To Beat the Devil (The Technomancer Novels Book 1)

by M. K. Gibson

  In eleven seconds.

  That could be a right amount of time for some things, like a punk song or bad sex. But when falling to your death, I guess eleven seconds would be a lifetime to panic as you watched the duracrete street screaming toward you at 9.8 meters per second squared.

  Fuck that.

  I had to give them time. Seems like all I’ve been doing lately is giving people the time they need. Well, like they say, stick to what you’re good at.

  I sprinted at Abraxas and pulled a pistol, lining up a running shot. He had removed the stone tile and had his hand on the charge handle. I fired and the plasma slammed into his shoulder armor, causing him to release the handle. Abraxas looked up at me and a snarl was on his lips. The giant demon roared. His wings shot out wide and he charged me. He lowered his ramlike horns just before impact. I dove out of the way at the last second, but Abraxas turned in a wide arc and his outstretched dragon wing slammed me in the chest, knocking me on my ass.

  The archduke turned and dove on me, all eleven feet and 700-plus pounds of him. He slammed his left arm down on my chest, pinning me. His hand was huge, nearly engulfing my torso. He drew back his right fist, ready to splatter my skull. I got my arms up as best as I could and activated my energy shield barrier. His fist connected and I felt the impact jolt all the way through my arms.

  Hell, I felt that rattle my teeth.

  On the second hit, I knew my arms would give out fast. I was strong, very strong, but he was stronger and had leverage. On the third hit the shield shattered, the output emitter overloaded.

  “Haaa yes!” Abraxas roared in his mini-victory.

  But his roar was drowned out by a sweeter sound, that of the WHISPER-7’s engines reaching full power. I reached up and grabbed the demon’s breastplate and pulled him down to my level. I stared into his good eye.

  “You lose, fucker,” I said, and was instantly rewarded his forehead to my face. My nose broke (again) and the back of my head slammed into the ground, cracking the stone. Thanks to my Collective beefing me up, my bones, musculature, and tissue were stronger and more pliable. But that nearly took my head off. I felt the Collective already beginning the healing process. Great, I was going to get punched to death in a very slow torture session.

  “That all you got, asshole?!” I said as I spit some blood at him.

  Come on pal, just pound me to death, and in a few more seconds they will lift off to safety. Just a few more seconds.

  Of course that was when Abraxas stopped. He looked back over his shoulder at the Cyberai chopper, then back at me. He smiled and dropped me and stomped away to the charge release handle.

  No, damn it. No!

  I rolled over to my chest. My guns were gone. Lost in the fight. One shot left, though. He was wearing too much heavy plate armor to risk not being able to puncture it. So I aimed my bracer and fired the nano wire at his neck. The tip shot through his flesh and exited his throat. The micro grapple actuators extended and dug in deep. I pulled with all I had and his head and body jerked backwards. I felt like goddamn Scorpion.

  “Get over here!”

  Abraxas surprised me by reaching back and grabbing the wire at the base of his neck. He fell forward with his other arm outstretched, and using his wings for extra propulsion, grabbed the charge handle and pulled it. The final explosions sounded as the moorings were blown away. The entire platform courtyard began to fall. I felt the lurch in my stomach as there was that moment of weightlessness. But I saw the WHISPER-7 and all my friends lift off.

  I’d done it.

  Abraxas pulled on the nano wire even as we were starting to fall, dragging me toward him. Everything was going to hell and he still wanted a piece of me. I had to release the wire from my bracer.

  That was it. No more wires and my last chance to survive this.

  The entire massive platform and courtyard rolled hard to left, in the direction of the original explosion, listing over. Everything fell over into open air. Rock and stone, courtyard topiary, and me. And somewhere, Abraxas.

  The horizon line turned over and over as the courtyard rolled in free fall. I rolled with it all and knew that in about eleven seconds I would be dead unless I did something.

  As the world slowly spun, I pulled my feet under me. When I saw the sky next, I jumped and activated the pulse boosters in my boots. I cleared the courtyard’s next revolution, and an additional pulse boost later I was in open air, free falling. Elapsed time, about two seconds. So about a world-class bull ride’s time to splattertown.

  Looking around, I saw nothing but the wide open city of New Golgotha. It was quite pretty in its own way. Like a prepaid whore. So if I had only seconds left to live, I’d take it all in. The light of dawn just cresting over the city. The technological patchwork sprawled in every direction as far as the eye could see. Destruction and rebirth over and over. Stone and steel, glass and plastic. Earth and Hell.

  A roar disturbed my reverie. Abraxas came gliding at me like a golden missile. He had ditched his armor and was flying at me fast.

  “Come on, Abby! I have time to kill,” I yelled, almost laughing. The big demon slammed into me and we tumbled in the air. His wings stretched wide and he righted us as we soared in an upward arc. Demons weren’t able to fly—not anymore—but they could glide. We went higher and higher. Great. After I killed this asshole, I’d have to wait to die again.

  Abraxas yelled in old Denochian, for all the good it did him. On land, he was terrifying and massive. In the air, I was the sparrow hawk to his condor. He had to concentrate to try and hit me and maintain any semblance of aerial control. He had a grip on me, but his attacks were clumsy with no real power behind them. I popped the blade in my bracers and slashed and stabbed his legs, arms, and anything else I could. His grip on me lessened and I pulled free.

  I scrambled around to his back, using my blades as climbing spikes. Abraxas screamed and I laughed. He continued his rant in Denochian. I just told him to shut up. I was kind of hoping to use him as a giant glider. But at the rate his blood was pumping out from all the stabbing, I doubt it would have worked. Well, if this was it, then this was it.

  “Hey, Abby! I am so glad you listened to me before I took your eye. I told you to come at me as hard as you can, and by God ya did! Who’s a good little demon?” I yelled into the demon’s ear as I patted his head. I doubt he heard me clearly over the rush of air as we fell. Fuck it. It was all pomp anyway. But I was going to show him that this human had defied him.

  And won.

  I reached into one of my tac pockets and pulled out my last trick, the detcord I had lifted from a fallen Midheim warrior. I wrapped the detcord around the archduke’s throat, then grabbed him by his horns and turned his head around, making him look back at his citadel, high atop the skyscraper. I tapped a quick code into my tech bracer, and the topmost thirty floors of the skyscraper exploded in a massive fireball. The sound was undefinable. It was a thousand dragons’ screaming death at the end of the world. The citadel toppled and began falling.

  “See that?! See it, fucker!? I WIN!” I screamed as loud as I could into Abraxas’s ear. I retracted my blades and kicked off him, using the pulse boosters. When I was at a safe enough distance, I remote detonated the detcord and flicked him off. Abraxas’s head exploded and his body went limp and fell without any dignity. The last thing the failed archduke ever saw was his home destroyed and my middle finger.

  This just left me falling again. I had no concept of time now, and I saw the ground coming fast. Good, not too long to dwell on it.

  My friends, though—they would be safe. Grimm and Ricky would see to that. Maz would become the new archbishop; T and Grimm would relocate Vidar and Vali and all the survivors of Midheim to my old home. Caitlin would land on her feet. She might be crazy, but she was resourceful. Honestly, I felt bad for the Collective. It simply wished to survive. It was an AI that lived within me and had nowhere else to go. Even if it could, it was genetically coded to my DNA. It couldn’t live anywh
ere else. Speaking of, why hadn’t the Collective started talking my ear off about impending mortal danger?

  Collective?

  //ON LINE//

  Why haven’t you warned me of mortal danger yet?

  //STATEMENT: WE HAVE COME TO REALIZE HOST’S RESOURCEFULNESS - QUERY: WHY HAS HOST NOT ATTEMPTED TO DECELERATE TERMINAL VELOCITY//

  I don’t know how. I don’t have any tech to slow down.

  //REDUCE MASS THEN AS ALLY PLANNED PREVIOUS NIGHT WHEN ESCAPE ATTEMPT FAILED//

  And how the hell was I supposed to do that? It was then that I realized I could. Holy shit, I could! The mass inducer! It simply absorbed ambient matter around me and temporarily added it to me in a quantum field. Reversing it? Seemed like Star Trek technobabble to me. But I was no T and not my father. Father? Oh shit. Yes! An idea hit me.

  Collective. Initiate adrenal overclock, open tachyon transmission.

  //AFFIRMATIVE//

  I felt my mind speed up again and the world slowed. The tachyon link was open.

  Dad?

  Son? I am so glad to hear you. We have been worried.

  No time, Dad. I am literally seconds away from falling to my death. Tesla installed a mass inducer to my tech bracers. Is there a way to reverse it?

  Theoretically, yes. It would become a Higgs-Boson inhibitor. But how could you do it in seconds?

  I can’t. The Collective can. My mind is on overclock. You have a direct link to the Collective and can communicate at the speed of thought. You two hash it out fast. Collective, obey him.

  Yes, son. Right away.

  //AFFIRMATIVE//

  The next few seconds hung like hours. My father explained the God-particle theory to my collective. Before my overclock ended and my mind returned to normal, I heard my father one more time.

  Son, it’s ready. It should work.

  And if it doesn’t?

  Umm. You will explode into a thousand pieces as your atoms are scattered in the most excruciating way possible?

  Jesus, Dad!

  Son, if this doesn’t work, I...

  Yeah . . . I know, Dad.

  Fuck it, no time to think about it. Overclock ended and I fired up the HBI.

  I felt the most horrid pain I ever felt. I felt my very being become . . . thin. I felt almost transparent. I knew then I had the approximate mass of a bug, or a feather.

  Another physics formula came to mind. Normally useless, but in this case, the most important one in the world. Despite failing high school physics (thanks Mrs. Trout), this one stuck with me: F=MxA. Force equals mass times acceleration. I no longer had the mass; now I had to deal with the acceleration. I knew I had power for one last boost from my boots. I was only about twenty feet from the ground. I fired them off.

  The pulse slowed me drastically, and even shot me back up slightly. I almost floated the rest of the way down. I hit the ground with a decent thud. No worse than falling out of bed. The HBI powered down and I felt myself coalesce back into myself.

  Holy balls. I lived. I just blew up a demon’s head, fell over two thousand feet, and fucking lived!

  “Yes!” I screamed, pumping my fist in the air. “Yes yes yes! Fuck you, nature! Science just kicked your ass! It made you his bitch! The Law of Gravity can suck my sweaty asshole!”

  I dropped my arms and just lay there for a few more moments, flat on my back. I fished a synth smoke from my pouches and lit it, breathing deep. I sat up and smoked my cigarette, watching the building burn. All around the area were broken remnants of the landing platform and the citadel. Down here, on the street, it was just garbage. Soon, it would be scavenged and added to homes or a new building.

  Morning commerce had already begun in New Golgotha. The whores were returning from last night’s work. The street cleaners were already beginning their rounds. Men and demons walked the world side by side. No one paid any mind to the ranting madman who had just fallen from the sky. Or at least they gave me odd looks and kept on walking.

  I eventually stood and brushed myself off.

  The one thing the humans would not know, not for a while anyway, was that I released souls back into the world. And I now knew what the demons feared. Another war would eventually come. And this time, we could win.

  But not right now. Right now, I needed a drink. I waved my hand.

  “Taxi!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Löngutangar

  Dante’s looked good, even in the morning. I paid the hellion cabbie a little extra. I wasn’t sure what all I was covered in, but the backseat of his ride looked like a walrus had a breech birth when I got out. It didn’t smell too good either. He gave me a look but I growled at him and he gladly took the money and left.

  As I approached the doors I could hear people inside and music playing. And oddly, I heard them talking about me. They were saying . . . nice things? Holy shit, they weren’t just having an “F yeah! We’re alive!” party. This was also my funeral wake. They thought I had died. Hell, I couldn’t blame them. I still wasn’t entirely convinced I wasn’t dead and this wasn’t all a mass hallucination moments before I would splat all over the sidewalk.

  Part of me wanted to listen. Hear what they all really thought of me. But that wasn’t true. At a funeral, people just say what they think they should say, not what they truly think. Besides, it was best I didn’t know. I knew who I was. More so now than ever.

  Just to be cool, I kicked the doors open. Everyone stopped and turned to look as I stepped in.

  “Told ya,” Grimm said aloud, and Ricky nodded. I saw Maz flick Grimm a credit coin. Vidar and Val were the first to their feet. The giant godlings crushed me in their manly hugs. I hugged them back and thanked them for everything. The bar was packed with their warriors and the other survivors Caitlin had led out of the citadel. I even saw Jensen.

  Just who I was looking for.

  People thanked me and hugged me. Everyone asked how I survived. Even if anyone had given me a chance to answer, no one would have heard me over the noise and jubilation. And that’s what it was. A joyous event. We were alive and celebrating. Our hearts were full and our souls were growing.

  Caitlin fired a blast from her arm cannon straight up. The noise shut everyone up. She walked over to me and put a drink in my hand. A freshly-made whiskey sour. No tracer drugs in this one, I hoped. She kissed me one more time, hard. She pulled away and her eyes still told me we had unfinished business.

  “Let the man speak!” she barked and everyone shut up.

  “Thanks, Cat.” I sipped my drink. Damn, it was good. Cut the awful taste out of my mouth. The taste of fighting. And worse, the taste of betrayal. Also, it helped for what I was about to do. After the fall, and the taxi ride over, I’d had time to think. I’d come to a couple possible conclusions and they all sucked. But for the moment, I played the part they all wanted.

  I hopped up on the bar and took another sip of my drink, then reached for my smokes and paused. I looked at Jensen and waggled my right hand fingers in a “gimme” motion. He got the hint and tossed me a pack of real smokes. I caught them, took one from the pack, and lit it.

  Damn. That was the stuff.

  I started to recount what had happened to me after the WHISPER-7 took off. I was short and to the point at first. But as I relived it through story, I was more descriptive and animated. I explained the detonations and the garden platform tipping over and falling from the sky. I explained the falling. I explained the midair fight with Abraxas. Hopping off the bar, I waved and ranted, explaining the fight. I grabbed Vidar, using him as a stand-in Abraxas. The big god resisted at first, but ended up smiling and laughing along as the people demanded more.

  When I recounted using the detcord and the explosion blowing off Abraxas’s head, I got a resounding roar of applause from the Mideheim warriors.

  “I know, right! Boom! His head was nothing more than red mist. Thanks for the loan!” I yelled to the bar’s patrons as they roared and raised their drinks to me. I pointed to the bits
of demon blood on me and got an even louder and bawdier response. I raised my drink to them in salute and the room drank deeply.

  “How you no go splat?” T’s electronic voice asked at deafening volumes over the raucous men. The room lit up with the same question: How? How? How? I waved my hands to get the room to calm down. When it dropped back to a dull roar I continued.

  “I didn’t go ‘splat’—” I pointed to T—“because…” I paused. I was about to go into a long winding tale of misdirection. But the people in this room deserved to know me. The real me. And soon, the rest of the world would know anyway.

  “Because one hundred seventy-five years ago, AI nanite technology was infused into me, turning me into the first cyborg. Even before ADAM-1,” I said, and the room went stone silent. “The AI has improved me in nearly every way along with no longer aging. During periods of high stress, I can overclock my brain, making the world slow down, like I did when I was falling. I used my AI to reconfigure the mass inducer T installed. By the time I hit the ground, I had next to no weight.”

  “Boze moi. You create Higgs-Boson reducer?” T asked, astounded.

  “No. My dad and the Collective AI created a Higgs-Boson inhibitor. I was just the conduit. All based off your work, Nicky. You saved my life.” I raised my glass to him. “Thanks.” I took another drink and the large mecha-man bowed slightly.

  I switched my eyes to infra-red and saw what I didn’t want to see. Damn it. I opened a line to my dad.

  Dad, please tell me you were wrong about the Jammer.

  Sorry, son, my dad said. I could tell he sounded sad for me. I really am sorry. Be careful.

  Thanks, Dad.

  “Hey Ricky?” I yelled to the man as he sat next to Grimm at a small table.

  “Yeah?”

  “I assume the bar is open for the night and on the house?”

  “It’s morning. But sure. It was going to be on the house anyway when we all thought you were dead.”