by JM Guillen
He reached out and took the shoulder of the dark haired woman who had been dancing for him.
“Two fingers of Jack.” He held up a twenty and turned back to me.
“You’ll want this.” I slid one of my injectors across the table. He looked at it, scowling, but took it.
I guess the ice princess is waiting outside?
You know she is. We have to get moving. I’ve already had a rough day.
You and me both. He smiled at me. Almost got into a bar fight.
You’ve been offline, so I couldn’t send you my day. I took a swallow of my drink. Let me catch you up. I sent him the patch, porting it to his memory.
Wyatt’s eyes momentarily widened. After a shocked silence, That’s a truly fucked up day. He took his liquor from the girl and waved her on. You aren’t the only one though. Here.
I felt the slight whir as he patched to me. Suddenly, as if the memories were mine, I had a sharp, clear recollection of Wyatt’s last six hours in The Booby Trap.
It was horrifyingly intimate.
Every sight, scent, and sound I remembered in full, three-dimensional technicolor. Every drink he’d had, every woman he’d dallied with…
And yes, he had almost gotten into a bar fight with a lean guy topped by a shock of red hair. Apparently Wyatt had thought the guy was staring at him, and then the guy had been rough with one of the ladies. Wyatt and the bouncer had thrown the guy out.
Then, Wyatt had celebrated.
My friend had certainly made use of his time and money, and I experienced every second as if it had been my afternoon instead of his.
Wyatt’s tastes were eclectic to put it mildly.
He grinned widely at me.
Dude. Not cool.
You just try to forget that, motherfucker. He finished his drink and stood. Let’s get out of here. He put the injector in his pocket. I’ll take my medicine in the car.
I blinked, trying to push the images of Wyatt’s afternoon to the back of my mind. When I stood, he recoiled, and his nose wrinkled.
Bishop. You absolutely reek.
I sighed and followed him out of the bar.
“This is not my place of employment.” Anya’s voice always sounded so strange when she actually spoke. It was soft, nothing like the sterile utility of her links.
I thought it was beautiful.
“All I’m sayin’ is maybe you should. It should be. That’s what I mean.” The man leaning up against the car had obviously spent too much time inside. His words were slurred, and I was certain he was in no shape to drive.
“She’ll take your idea under consideration, I’m certain.” I walked around the man and opened the back door.
“Hey, I was just—”
“We don’t care, pal. We gots to go.” Wyatt said. He tipped his hat to the man as he got in the passenger side.
Anya linked, That man offered me a job in the restaurant.
Wyatt looked at me incredulously, and I gave him a grin.
Anya continued, It’s not funny. He told me he thought I could do just as well as any of the other women in there.
Wyatt laughed and put his hand on her leg. “You could, Petrova. I just bet you could.”
Anya moved his hand, and he laughed again.
Let’s go. I linked them both. Anya, do you have white rooms for us?
Affirmative, Michael. I have also seen to it that you will be equipped with a shower and clothing exchange.
Thank God for that. Wyatt rolled down his window.
We drove into the desert then and left the known world behind.
11
Miles outside of Las Vegas, Anya pulled into a small, abandoned gas station. Wyatt had been half asleep, but now he sat up and pulled his hat back.
How about a beer run? His link was just for me.
I’m pretty certain I haven’t seen you take your injection yet. I’d say now’s the time.
I could feel his scowl over the link, but he pulled his pant leg up and took the shot.
Anya linked in. For the next fifteen minutes, the washroom behind the station will function as our white room.
I rolled my eyes. All of my stories about today seem to involve extra-dimensional restrooms.
Anya continued as if I hadn’t linked. From here, it’s less than twenty-five minutes to the hot site. We have extraction teams that are being set up now, but there is currently no conduit support for this location.
Still? Like myself, Wyatt had held out for the hope that a Facility team might be able to set up an extraction conduit.
The unstable Rationality levels of this region have made that a no-go. She seemed firm. No matter how the topiatic coordinates were run, it could not be guaranteed that a conduit would remain stable.
That’s just brilliant. Wyatt was genuinely annoyed. So when we’re in the thick of it, and some ’Rat is hurling flaming spears at us, we just gotta... what, out run them?
No Irrational has been confirmed on-site with that extra-Rational capability, Wyatt. Her head twitched just the smallest amount. Our primary objective remains getting close enough to structure alpha for me to read ambient Rationality. If there are further directives, the Designate will update us as required.
“This is all old news to me.” I smiled at Wyatt. “I haven’t spent the last six hours offline at The Booby Trap.” I opened the car door. “I do, however, smell like unwashed spider viscera, so I’ll just step along.”
Wyatt opened his door as well. “I’m there with you. If I have to listen to mission specs for five more minutes, I think I’ll be ill.”
More likely that sensation is the alcohol in your system, Wyatt. Is the viral mecha not functioning quickly enough? She paused. I show cognition and neurogenic connectivity within standard markers, although—
“Christ.” Wyatt shut the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The station was as expected. The grit and dust of Nevada had drawn the color from everything, and one of the windows had a crack all the way across the top.
I asked, “Will you be gearing the tangler?” For all of his rough charm, Wyatt was one of the few men I knew with the intellect to master that piece of work. I hoped he’d take it; the man was an artist.
“If I can get it. I’d love to walk in there and see a couple of pistols, just in case, though. Maybe axiomatic blanks.”
I nodded. “I’ll probably take kinetic disruptors. It’s a sneak mission though, so I’ll look around for an emitter.”
Wyatt shuddered. “Can’t stand the things. I don’t know what they do to my metabolism, but I’m always starving afterward.”
“It’s what keeps me trim.” I stopped before the door. “After you, my good man.”
He grinned. “Anything to get away from that smell.” Wyatt opened the door to the brilliant white light and metallic tabletops.
Stepping into the conduit geared to his Crown, Wyatt vanished into his white room. Then he shut the door behind him.
Wyatt’s gearing up, Anya. I’m going in.
Affirmative, Michael. Remember, we only have fourteen minutes remaining on that conduit.
Understood.
I opened the door and stepped into my own white room.
This one had been set up differently than the last. I saw that Anya had indeed requisitioned a shower and a fresh set of clothes hung beside it. The suit wasn’t exactly in my traditional colors, but it looked a perfect fit with lots of flexibility. Offhandedly, I wondered how much thought Anya had given to the clothing she requisitioned.
Probably none, of course.
I stripped off my slacks and button-up and happily stepped into the steaming water.
Oh. Oh, wonderful warmth. I didn’t dally, however. I showered up, put on some expensive cologne—Was that Anya’s idea of a joke?—and redressed slipping the gear from the ruins of my old suit into fresh pockets. I knew that Wyatt always giggled at my tendency to wear a suit jacket and slacks regardless of the mission, but it seemed appropriate.<
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It was hard to play spy without the proper look.
At the storage area I was far more pleased than I had been at the airport.
“This,” I smiled to myself, “is more like it.”
The weapon’s cabinet was loaded with different kinds of firearms, both mundane and Facility specialized. Evaluating the various melee weapons, I looked longingly at the mated pair of katanas on the wall but wasn’t certain if I would have the neural space.
Maybe.
I went for the kinetic disruptors, exactly as I told Wyatt I would. They were sleek, black pistols that felt right in my hand. In the hilt of each was a small, blue injector, exactly like the ones that were used for the viral mecha. I popped them each out and used them. Both hissed as the specialized mecha flooded my bloodstream.
The moment they hit my Crown, I heard the system prompt.
Bishop, Michael. Asset 108. Do you wish to initiate weapon synchronization?
“I do,” I spoke out loud. “Please synchronize both for item possession and neural link.” The guns would function without the mecha but became far more accurate when synced with my nervous system.
Synchronization initiated.
I could feel a tingle in my Crown as the mecha altered the parameters of my nervous system. Knowing that the sync would progress regardless of what I did, I peered into one of the cabinets.
No dampening grenades. No Wrath-class explosives either. I shut the door and looked in the next one. No, this was only ammunition for traditional weaponry. I preferred weapons that wouldn’t run dry, thank you.
Synchronization complete.
Oh, good. With that done, I walked over to where the Cradle sat against the wall, humming its otherworldly, high-pitched whir.
I always hated this part.
The Cradle was an odd device that took up the far end of the room. At a glance, it looked to be a stainless steel table, standing up on one end. Closer inspection, however, revealed that it had handholds and was designed to swivel.
Around the Cradle was a circle of white metal, engraved on the surface with grooves for the metallic swing arm that could move almost freely. Offsetting the white was a polished chrome plate with odd markings in obsidian on the surface.
I couldn’t read the markings; I had never met an Asset who could.
I walked over to it, moving the swing arm around. At the end of it was a silver and blue rod, sleek, about the size of a ballpoint pen.
When I brought it close, I felt the subtle snick as it meshed with my Solomon’s Crown. I leaned against the table, holding on to the side handles.
Noiselessly, the table began to shift beneath me, leaning me backward. The arm began moving of its own accord as it calibrated to my settings and system. It moved fast, positioning the rod around my head, pausing, and then choosing another location.
Bishop, Michael. Asset 108. With each word, the end of the rod pulsed a brilliant cobalt blue. Would you like to peruse sanctioned neuralware? Your current classification will allow for three packets.
Please. I noted the system time. I had eight minutes.
A collection of spheres appeared in my mind’s eye, each a different packet of Facility firmware. Depending upon what was available, they would grant me limited control over localized axioms.
Not complete control, of course. The Facility would never license us to behave as Irrats ourselves.
Mentally, I thumbed through the packets. There was a Veracitor-class packet, which was similar to a low-function dampener, only constantly active. There was also a Caduceus packet, designed for directing and bolstering the viral mecha in our bloodstreams. A sweet option, but it would take up more than one of my Crown slots.
That was ok. Neither was really my gig.
The more I perused, the more I realized that the Facility had given me an unusually wide range of choices. There were packets designated Fury, Adept, and Raptor. I even found a Seraph-class packet. That was one I almost never saw.
Most missions offered one or perhaps two possibilities. Often, the Designate selected packets for the Asset pre-incursion.
This was… odd.
I saw a Spectre packet near one of my more traditional picks and considered it a moment. I hadn’t ever used one, but I knew the specs. The idea of being physically insubstantial was appealing, but I needed to be on hand if Anya needed assistance. This wasn’t the time to experiment.
In seconds, I drifted through the array of choices. Titan, Rapier, Tempest… It was interesting seeing the variety but slightly unnerving at the same time. After all, I wasn’t typically given so many options. What did this mean regarding our mission? Did the fact that there were so many choices mean anything regarding the expected danger of this dossier?
There.
The Wraith only took up one of my slots and was well worth it. The diaphanic emitter alone had saved me on more than one occasion. It was a simple axiomatic change but a potent one.
After all, the inability to interact with light became identical to being invisible.
It offered more than basic invisibility, of course. The emitter was geared for stealth and subterfuge. It dampened noise as well as bent light. I didn’t know the specific specs, but on more than one occasion it had seemed as if the packet had looked out for me in different ways. Oftentimes, guards distracted by odd noises would choose to go another way. Something about the setup of the emitter did more than simply axiomatic alteration, the firmware seemingly knew how to assist me in being stealthy, as if it were programmed to make choices on its own and alter appropriate axioms.
Wyatt, of course, claimed I was simply the luckiest son of a bitch alive, and that I was an idiot for claiming that the emitter did more than the packet claimed.
Either way, he did have one point; it seemed to stoke the metabolism even when inactive. Therefore protocol dictated that the emitter not be active for longer than fifteen minutes at a time.
One choice down.
I looked longingly at the Gatekeeper packet. Typically, Gatekeeper was geared for teams that were initializing Facility conduits. That was always the way it worked. An Asset geared with Gatekeeper would be deposited into a hot zone. From within, a conduit would be established that the Asset could use for either extracting himself or importing reinforcements.
I remembered what Anya had said, however, and knew her to be right. If the area were unstable, a conduit might not open into a Facility-friendly location. It could open anywhere at all. I remembered the deafening, screaming wind of the aberration’s lair and shuddered.
So no, not today.
Instead I accessed the Adept.
This packet requires two slots to function. Do you wish to—
“Yes. Continue.” I was running short on time.
The Adept packet altered reaction times and concentration, making the user superhumanly fast. The Adept came with a plethora of pre-programmed combat routines, most of which focused on various hand-to-hand and melee moves, perfect for the katanas. It even generated proteins that helped keep the user alert and intensely focused. Wyatt and I theorized it was naturally produced caffeine or perhaps an adrenaline alternative.
Of course, Wyatt also theorized that the intense rush was the only reason that I ever geared the Adept and that I needed professional help.
Wyatt would never be caught dead wearing the Adept.
“I prefer fighting the ’Rats as far away as possible.” I could imagine his grin. “I prefer not fighting at all, actually. Set it up so you win before you start. Sun Tzu and all that shit.”
It was different for me. I had never learned any true martial art, but with the Adept packet, I never had to. When it was plugged in, everything coursed through my body like sweet quicksilver: speed, muscle memory, styles.
With the Adept and the Wraith cybergeared into my Crown, I could be devastating. I became a character in a bad anime, without the need to power up.
One minute, Michael. Wyatt has finished equipping, Anya announced.
You’re going as a ninja again, I see. What’s the sound of one hand clapping?
I grinned at him. What is the sound of one man handing you your ass?
Chuckling, we walked back to the car. I gave him a look as we walked. Tangler again, huh?
Wyatt was wearing an odd, sleek backpack with several readouts along the side. There was a semi-circular keyboard on his right hip, hanging from his belt. The keys were in no tongue I could understand. It was important, however, for calibrating the cannon-like attachment that hung over his right shoulder.
He grinned. I stick with what I know.
Technically, it wasn’t named the ‘tangler.’ It was the T-90- Axiomatic Redistribution Algorithm, and it was the single most complex piece of equipment at the disposal of an Asset. With it, Wyatt could temporarily alter Rationality within a given radius to almost any specification. This allowed him to set up safe zones and fall back locations for us or literally change the laws of physics on the battlefield.
The tangler was truly an awesome piece of technology.
You go ahead and get close to some ’Rat and swing your sword. I’ll stay back, thanks.
You’re cheating. At least I engage straightaway. Making your opponent’s blood boil seems unfair.
He grinned at me. Whatever gets me home.
Wyatt seemed like an odd Asset to wield such a complex device. To look at him or even speak with him for a few moments, a person might walk away believe he was a shallow redneck who loved beer, stock car races, and strip clubs with names like “Plan B”. But the tangler required a near-genius grasp of mathematics. I had seen him do all manner of things, from altering the rate at which wounds healed to shifting the direction of gravity right underneath an Irrat’s feet.
Suddenly I realized that Wyatt didn’t even have any guns.
What happened to those pistols you wanted? Axiomatic blanks, wasn’t it?
The look he gave me was oddly grim. Apparently not today. There was an entirely new Artisan packet available for the tangler, but it required all my Crown slots. He paused. I also have to be cautious what mecha I use with it.
