Extensis Vitae: City of Sarx

by Gregory Mattix

  “Motherf—” the grunt’s head suddenly exploded in a spray of gore. The man’s body toppled over into the swimming pool. Blood gushed out of the neck and began clouding the pristine water. The other enforcer’s jaw dropped and he looked around, stunned.

  “That woman was to be unharmed!” Haze screamed as he approached, smoke curling from one barrel of his sawed-off shotgun. “Un-fucking-harmed! Cocksuckers!” Haze stood over Rin where she lay halfway on the lounge chair. He lifted her gently, straightening her position on the chair.

  “I want a dozen men up here, damn it!” the Overseer yelled. “Yes, these worthless assholes are all dead. I want a medic up here too—get everyone up here right now!” He strode up next to Haze and looked angrily down at where his brother crouched over Rin. “I hope this bitch is worth the trouble,” he muttered.

  “Sir, I’m still alive! What are your orders?” the last remaining enforcer asked.

  The Overseer responded by snatching the shotgun out of Haze’s hand and pulling the trigger. The blast hit the last grunt square in the chest, throwing him back onto the steps.

  “What did I just say? You are all dead! Worthless fucks... what is that saying about having to do everything yourself if you want it done right?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Haze snorted. He was kneeling at Rin’s side and pressing a rag to the bullet wounds. “I think she’s gonna live as long as your medic gives her a nano-styptic. These are some good-quality skins they are making these days. You need to get Thorne’s people to cough some of them up for your security team.”

  “No shit,” the Overseer replied. The door suddenly banged open, and a dozen guards rushed up, gawking at the scene around them.

  Milton, who had disappeared during the fight, crept out from behind the bar where he had been hiding. “Boss, we’re good to go. I just uploaded the malware. He’s sandboxed.”

  Rin thought the Overseer was going to shoot Milton, he looked so angry. “Sandboxed” was the term for when someone was isolated from their backup. If they died and the cranial black box was destroyed while sandboxed, then they would truly be dead.

  The Overseer controlled his breathing and let out a loud breath as he kept his temper in check. “Sandbox the woman as well. You two,” he snapped at a pair of guards that had just arrived on scene. “Hold that Jap up. I’m going to do this myself.” He walked over and pulled a big pistol from the shoulder rig of one of the enforcers.

  The two guards pulled Ryu up by the arms again, his head sagging forward. The thought of losing Ryu was too much for her to bear. “No, don’t do it!” Rin cried. “We’ll pay whatever you want... my brother will, I will... I’ll do whatever you want.” She fought to get back to her feet again, but she was weakened from pain and blood loss, and Haze held her pinned to the chair.

  “You’re already going to do whatever I want,” Haze said with a smirk as he held up her token again.

  Ryu met Rin’s eyes, and he just nodded sadly, accepting his fate. In Japanese, he said solemnly, “Just remember that when you can't sleep at night, the reason is because you will be awake in my dreams. Honor me with your life.”

  Rin felt the tears starting to flow, and she tried to think of something to say, but her mind went blank. The only thing she could think about was that she was about to lose him. She would always curse herself for failing to find the words to tell Ryu how she felt about him. Then the moment slipped by and was gone forever.

  “Say goodbye, Ms. Takahashi,” the Overseer said with the same thin-lipped smirk that his brother had. He cocked the hammer back and placed the barrel against the base of Ryu’s skull so the cranial box would be destroyed as well.

  “I will make every one of you bastards pay for this,” Rin vowed.

  The Overseer shrugged. “If I had a chip for every time someone threatened to kill me, I’d be a very rich man. Oh wait… I already am a very rich man. Save your threats for someone who cares.” He pulled the trigger.

  The thunder of the big gun was a hammer blow to Rin’s heart.

  ***

  Rin kicked aside the sweaty sheets and sat up in bed, her heart racing. Shit, not that dream again. Nothing but bad memories from this cursed place. She shuddered. The cool night air chilled her sweaty skin as she walked to the open window. I should have killed him when I had the chance that night.

  The city looked almost peaceful under the silvery glow of the moonlight. She could just make out the slender spire in the distance that was the Gomorrah Club. Almost time to exact vengeance on the monster that inhabits that tower. Tomorrow night, I will end him.

  The thought of vengeance seemed to calm her nerves. She lay back down and wrapped the blanket around her nude form. Within minutes, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 25

  “The goal is to get to the Overseer with minimal casualties.” Reznik looked over the faces of his team lined up against the wall. Rin and the six Yakuza enforcers watched poker faced, displaying neither anxiety nor fear. Lars and Lynessa, however, looked scared and excited at the same time. He hoped they stayed out of harm’s way as much as possible.

  Around the corner was the service entrance to the Gomorrah Club. He looked down at the red plastic keycard in his hand, slightly bigger than a credit card. He didn’t doubt that Haze had had access to most of the building. Hopefully they didn’t think to deactivate his card, or getting inside will be a lot more difficult. Not to mention messier.

  Even at that late hour, people still roamed the square, mostly heading home from the bars and nightclubs. Traffic passed in and out of the rowdy interior of the main entrance to the Gomorrah Club. A group of drunk women laughed and chattered loudly as they passed near Reznik’s team, hidden in the shadows a few yards away. Concealed though they were, Reznik couldn’t help feeling exposed, as if they would walk into a small army of the Overseer’s goons the second they stepped through the door.

  Sweat trickled down his back, and he felt the familiar nervousness he normally had before a major operation. The pressure of leadership weighed heavily on his mind. So much rode on getting the details just right: taking the Overseer out without a bloodbath spilling over into the streets, which would result in a large number of civilian casualties, and hoping Keeva and Yamashita overwhelmed the Thorne garrison with little fuss. He still didn’t trust Mason, but Keeva seemed to have sound judgment, from what he had seen. He just hoped her faith in Mason was well placed. I’ll make that son of a bitch pay if he betrays the rebels and Keeva gets hurt or killed as a result.

  Reznik wasn’t sure if the twins would be much help in the battle; he thought it more likely that Lady Angelis had just sent them to keep an eye on him and look out for her own interests. They did carry their laser pistols as if they knew how to use them, however. The two had already proven valuable by providing the group with schematics for both the Overseer’s building and the Thorne garrison.

  It was almost time. The team had dropped their holographic disguises once they had gotten into position. Reznik’s eyes met Rin’s. He was comforted by the sense of calm he found in those turquoise depths. Her hair was pulled back in its customary long ponytail, and she wore a black-and-gray bodysuit instead of her usual leathers.

  “Let’s put an end to this,” she said with a solemn nod. The six Yakuza enforcers with her waited impassively.

  The clock on Reznik’s HUD ticked over to 04:00. “Everyone ready?” The group nodded their affirmation. He lifted the plasma pistol Rin had given him and spun around the corner, aiming and firing in one fluid motion. The superheated globule of plasma disintegrated the camera bubble above the door almost instantly with an angry hiss like water spilled on a hot stove. “They’re blind, let’s move out.”

  Reznik ran down the alley, alert for any signs of resistance, but the coast was clear. He could sense his team at his heels. He slipped the keycard into the slot. Come on, open sesame. He unslung a tactical shotgun and stuck the plasma pistol back in his belt. The LED turned green,
and the service door clanked as the electronic lock disengaged.

  The door swung open silently, and Reznik was through the breach before it opened fully. A bored guard sat on a stool beside the door, watching a porno holovid. He glanced up and his eyes went wide, but before he could react, Reznik was on him, dropping him to the floor with a strike of the shotgun’s butt to his forehead. The stool toppled over, and the guard’s tablet clattered to the floor. Surprise briefly registered in Reznik’s mind because the guard was a normal human rather than a skin.

  The six Yakuza enforcers streaked past him, covering both directions of the corridor. One enforcer’s silenced SMG spat out a bullet and destroyed a camera trained on the door.

  “We’re all clear,” Rin said quietly.

  “All right. The service elevator is down the corridor to the left, and the stairwell is just across the hall. The surveillance station is to the right. We need to hold positions at both those locations: to cover our retreat and take out the surveillance system so they’re blind.” Reznik reiterated the plan even though they had gone over it several times already.

  Rin spoke quietly in Japanese, and four of her men split off: two of them would take the surveillance room, and the other two would hold the elevator alcove. Everything was still quiet as they approached the service elevator.

  Ding. The elevator arrived, and the doors slid open. A servant whistled as he pushed a room-service cart out of the elevator. He reached the hall, looked up as he realized he wasn’t alone, and gaped at the team and their exposed weapons.

  “Evening,” Reznik said as he stepped up beside the man. “Sorry about this.”

  “Um, about what, sir?” The man stared wide-eyed at them.

  Reznik answered him with a quick punch to the chin. He pulled his punch to avoid breaking the man’s jaw. As the servant’s eyes rolled back and he crumpled, Reznik grabbed a fistful of his uniform to prevent the man from hitting the floor. One of the enforcers took the servant and propped him in a sitting position in the corner of the alcove. They pushed the service cart across the hall.

  “All aboard,” Reznik called. Rin, Lars, Lynessa, and the two remaining Yakuza piled into the elevator, and Reznik hit the call button for the roof and the Overseer’s apartments.

  ***

  The Thorne garrison was a squat barracks building on the grounds of the ambassador’s estate, which abutted the edge of the inner city. The dome formed the border on the north side of the estate. Mason, Keeva, and several of the rebels waited across the street in a pool of shadow, surveilling the eastern side of the grounds. Unsurprisingly, the property was quiet at this early hour, but Mason knew a surveillance system and roughly twenty combat skins were in the barracks building. Several bodyguards would be inside the mansion as well. The Yakuza enforcer, Yamashita, and his half-dozen men were in position on the west side of the compound. Both teams were alert for any roving guards.

  “Status update,” Keeva called over her open Datalink channel.

  “All quiet on this end,” Yamashita said quietly. “What’s the system status?”

  “Junior?” Keeva asked. “How are we looking?”

  The kid held up one finger for a few seconds as he concentrated. The wraparound sunglasses Junior always wore no doubt showed a virtual display of the estate’s security systems as he hacked them. Mason could see the faint glow pulsing on his cheeks from the display. Junior carried a backpack full of equipment with an antenna poking out the top generating a network hotspot.

  After a moment, Junior gave them a thumbs-up. “Good to go!”

  “Okay everybody, surveillance systems are down,” Keeva advised on the open channel. “Mason, Mac, and Junior will fall in with me on the estate house. The rest of you will converge on the barracks. Let Yamashita and his men do the heavy hitting on that. All copy?”

  Everyone voiced their affirmative responses. Mason flicked the power switch of the gatling laser he had purchased for a small fortune earlier that day. The heavy weapon whined quietly as it went into standby mode. One of the previous owners had stenciled the words “Bad Mother Bitch” in fluorescent orange on the side of the weapon. Wielding the weapon had felt strange at first since Mason had last used one two decades before, as a CorpSec officer. The bulky weapon had been too taxing then to lug around without power armor, but with his current augmentations, it was manageable. And it feels good, like the comfortable embrace of an old lover.

  “Let’s do this,” Mason growled. “Enough bullshitting around.”

  And with that, his squad went into motion, dashing across the empty street and up to the estate’s eight-foot-high wall. Mack hoisted himself up onto the wall and then offered a hand to Keeva. He pulled the woman up and then his son. Mason declined Mack’s offered hand and vaulted atop the wall. He wobbled slightly, unbalanced by the weight of his heavy weapon, but the balance compensators in his augs quickly adjusted. A sensor pod watched them from a couple feet away, but Junior’s hacking seemed to have worked; the compound remained silent. Mason dropped down inside the compound and broke into a run for the estate house with Keeva, Mack, and Junior close on his heels. The rest of the squad split off to rendezvous with Yamashita’s squad at the barracks and place their explosives charges around the perimeter of the building.

  Keeva darted across the porch of the estate house and crouched at the door, cautiously peering through a window. The others huddled at the edge of the porch. “All clear inside,” she whispered. She turned the handle, and the door swung open, Junior having already disabled the electronic lock. Mason lunged through, sweeping the long hallway with his weapon, but it was quiet. He was just thinking it strange that there were no roving guards on the main level when he heard the faint sound of a toilet flushing.

  Mason quickly looked around for cover, but they were exposed in the wide-open corridor. Fuck it—I never liked sneaking around anyway. The squad ducked against the wall, crouching down to present a lower profile.

  A door swung open halfway down the hallway, and a bodyguard stepped out with a laser pistol in hand. He was already alert for trouble and spotted them immediately. Shit, he must’ve had his HUD tied into the surveillance system when it died.

  Mason cut loose with his laser cannon. Blatblatblatblat. Energy bolts crackled as they streaked down the hall. The bodyguard rocked backward as he was riddled with laser blasts. He got off a few rounds of his own, the pistol’s smaller bolts zapping into the wall just over Mason’s head. Keeva and Mack fired as well, the woman’s big pistols and the man’s AK-47 thundering in the interior space.

  The bodyguard flopped to the tiled floor, and Mason advanced cautiously. He saw many of the bolts had been absorbed by the skin’s dermal plating, but a few scorched holes had pierced his body. Mason fired a burst into the man’s head to make sure he stayed down.

  “They know we’re here—we have to get to the ambassador right away!” Keeva shouted. The squad began racing up the grand stairwell to the second level and the ambassador’s quarters.

  Blat blat blat. Another skin had moved into position atop the staircase. Bolts crackled past Mason’s head as he dove against the wall, gatling laser spinning up. Mack grunted in pain and stumbled back into Junior, the two of them nearly falling down the stairs before the younger man caught his balance and propped up his father.

  Then the barrage from the gatling laser tore apart the banister, wall, and ceiling of the second level. Wood and plaster were blasted to pieces and incinerated. The bodyguard reeled back into the wall and fell before the firepower. The skin was down before Keeva could even snap off a few shots.

  Mason cautiously moved up the remainder of the stairs, pleased to see the skin was dead, half of his head blown off. Glowing embers rimmed the holes in the wall, and cinders floated down from the ceiling. An alarm had begun shrieking in the house, a red strobe light flashing near the ceiling. I sure hope they have that barracks ready to blow, or we’re gonna get fucking annihilated.

  A moment later, the mansion shook
as the explosives went off at the barracks. The booming thunder rattled the house like a shanty in a hurricane. A vase toppled out of its sconce and shattered on the tile floor. A framed painting was jarred loose and fell off the wall. Mason could hear windows shattering in the distance. A furious barrage of gunfire erupted outside the mansion.

  “Come on—we’ve got to move! If Berenger makes it to the safe room, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass to break him out of there.” Mason sprinted toward where the schematics indicated Berenger’s office and safe room were located at the end of the hall. Keeva was right behind him, but Junior stayed back to cover them and tend to his wounded father.

  Mason threw his shoulder into a closed double door. The conventional lock broke with a metallic snap and the doors banged open, slamming against the wall. Another bodyguard opened fire immediately from where he stood twenty feet away, near a doorway to the adjacent room. The scrawny figure of Berenger in his sleeping garments stumbled into the safe room.

  Energy bolts sizzled, and one struck Mason’s artificial arm while another hit his ceramic mesh body armor vest. Mason responded by unleashing a wild volley at the bodyguard. Blasts stitched the wall, burning the plaster away to reveal the hardened side of the safe room wall beneath. The bodyguard dove for cover as several of Mason’s rounds struck him. Mason saw his only chance and charged toward the safe room, trying to pin the skin down with random bursts from the gatling laser but mostly missing as he careered toward the door.

  The safe room’s alloy door began sliding shut ahead of him. Mason knew the skin would have him in his sights again, and he wouldn’t make it. Bang bang. Keeva’s 10mm pistols barked behind him, and the skin dropped, his shots going wide. Then Mason slipped through the door, the thick alloy portal nearly crushing him. His vest was pinched momentarily by the edge of the door, but Mason heaved himself sideways and stumbled into the safe room just as the door clanked shut. Several more muffled reports from Keeva’s guns were audible before they went silent.