections. That told me two things. The heavy androids weren’t used indoors, probably because they were less maneuverable, so they’d wait outside, making sure there was no escape. The second thing it told me was that they didn’t think the standard proxies could handle me. A squad of six human Loyalists might be enough, but only if they found me all at once. If they were fanning out to find me, the smart move on their part would be to make sure they had grenades.

  Which meant they did. To take them out, I had to avoid getting cornered and trapped. I had to be able to fight in silence.

  I had to get that coilgun.

  The heavy androids still waited on the street and could be counted on to barrage me with rockets and machine gun fire if they even caught a glimpse of me. On top of that, going back to the spot where it had happened would make it just about impossible not to face the truth.

  Well, what would Gabriel say? He’d say I thought too much, that I should keep my mind on the task at hand. And Gabe would be right. If I wanted to survive, and more importantly to complete my mission, I had to stop thinking and start acting.

  I pushed the thoughts from my mind—blanked out everything except the job in front of me. Get the coilgun. Stay alive.

  I went back to the stairs that led up to the roof, listened at the door for a moment, and heard a faint hint of movement. Something whirring, something humming… a drone, probably hovering right outside. I threw the door open and pivoted quickly, flattening myself against the wall. The drone opened fire, but I blasted the thing into a thousand splinters. Then I threw myself down and shuffled rapidly on elbows and knees.

  From the street below me, the heavy machine guns began to roar. From their position on the street, they couldn’t hit me unless I stuck my head up. I knew what would happen if I was dumb enough to do that, so I just kept crawling. One foot at a time, seeing my friend killed again and again, I dragged myself across that rooftop. When I reached the coilgun, I felt the temptation. Grab it and pop up, then spray the street, take my revenge on those bastards… but it wouldn’t work, and there was no point in even imagining it. I held it all in and pulled the coilgun close, then crawled back to the door the way I had come.

  It took twice as long on the way back, and I had no way of knowing whether the androids on the street could communicate with the Nightwatch Loyalists searching the building. If they knew I was on the roof they would all converge, then throw grenade after grenade through the door until one of them did the trick. It was mental torture not to be able to jump up and run, knowing that enemies could be closing in. But I stopped and listened. I didn’t hear anyone getting too close too quickly, which meant I could do this right. I kept on crawling and was through the door and back in the building before any of the search party even reached my floor.

  So far so good. I had a silent weapon, and my scramblers were functional. They didn’t know where I was, and I could pick my spot like a skillful hunter. I slipped into the hallway, moving as quietly as I possibly could.

  That’s when I noticed the other thing. As I said, they didn’t talk, communicating without speech somehow. But they were also clumsy, moving in a strange and ham-handed way. Their feet were noisy, like untrained civilians stomping around. Another strange detail I couldn’t quite make sense of was, without Arbiter training, Nightwatch officers would not be graceful. They wouldn’t be able to move like I could, but they ought to be better than a herd of civilians.

  It was like they had no sense of stealth at all, making it that much easier for me to set up my ambushes. I listened closely for those stomping footsteps, then made my way to the floor below. I tried the doors, found one that wasn’t locked, and slipped into another abandoned apartment. When an officer came by, moving in a graceless parody of how a law enforcement officer would normally move, I poked my head out and pulled the trigger.

  The coilgun fired, and the Loyalist officer slumped down dead. One down and five to go. I checked his belt for grenades and was pleased to see that he carried five of them—three concussion and two fragmentation, enough to even the odds even if they turned against me again.

  I listened again, determined the rough location of the officers tracking me, then changed positions. I couldn’t know where they were, not with any kind of certainty… but I was right again and took out a second Loyalist just as easily as the first.

  Five more grenades, and the odds in my favor were still improving. I listened again, but was displeased to find that they were closing in. It was like they knew where the last one had died and were all moving in toward the same location. I didn’t know why, but I felt like their silent speech was somehow the key. It had something to do with what was going on, although I couldn’t see the connection yet.

  I had to keep moving to ensure that the spot they converged on was not the right spot. This time it was tighter, and two of the Loyalist officers turned a corner before I could find a hiding place. They both snarled, that same strange facial expression I’d seen before. I started shooting, but so did they. The first one collapsed, but the second one kept shooting for two or three seconds before he also fell. The roar of his weapon was all the other two needed. When I listened in again, I heard them running… and there was no longer any time for me to
hide.

  So much for stealth. I put the coilgun aside and primed a fragmentation grenade. As they approached my location, I backpedaled as fast as I could and ducked around a corner. They threw their own grenades first, but I was already too far down the hallway.

  The grenades exploded, ripping out a section of the wall and leaving beams exposed. They came in shooting behind the explosions, and I threw my grenade right under their feet. When the smoke had cleared, one of the two Nightwatch Loyalists had lost both his legs below the knee, while the other was staring at nothing with his whole body twisted up like it had just been swatted by a giant. As I watched in horror, the one who was still alive pulled out another grenade, ignoring his terrible wounds. He pulled the pin with his teeth, then tossed the weapon in my direction.

  I was so surprised, I almost failed to react at all. But a grenade flying in your direction has a strong tendency to sharpen your wits. I threw myself to the floor, and the grenade went off a few feet away from me. With my Arbiter armor on and my arms up around my head, I managed to survive the blast. When I put my head up, the last member of the search squad had finally died.

  The fight was over at last, but I was still in the same position. I was trapped in this building, and all they had to do was to keep sending Nightwatch officers in after me until I was finally overwhelmed. I didn’t know how long it would take them, and it turned out not long at all. When I listened again, I heard the sound of a door slamming open—and android after android pouring into the building.

  I ran away, of course. What else could I do? I could handle one android proxy without too much difficulty, but that didn’t mean I could handle a whole platoon of them. I turned and sprinted, burrowing into that apartment complex like a frightened rodent looking for a deeper hole to hide in.

  My first instinct was just to find some dark corner and crawl into it, same as anyone else would be feeling if they were being hunted by machines. I would have done it, too, but even as I ran up the staircase, I knew it wouldn’t work.

  They’d clear every apartment on every floor, knowing that I had no way to escape the building. Methodical and precise as only a machine can be, they would find me no matter where I hid. If I wanted to survive, I had to find a way to even the odds. With my exit blocked, that meant I had to use the space to my advantage somehow.

  I pushed on two or three doors, found one that was unlocked, then slipped inside. My initial plan was to look around, figure out a good to ambush from, and get in position—but the neon pink couch along one wall got my attention first. I stood there blinking at it for one long and startled second, then nodded to myself. If the proxies heard a loud noise, they’d stop going room to room and head straight for the source. If the stairwell was blocked, the proxies would have to remove whatever was blocking them. And that gave me an opportunity.

  I grabbed one end of the couch to test whether it was light enough to move quickly. I thought I could do it, so I grasped tight and started walking backwards, scraping the couch legs along the floor. I knew I didn’t have long, because the proxies would head in my direction as soon as they heard the sound. And sure enough, the sounds of their metal feet suddenly paused downstairs—then resumed all at once, heading for the stairwell and the top floor.

  I yanked that couch down the hall in a near panic, knowing that the proxies would soon be on me. When I got to the stairwell, they were already halfway up. I heard the echoes of their heavy feet, the whirring of their gears, the rattle of their weapons.

  I rocked the pink couch up on its end, perched it at the top of the stairs, then pushed it over with both hands as the synthetic leather was ripped apart by a sudden hail of bullets. It toppled end over end, knocking two of the proxies over with a tremendous clatter. When it lodged in the stairwell, trapped between the wall and the rail, I couldn’t help but smile. If I’d been moving into a new apartment, this would represent one hell of a logistical problem.

  The proxies adapted soon enough, swarming in from beneath to clear the obstruction. That’s the problem with artificial intelligence; you can always count on it to look for a solution. I primed a frag grenade, waited till there were as many of them down there as could possibly fit, then dropped it down the stairwell. I ducked out of the way to avoid any flying bits of shrapnel, and there was a loud BAM as the grenade went off. When I looked again, all I saw was severed android parts, shreds of pink upholstery, and a mangled staircase. That should slow them down, I thought.

  When you’re outnumbered, it’s usually good if your enemies don’t know where you are. But every now and then, it can become a big advantage to show them where you are for at least a moment, because then you know where they’re going to be. It’s like having long hair in a street fight. People say you shouldn’t do it, because the other guy will just grab your hair, and use it to move your head around while he takes his rage out on your face. That’s one way to look at it. But another way is that if he grabs a fistful of your hair you know exactly where his arm is. That’s something you normally can’t control, and now you have the opportunity for armbars, joint-locking techniques, pain-compliance holds… see? Sometimes you can get a lot by giving a little.

  So that was several androids down, but now they knew I was on the top floor. I retreated back into the corridor, found the apartment I’d previously hidden in, and crouched down low. I had three fragmentation grenades left and I had to use them wisely, but getting around my enemies without getting caught seemed like an intelligent use of my resources. I primed another grenade and set it down by my feet, ran back out into the corridor, then waited for the BANG.

  When the smoke had cleared, the floor panels were scattered all over the room, the support beams were splintered, and there was a hole leading down into the apartment below. An android head suddenly popped into view, and bullets started flying in my direction. I shot the android and it tumbled away from the hole, then I dropped down through and found myself on the floor beneath.

  That apartment was a strange one. Whoever had lived there, they didn’t seem to believe in furniture. Or color for that matter. This space was a probably a living room, but you couldn’t tell that anyone actually lived there from what I saw in there. No couch, no chairs, nothing… but it wasn’t vacant. The walls and floor were painted totally black, and there was a coffee maker in the kitchen next to a framed image of a Magritte painting.

  Not that any of this was actually important, but it just goes to show how different people can be from each other. Those people huddled down there in the dark on Level 250 were not paper dolls, but unique or even bizarre individuals. If the person responsible for that weird black living room was still alive, they were depending on me to keep them that way. Not that they’d thank me for the hole in their ceiling.

  I clenched my jaw and slipped out of the artsy apartment into the corridor beyond. The android proxies were still clustered by the stairwell door, but two of them were turning in my direction. I rolled a concussion grenade down the corridor toward them and could feel the pressure change through my armor as it went off with a loud bang and flash.

  Androids don’t feel pain, and they don’t get stunned by a loud noise. But the flash of bright light confuses their sensors for a moment—long enough for me to follow it up with a stream of gunfire. The first android’s chest exploded. It fell to its knees and then face-first to the floor. The second took a hit in the head and fell over the first. They staggered and dropped one by one, until the stairwell door was choked with broken androids.

  I loaded a fragmentation grenade into the launcher on my gun and waited till I heard more proxies approaching. When it sounded like they were close enough for maximum effect, I shot the grenade over the android bodies in the stairwell door, and it dropped right down on the heads of the approaching attackers. There was another explosion, and the stairwell collapsed completely. Now there was no easy way up or down, and my enemy’s problems were at least a little bit harder.

  Would there come a point where they st
opped wasting proxies on me and just flooded the building with too many Nightwatch officers for me to fight? I could only assume that point was coming, and that they were probably on their way already. If I wanted to live, I couldn’t start playing a defensive game. I had to keep moving, keep thinking of ways to surprise and outwit them.

  I went back to the apartment with the strange black living room and used my mobility gear to shoot a grappling hook up into the apartment I’d dropped from. With my hook secured, I was able to pull myself up through the hole in the floor.

  If I had to guess, their next move would be to attack from above. I’d destroyed the staircase, so coming up from below would be more of a hassle. They could send androids up a fire escape and then down from the roof, which meant that my most vulnerable spot in tactical terms was now the roof access door.

  I ran up to that door, then set the last of my fragmentation grenades in motion sensor mode and set it down in front. If the door opened, the grenade would trip and explode at their feet. I moved down the hall until I was past its kill-radius, then crouched and waited for the attack to come. It took longer than I expected, or maybe it just felt like it took longer because the situation was so tense. Being under siege can certainly distort your sense of time; I’ve heard guys describe a single hour as “all day” and several hours as “a few minutes.”