To Beat the Devil (The Technomancer Novels Book 1)

by M. K. Gibson

  “Where is he from?” I asked. “What’s his genetic background?”

  “That’s even crazier. His genetic markers—well, there aren’t any. He is every possible, conceivable race, and none of them, at the same time.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “It isn’t!” My father said with so much excitement I expected his holo-projection to short out.

  I pondered that for a bit. I guess Grimm really was telling the truth. But I needed more information.

  “Dad, go ahead and head back to the lab, or switch off for a few hours, whatever you want to do. I have to head out tonight and dig up some answers. I will leave the neural relay on if you and Mom need to get in touch with me.”

  “Sure thing, son. Good luck.” The image of my father blinked out.

  I heard an 8-bit imitation of “Play that Funky Music” blare from my living area. I went over to my coffee table and grabbed my relic of a smartphone, an ARCHTech Vox75 series. A message from Jensen, letting me know he was at Dante’s already working and for me to come by to go over that information he had on Father Grimm. Also, for me to bring some more classic smokes. Who could blame him? Nothing beats the real thing. I rattled off a quick message letting him know I was on my way.

  I put on my pistol belt, my coat, and my tech bracers. I looked over my workshop for a moment and grabbed a few tricks and gadgets I had been meaning to test out, as well as a couple of old grenades. They are rare, but they come in handy. Before I headed out I went by one of my storage compartments and grabbed some smokes. I saw my supply was running low, which meant I needed to make a run to one of my other storage depots soon. Good ol’ pre-G-Day harmful-as-hell cigarettes were an extremely rare commodity. They were prized quite often above food and booze. Damn near gold. I mean, have you tried the synth smokes? Ugh. A hand job at best when you are craving sex. But since there are no true organic tobacco plants left in NG, we take what we can get. When I first got involved in the lightrunning business, smokes were how I made a name for myself once the fighting had mostly died down.

  Isaac ceased to be and the man that would become Salem was born.

  *******

  I turned off my fusion bike, set the defensive systems, and began walking the few blocks toward Dante’s. Despite the district’s rough nature, the few people on the street gave me a wide berth. What can I say; I have a badass rep.

  Lost in my thoughts of the previous night, I nearly missed the smells. Metal lubricant, heat port exhaust, and the tang of ozone. The area where I liked to park was beset with severe urban decay. However, it was in the center of an old-style parking garage, so it was very visible and hard to sneak around. I dropped to one knee and closed my eyes and listened. I picked up the extreme softness of footfalls along with the faintest heartbeats and soft murmurs. Whatever it was seemed far away. But the smells. The smells were very close.

  Cloakers were a great piece of tech. Developed during the second Hell War. But you become reliant on them and forget they can’t mask smell. Opening my eyes, I could see shadow-like movements along my peripheral vision. Besides dampening sound on moving individuals, cloakers bent light in abstract patterns. Not complete stealth, but you cannot see a cloaked person dead on. Only faint outlines out of the corners of your eyes.

  The first Cyberai de-cloaked and swung his plasma katana at my head. The weapon was a collapsible titanium sword with an ionized filament on either end that oscillated superheated plasma. I ducked it and rolled away as he continued his momentum and performed a lighting-fast second slash that would have opened me from chops to nave. And I really like my nave, despite its recent lack of use.

  ‘Nave’ means your navel, son, not your penis, my mother’s voice said in my head. Perhaps you meant ‘stem to stern’? Even then, that is a nautical expression dating back to—

  In a fight, Mom!

  Oh yes, right. Good luck!

  Several other Cyberai de-cloaked and began to circle me. They were all cyborgs, of course. They were decked out in a samurai motif with various implants to augment their fighting prowess. Tech designed to mimic traditional armor and masks while serving functions of movement and defense. As the various gangs for hire went in New Golgotha, these guys were fairly badass. And very expensive.

  The last of them de-cloaked and I knew him. Local clan leader Kitsune. He was shirtless and overly fit. From the waist up he was human, but his legs were completely cybernetic. He wore a horned, demonic black and white Oni mask that I knew to be a very rare ceremonial headpiece. I know because he paid me to get it for him. He had configured it to serve as a faceplate tech enhancement. From the design, it seemed to be wet-wired into his brain. Through his long black hair I could see the connections. Best guess, it was tapped into his endocrine system, giving him mastery of his adrenal glands. Rather than the new-wave plasma katana, he carried two traditional wakizashi blades in the blade-down fighting style. Kitsune was kinetic death with them.

  “Salem,” he addressed me.

  “What’s the idea, Kit? If Grimm put you up to this, I am NOT in the mood.”

  “Who is Grimm? No, friend, we were paid good credits to take you out. Someone has finally decided to call you in. Probably for all the theft. I wanted to let you know it’s nothing personal.”

  “If you say it is ‘just business,’ I am going to pull that mask off and shove the horns up your ass. We were friends, you Bowflex-model butt fucker.”

  Kitsune tilted his head, looking at me oddly. I kept forgetting that some references were from before these people’s great-grandparents were born.

  “Forget it. You could have just done me in and collected. But you showed yourself. You made this personal. Why?”

  Kits shrugged and sighed. “I always thought I could take you. I don’t think you earned your rep. But by taking you down, it opens business for me.” Kitsune nodded toward his mercs. “For us.”

  “Enough of this shit,” I snarled and pulled my pistols, firing off a few rapid shots. The blasts took down a couple Cyberai quickly, all shots to the forehead. Kiss my ass, Kenobi; blasters are neither crude nor clumsy.

  The remaining Cyberai moved in quickly, hoping to stop me by sheer numbers. I dove and rolled as plasma katanas ignited and swung at where I had been. The Cyberai were fast and they were on me quickly. I fired off a few more shots, but the tech that resembled kusazuri, haidate, and sode were actually omni-directional thrusters and angled energy shield deflectors. My blasts either hit empty air or ricocheted away harmlessly. Shit. I knew I could take any of these manga chumps one on one, maybe even a few. But there were just too many. I wasn’t sure I was walking away from this one.

  Ducking and rolling away from the Cyberai, I bolted back toward my fusion bike in the old parking garage. On the run I tapped out a quick sequence on my tech bracers, transmitting a certain signal. I only hoped it would be answered in time before I was dissected. Being carved up by plasma blades was not how I’d pictured my evening.

  I fired a wide area burst above me, creating a hole to the level above. Avoiding the falling concrete debris, I ran at one of the ancient parking structure’s support columns, jumped, and kicked off, catching the lip of the hole I had just created. I pulled myself up and rolled away stomach down, then took aim and popped two quick rounds into the head of the first Cyberai that followed me up. His body fell below and I heard Kitsune giving orders to his mercs. Looking around, I spotted the nearest stairwells. I got to my feet and fished out a motion-sensing incendiary. This gadget’s specific tweak was I’d replaced the sensors with HD mini-cam and facial recognition software. Needless to say, I was on the No Boom-Boom list.

  I rolled the bombs across the floor toward the stairwells. As the doors burst open, the bombs went off. Concussive force rocked the structure from my left and then right. Quickly following came the screams of dying Cyberai. In addition to generic semtex, I’d added a napalm component. Not because I was particularly that vicious; I was just curious if it would work. Those that
avoided the blasts were coated in adhesive flame.

  As I was mid-celebration, more Cyberai flooded through the stairwell and up the hole from below.

  Just too many.

  So, when faced with certain doom, I did what I always did. I lit a smoke and tried to buy more time. I’d be damned if some futuristic fucks with knockoff lightsabers were going to take me down while I had clean air in my lungs.

  The remaining Cyberai circled me as Kitsune came forward and leaned nonchalantly against a column. Then he straightened himself and held his arms out wide, his twin wakizashi blades pointing down. I knew if I used my pistols I would be cut down quickly. I needed to stall for more time, but that luxury was about gone. I holstered my weapons and popped the retractable blades on my tech bracers. I mentally said “snikt.” Kitsune closed the distance between us. He was a blur.

  My cybernetic nature basically made me a super Olympian in strength, speed, and awareness. Only problem was, I usually couldn’t demonstrate that fact. If I was seen performing at that level and people saw, word would spread. People would ask questions. My tech, my business. And I did not know if I could take out Kitsune and the remaining Cyberai without using it. Great gifts, but a shitty price tag. People knew I was special, but I could never lead on how special. Their guesses were what kept me alive for this long. No one was sure exactly what I was, and that meant it was a bigger gamble in finding out. If I went metaphorically balls out, bigger and bigger hitters would come to kick me in said balls.

  I like my balls, thank you.

  I met Kitsune’s blades with my own and we danced and sparred blade on blade. I easily tracked his movements despite his cybernetically-enhanced body. I had to react more slowly than I was able to for the sake of appearances. A few nicks and cuts. I dealt a few of my own. He got first blood, but I cut deeper. He shifted easily from high-line attacks to inward thrust forms while remaining on guard from my own counters. The wakizashi were shorter than a katana and made great infighting weapons. My own blades were not constructed for this type of combat. A few minutes of blade dancing felt like hours.

  I still needed more time.

  Kitsune pressed his attack into a whirling technique—arms wide, coming at me end over end. I spun to my side and continued the flow, sweeping wide with a backhanded strike, and cut through his lateral oblique muscle. His pain receptors must have been set at a minimal level because if he felt it, his mask betrayed nothing. He changed his form and performed an intricate step-and-pivot maneuver, turning his back to me. But the downward blade style he preferred brought the tip of his weapon in line with me and he slammed the blade into my upper right chest, just below the clavicle.

  I yelled in pain. I reacted without thinking. He was already in close, so with one hand I grabbed a handful of his hair, and with the other hand I grabbed the wrist that held his blade in my chest. I bent him backwards until he released the blade and then slammed my forehead into his mask. Hard. The mask cracked and he dropped to the ground. My follow-up kick to his kidney lifted him several feet off the ground. I put a hand to my chest and pulled out the sword, then applied pressure and waited for my automated systems to do their thing.

  I was surrounded by his clan. Damn. I still needed more time.

  “Hey Kitsune,” I called out to the Cyberai leader, who was slowly getting to his feet. “How much would it cost me to buy your guys off? I will throw in extra if you give me the prick’s name that put the hit out on me.” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Everyone has their price. Especially these days. The dark souls of men have always been lit by the glint of gold.

  I had to give Kit credit. He was a broken pulpy mess, but he was getting up. “Sorry, Salem.” The Cyberai got up, coughing blood. “No deal. If word got out we went back on a contract, we would never get proper work again.” He sounded pretty messed up. He made a quick hand gesture and all the remaining Cyberai who had circled us ignited their plasma katanas.

  So much for the glint of gold and everyone’s price.

  What a waste of good prose.

  It was then that I noticed my salvation standing in the shadows. And my salvation was packing an old-fashioned M134 7.62mm 6-barrelled mini gun. I mentally rewarded myself for getting that for Jensen on his birthday last year (nearly free of charge). I fished into my coat pocket and pulled out a fresh pack of smokes. I tossed them skyhook style and Jensen snatched them out of the air.

  “Thanks, bud. You might wanna move,” he said as he fired up the street sweeper. The barrels rotated and spun up to full speed as Jensen sprayed out my deliverance at six thousand rounds a minute.

  I fired my nano filament wires from my tech bracers above me and reeled straight up. I hung there like a bulky marionette. Jensen kept his finger on the trigger and swept side to side. Cyberai fell quickly and violently. Those quick enough to activate their energy shield deflectors took the punishment for a few moments. But the sheer velocity and power Jensen pumped out overloaded the woefully inadequate tech.

  Like I said before, Jensen was all the security Dante’s needed.

  Kitsune was the last standing. He looked relieved when the mini gun fell empty. Well, as relieved as a man could look with an ancient Japanese mask covering his face. He looked less relieved when Jensen took out a .65 HK supersonic railgun 9-shot revolver. That I did not get him. That was an antique from the first Hell War. The drum-fed magnetic hand cannon double tapped, firing the tungsten round at 3,500 meters per second right through Kitsune’s heart. The cyborg fell dead. The old parking structure was eerily quiet and smelled of blood, oil, death, and cordite.

  Jensen went over to Kitsune and ripped the cracked Oni mask from his face. Relays and connectors pulled out chunks of flesh.

  “You don’t mind me keeping this, do you? Souvenir. I will pay you the cost of the mask,” Jensen said.

  “Keep it,” I responded as I came back down from the ceiling. “You bailed me out, bud. Call it square. Besides, I am keeping his wakizashi.” We bumped forearms and started walking back down the stairwell.

  “I have the dossier I promised you back at the club.”

  “Thanks again. Damn, I’m glad we decided to have that transponder signal set up to call one another in case of emergency,” I said. “What genius thought of that? Oh wait, it was me.”

  “Yeah yeah, asshole. But did you have to make it ‘Funkytown’? Now I will have that song stuck in my head for days.”

  “Why don’t you just delete it?” I asked him.

  “Hmmm…done,” he said.

  The two of us walked back to Dante’s. Sad thing was, I had no idea that an ambush by money-hungry Cyberai was going to be the least weird part of the night.

  Chapter Nine

  Metal in Their Asses and Guns in Their Chests

  After getting into Dante’s and paying the Spinoli sisters to store my new wakizashi behind the bar, I was able to relax a bit. The cold whiskey and hot steak were exactly what I needed. Sadly, the synthetic beef was all Dante’s carried, but it did the trick. The steak I had fed Grimm had been a real one. I kept several in stasis from a time I helped out some free farmers outside of the city. The city had its merits, but free-range real meat wasn’t one of them.

  New Golgotha was a decadent supercity in ruin and renewal. Full of crumbling buildings juxtaposed against the postwar, postmodern monoliths of the aristocracy. A beautiful, dark eyesore. Built on top of itself for years, it sprawled outward and upward. It always reminded me of Blade Runner meets Coruscant. Mr. Anansi could not have made a more ludicrous web. Pretty she wasn’t. Stretching from the former upper New England all along the east coast to the ruins of Richmond, Virginia, the city was one thriving hive of dedicated decadence.

  New Golgotha, the old bitch, was broken down into three major kingdoms, each ruled by a demon archduke charged with the management of their district and giving profit and glory to the princes, the former rulers of Hell. The archdukes were not on par with the princes, but they had power.

  In the S
outh you had the lowest kingdom, Ars Amadel, ruled by Archduchess Lady Bathin. They basically were tasked with gathering all the raw materials the city needed.

  In the central duchies was the kingdom of Ars Goetia, my home kingdom, ruled by Archduke Abraxas. Ol’ Abby was tasked with processing the South’s materials. Synthetic and partial organic food production was at the forefront. Cloned and synth materials came in, and fake steak came out. Hell, the bulk of what was Maryland and Pennsylvania was mostly R&D labs and factories. What wasn’t was high-rise living for the rich, or utter crap on the street and coastal levels. Except for Centralia, PA. Could you believe that place was still burning from an anthracite coal mine fire?

  Last was Lemegeton in the North. Archduke Dantalion ruled there and he took all the credit by distributing the processed goods. Food, clothes, goods, whatever. Worldwide, Lemegeton was the hub from which flowed nearly everything on the East Coast. If an independent company wanted to thrive, like ARCTech, it had to pay all proper tithes. Or else risk being razed to the ground.

  Life in the modern world.

  I chewed my synthetic steak and allowed myself to relax a moment. Jensen sat across from me in our booth. On the table was an old-fashioned manila envelope. Inside was an even older multipart folder full of data, facts, and rumors about Father Grimm, as well as photos.

  “What do you think?” Jensen asked.

  “I think you have been dying to have a sit-down like this with a folder or envelope being slid across a table like in old cop movies,” I said. Jensen openly smiled and chuckled his agreement. I opened the envelope and took out the folder. The dossier contained a fairly detailed account of Father Grimm. Hundreds of years of data were collected. Scans of old parchments and paintings with the mysterious figure. Accounts of people who had dealings with him. His exact name and age were unknown. But every major time period going as far back as pre-Renaissance Dark Ages was present, and Father Grimm seemed to be a part of all of it.