by J N Chaney
The horror unfolded in a matter of seconds, but it felt like much longer than that from my vantage point on the ladder. I hesitated at first. I had a job to do, a specific job that didn’t have anything to do with what was happening down there on the street below me. If I got involved, I knew I couldn’t expect the others to help. In fact, they would probably just leave me to it while they accomplished the mission.
Then the ape-cyborg leaned over on its long arms, aimed its two cannons down the street at the fleeing crowd, and fired directly into them. The blast wave shattered storefronts and rattled buildings throughout the block. The pressure wave swayed my grip on the ladder and the heat stung my eyes.
The results were sickening, but I didn’t have much time to think about the bloody mess it made of the crowd, because I was already jumping down from the ladder onto the rooftop below. Unlike my earlier jumps, this one was flawless, and was followed by a series of equally flawless jumps—rooftop to fire-escape landing, fire-escape landing to street.
By the time I was at ground level, dozens of the protesters had produced their own weapons and opened fire. That’s the thing about a city as heavily armed as Hellas. Lethal force is always an option, and as violent as things had been up until now, the protesters had actually been showing restraint. Now the guns were out, and what had been a riot became a shooting war.
The StateSec officers were running, seeking cover in the nearby buildings. They were all wearing armor, but I saw one of them fall anyway. The shooters weren’t aiming primarily at the officers though. They were kneeling in the street, firing desperately up at the behemoths attacking them. As far as I could tell, those with guns were trying to buy time for those without to get under cover.
It wasn’t working. As I aimed my own weapon, the bear-cyborg reared up on its hind legs and just absorbed all their fire, knowing that its armor would stop anything they could throw at it. Its arm split down the middle to the elbow then opened like a clamshell to expose the barrel of a heavy gun. It swept across the crowd with automatic fire, killing everything that stood in its way in a sickening display of violence. Bodies were shredded into a fine mist of gore and shards of bone, and the survivors were drenched in the blood and viscera of the dead.
I shot the creature in the back with a depleted-uranium round. It reeled back at the impact then started to lumber in my direction. I hit it again and it flinched a little, then it dodged aside with incredible speed. It knew I could hurt it now, but it had nowhere to run except into the buildings. As I kept firing, it smashed its way through the storefront next to it in a burst of flying plasticrete.
I’d made it run, but I had little time to savor the victory. The canid was coming in a series of rapid jumps propelled by those goat-like legs. I aimed and fired, but it had jumped again by time I pulled the trigger. Another jump and it was almost on me, springing across the space between us. I didn’t aim this time—there would have been no time for it. All I could do was to raise my weapon and shoot instinctively in something not far removed from a blind panic.
It hit the canid in the body, and the thing crumpled to the ground in front of me as the uranium round went right through it. Its feet scrambled for purchase on the blood-slick pavement, and I took careful aim directly at its head. I was about to fire, but it suddenly found the purchase it was looking for and bounded off and disappeared through a nearby window.
From the street up ahead of me, the protesters were now raining fire on the buildings the cyborgs had retreated into. Their weapons simply couldn’t pierce the creatures’ armor, but they had realized I was here to help them and they were doing what they could. I felt that surge of emotion that sometimes happens in battle, the intense desire to do anything I could to help my comrades, these people I didn’t even know.
That was the highpoint of my battle with the three Erinyes, the point where I still thought I had a chance of winning. Then I heard a sound, a terrible sound like a building had decided to start walking in my direction. When I turned to look, the looming figure of the ape-cyborg was headed right for me.
If it had used its cannon, that would have been it for me. I’m not sure why it didn’t, unless it just wasn’t possible to carry that much ammo inside of its body. Whatever the reason, it was clearly planning to just grab and throw me, splattering my body all over some nearby building. I pulled the trigger, but it dodged my first shot effortlessly. It was getting closer with every second, covering several feet at a stride.
That’s when I remembered the holographic emitter I’d taken from the body of the Kagebushin assassin. I turned and ran for cover, reaching down to my belt at the same time to turn on the device. As I reached the overhang of a nearby building, the bear-cyborg came bursting out from its hiding place and charging straight into the mass of citizens.
They died where they stood, firing hopelessly into the manmade monster as it tore at them. The canid came after it, leaping out and landing in the middle of the crowd. There was a spray of blood, and someone’s severed head went flying.
Instead of chasing me down, the ape-cyborg barreled straight into the hapless crowd and joined in the slaughter. Thinking the holographic emitter would give me some advantage, I ran out into the street again and opened fire on the three cyborgs.
The ape-cyborg paused to look at me, then crushed the man it was holding. Blood seeped between its fingers, and the man’s head lolled off onto the street. It tossed the remnants aside then reached straight for me with unerring accuracy. Holography couldn’t fool the creature—it knew exactly where I really was.
As the thing’s arm swept down to grab me, I realized my death had come. Since that was the case, there was nothing left except to meet it well. I stood straight up, firing up at the thing repeatedly as its huge hand came down at me. Those depleted-uranium bullets made a comparatively tiny hole in the monster’s massive frame, and they just weren’t powerful enough to stop something as big as this.
Then something hit it, and hit it hard.
The sound of the impact was almost deafening, and it shook the street so hard I saw something break off one of the buildings and collapse as I stumbled and fell to one knee. The creature staggered, and my mouth hung open in sheer amazement as I realized its entire chest had just been partially caved in by something.
There it was up above me, a looming, unnatural amalgam of bioweaponry and robotics, and something had hurt it. Badly. It was down on one knee, confusion evident even on its featureless face as it tried to process what had happened. I was just as confused. I couldn’t even think of anything that could do that, except maybe a vehicle-mounted weapon such as a tank-killer or a ground-to-air missile.
The ape-cyborg looked up, finally focusing on whatever had just done that. The bear-cyborg and the canid were both approaching rapidly, and the bear-cyborg was raising its arm to unleash a burst of machine-gun fire. There was another shattering impact, and the ape-cyborg’s right arm crumpled underneath it, causing it to collapse onto the street. The other cyborgs retreated, seeking cover in the buildings again. A third impact hit the ape, and the nanosuit plating on its chest began to fracture. A spiderweb of cracks spread out from the impact point, and it looked down at its own wound as if in disbelief.
Completely absorbed by what I was seeing, I hadn’t even turned to see what was causing all this damage. I finally did and was so surprised by what I saw that it didn’t even register at first. There was something big, holding something that looked too big to be held.
It was Jonathan Bray, advancing down the street with a massive anti-vehicle cannon cradled in his arms like it was just an ordinary rifle. As I watched in awe, he adjusted his aim to direct suppressing fire at the building the bear-cyborg had retreated into. The weapon roared, and the sound of shattering glass and collapsing plasticrete came from the street behind me.
That cannon he was carrying was not a handheld weapon. It was only ever meant to be mounted on a vehicle hardpoint. The man’s physical strength was nothing short of terrif
ying, but even more amazing to me was the simple fact that he was still alive. I scrambled to my feet, not knowing exactly what to do or say.
He kept on firing, pivoting from left to right as needed. The ape-cyborg was badly hurt, but it wasn’t finished. Bray was busy engaging the other two cyborgs to keep them pinned down where they were, so it took advantage of the momentary respite to drag itself under cover. As it crawled away, I regained my presence of mind enough to fire a few shots at it as it retreated. It actually looked back at me as my bullets pierced its leg. It must have been my imagination, but it almost seemed like an accusatory look. After seeing what it did to all those innocent people, I didn’t care. I put a few more rounds through it before it managed to get inside.
Depleted uranium weapons had served me well when it came to cyborgs, but I had to admit that the weapon I was using just wasn’t powerful enough to deal with the Erinyes. They were just too big, and although my rounds were capable of piercing their armored plating, I had yet to kill a single one of the creatures. Now that Bray was here, I had at least a decent chance of surviving the next few minutes, but I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the fight.
There was nothing I could do here except slow him down or distract him from the task at hand. I stood there awkwardly, trying to decide whether to fall back or not. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t think of any other option. Then something hard and heavy pressed against my chest, and the air seemed to shimmer directly in front of me. I heard a voice: “The least you could do is to make yourself useful.”
Andrea Capanelli.
As she moved away, the weight in my arms became visible—a military-issue squadron assault rifle with heavy, armor-piercing rounds.
Before I heard her voice, I had just about given up on the idea that she had survived the bombing. It just seemed so implausible, and we’d heard nothing from her in all this time. Yet here she was, and she had somehow managed to find the weapons we needed.
I raised my new gun and aimed at the buildings, feeling a little like Jonathan Bray. That rifle was huge, although nowhere near the size of what our team behemoth was using. Re-armed and confident, I approached the shattered storefront the bear-cyborg had retreated into. It replied with machine-gun fire, and I was forced to seek cover behind a street-level recycling unit as the rounds streaked overhead and ripped through the buildings on the other side of the street.
At least now I could return fire with some confidence that none of the cyborgs could simply shrug off what I was sending in their direction. When I pulled the trigger, it sounded like someone dropping a heavy object onto a metal table from several feet up. After my first shot, the thing stopped firing. After my second shot, it retreated further into the depths of the building.
Bray was engaging the ape-cyborg, which still had a lot of fight in it. I wasn’t sure where Andrea was, and there was too much happening to scan the surrounding streets for the telltale shimmer. Should I pursue the bear, or wait for the enemy to come to me?
I decided to give pursuit, confident that the advantage was finally mine. As I crossed the street toward the shattered storefront, I caught a glimpse of something out of my peripheral vision that just might have been the canid cyborg. When I turned to look, I could no longer see whatever I had seen. I just kept going, figuring that the safest thing was to get out of the open anyway.
When I entered the store, the first thing I noticed was the body of the owner. A middle-aged Asian man, he lay slumped over the sales terminal. His head had been crushed, and a trickle of something whitish-purple ran down his face from the hole in his head. There was a dead customer lying nearby, her spine twisted at an unnatural angle.
The bear-cyborg was big, but it was somehow hiding in this low-ceilinged space. As counterintuitive as that was, it matched what I knew about the cyborg chimeras. When they’d arrived in that armored vehicle, they had seemed to unfold their bodies like flowers blooming. Had it truly retreated, or was it only trying to lure me in? With my powerful rifle, I’d had the advantage in a straight-up firefight. If it caught me by surprise, unfolding from some hidden space, then that calculus changed and my advantage was nullified.
And that’s when it happened, just as the thought occurred to me. I was turning a corner, investigating a hole in the wall, when something expanded suddenly and burst straight out like a rushing freight train. As it scooped me up, wrapping its arms around me, I swung my weapon around. I had no time to aim. If I had waited even the half second, it would have crushed my ribcage. I just pulled the trigger, and the impact of the heavy round at point-blank range caved in the thing’s left shoulder.
The noise it made was so loud, all I could hear at first was a high-pitched squealing whine. I fell out of the cyborg’s grasp, collapsed to the floor on hands and knees, and then scrambled back up again. The bear-cyborg wasn’t dead yet, and the last thing I wanted was to get hit in the head from behind by one of those massive claws.
I didn’t need to worry. After taking that injury, the thing was much more concerned with trying to escape. Its left shoulder shattered, it was turning over ponderously and trying to escape back through the same hole it had just burst out of. I raised my weapon, leveled it directly at the creature’s head, and pulled the trigger twice. It slumped down dead, and I paused to try to catch my breath.
I heard a sound and spun around just in time. The canid leaped at me, bounding through the store with a single jump. It crashed straight into the wall then bounced off it and hit the floor.
Something slammed into its side, smashing a fist-sized hole in it. I heard Andrea’s voice, as if from far away and underwater.
“Tycho, get clear!”
I did as I was told, but her second shot missed it completely because it was already jumping again. It hit my chest with both front paws, knocking me back into the sales terminal. Its head reared back, and a knife-blade flashed in front of my eyes. Then she fired again, and the thing’s head exploded. Something black and wet poured out of jagged, metal ruin as it collapsed and died on top of me.
I felt her hand on my arm.
“Come on, Barrett, get up. We can’t stay here forever.”
Such an understanding person. Such a sympathetic—
“Tycho, move!”
She slapped me across my face, and my head cleared enough that I was able to follow her. When we got outside, the giant body of the ape-cyborg was lying in the street. Jonathan Bray pressed his massive gun against the creature’s head and pulled the trigger. The street cratered beneath, and the cyborg fell still. The fight was over.
15
Jumping down to the street had separated me from the rest of our companions. I was glad to still be with Section 9, but it was surreal to be with Jonathan Bray and Andrea Capanelli, two of the people we had given up for lost. We left the slaughter on the street behind us and crossed over to the airlock gate that separated Fuji Section from the neighboring district.
Bray frowned when he saw the gate. “Are you sure this is safe, chief? If they send more of those cyborgs, they could catch us from behind while we’re in there.”
“Don’t worry about that.” She dropped out of camouflage. “We’re going to close the door behind us.”
She stepped on through then turned to me. “Get the gate closed, Tycho?”
I nodded silently then pulled out my skeleton key and used it to take control of the airlock control system. As I keyed in the command, I wondered about the crowd outside. If the protesters retreated, they’d be pushed back into a sealed airlock. There’d be no escape.
“What about the people—” I started, but Andrea cut me short.
She reached over my arms and completed the execute command. “That’s enough of that shit for one day.”
Her voice was so harsh, I didn’t even try to respond. The gate groaned and began to close, then I saw something move down at the end of the street. The front end of the crowd fleeing back toward illusory safety, or more cyborg Erinyes racing to catch us and rip us a
part?
I never found out. The gate slammed shut before I could see what was out there. The three of us were left in the quiet dark of the tunnel. As for Andrea Capanelli, she was standing with her head cocked to the side as she keyed up her dataspike.
“Wait there, I need to check a few things.”
With the airlock gate closed, we were the safest we’d been since we came to East Hellas. Or at least since the bombing that killed Bensouda Hafidi. I turned to Bray, who was giving me a funny look.
“What is it, Jonathan?”
The big man shrugged. “Nothing at all, Tycho. Nothing at all. You’re just a funny guy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. Your whole knight in shining armor thing. Don’t get me wrong. It’s entertaining in small doses but there’s a time and place, and this isn’t it.”
I wanted to snap. But then I remembered that I’d be dead if not for him. That ape-cyborg had been too much for me, and it was no exaggeration at all to say that I owed this man my life.
“Yeah. Thanks for that.”
“No need to thank me. You’re Section 9. But all the other assholes in the solar system are not Section 9. You follow?”
I sighed. “I follow. I just don’t know if I can think that way.”
“You think too much. You should stop thinking and concentrate on getting the job done.”
Same old story, just as I used to hear it from Gabriel Anderson. And just as he used to hear it from his Senior Arbiter, and so on to the dawn of time.
Before I could reply, Andrea interrupted us. “We’re ready to roll. Tycho, I’ve got a new dataspike for you right here. I need you to switch to it.”
I took the dataspike. When I plugged it in, I was filled with relief to see all my companions marked on it—Andrew Jones and Vincenzo Veraldi, still escorting Sasha Ivanovich. Thomas Young nearby, alive and breathing against all the odds.
