Stranger Souls

by Jak Koke

  47

  Standing inside the helicopter, Ryan breathed in the night air, drinking up the odor of Nadja. She felt solid and real in his arms, but he needed to know that she was well; he needed to regain her confidence. He had beaten the evil inside himself; he was sure of that now. He wasn't going to become another Thomas Roxborough. He trusted himself again, but did she trust him?

  "You okay?" he asked her.

  She looked into his eyes, the last rays of sunlight catching the dark emerald of her irises. "Honestly," she said. "I've had better days."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I know," she said. "I'm sorry too."

  "You were right all along," Ryan said. "I'm still Quicksilver. But not the same as before. Roxborough is inside me too—his memories, his personality. It's part of me now, and it's helped me learn that I can no longer blindly follow the instructions of anyone. Even Dunkelzahn."

  "But, Ryan—"

  Ryan held her tightly to him, whispering in her ear. "Nadja, I've decided who I want to be. I do want to complete my mission, and I will. But for my own reasons, not just because Dunkelzahn decreed it. I believe it was important; it is important. Crucial to the survival of the world and all its people. I'm going to complete Dunkelzahn's instructions, but not blindly like I used to. Along the way I'm going to look for my own answers. I want to know why"

  Nadja nodded as if she understood. "Our roles have changed since Dunkelzahn died," she said. "We carry on his grand plan, but he's not here to instruct us on every step so of course we'll have to improvise."

  She did understand, as he suspected she would. I love her. The realization struck Ryan like a sledgehammer. And he knew that he'd nearly killed her because of his love for her. Roxborough's twisted logic at work there. An icy shudder passed through him at the thought.

  At the edge of his awareness, Ryan caught movement across the tarmac. A silhouette running quickly, a shape he recognized from somewhere. Then he heard the whine of a minigun as it spun in the seconds before the bullets fired. Then the deep boom of a grenade launcher.

  Ryan threw Nadja to the floor of the helicopter just as the minigun opened up, a staccato roar followed by the metallic ping of bullets ricocheting off steel. Holes appeared in the jet, and fuel erupted from them, pouring to the ground in a gush. A second later a grenade bounced into the growing pool.

  Ryan ducked to cover Nadja, drawing his pistol as he fell. The security guards reacted as though in slow motion, turning in exaggerated surprise just as the grenade exploded in a spray of flame and shrapnel. The report deafened Ryan and the explosion blinded him for a split second, making it hard to find their assailant again.

  "Dhin," Ryan yelled. "Get us out of here!"

  Then the jet's fuel ignited. Flames engulfed the machine as more bullets from the minigun ripped through the knot of surprised security guards. Their body armor offered little protection from such an onslaught. The barrage of slugs hit like a wall of force, the impacts lifting them bodily into the air.

  As the helo rose, and began to back away, Ryan watched the massacre, a sick feeling in his gut. Three guards were thrown back and tossed to the pavement like rag dolls. The troll caught one in the head, the exit wound opening up the left side of his face like a bloody eruption of sinew and gore.

  The jet exploded just as Dhin pulled the helo off the edge of the canyon. The aircraft was still only fifty meters away. Ryan saw sheets of fire roll out from the silver hull just before the body vanished in a blast that sent a mushrooming cloud of fire and smoke into the hot evening. A second sun in the growing darkness.

  The wave of heat hit them a second later, burning around the helo. Throwing them off course. The machine rocked and pitched, falling slightly before Dhin regained control. Hovering a few meters out over the abyss of Hells Canyon, eye-level with the inferno.

  "You all right?" Ryan asked Nadja.

  "I think so," she said. "What about the others?"

  Ryan shook his head.

  The black shape streaked toward them. A speck of moving shadow against the red-orange backdrop. Who is that? What is that? Its silhouette grew and grew as it approached, moving too fast for a human, too smoothly. Ryan had seen it before, and as it got close, he remembered it. He had seen that shape—the too-small skull sitting bald and symmetrical on oversized shoulders. The malproportioned legs, the calves elongated like some perverted gazelle.

  Ryan shifted his perception into the astral to make sure. Yes, the man before him glowed like a constellation of quickened spells. A fireworks display of greens and reds surrounding a dark core, an aura that was out of phase with his body.

  Burnout.

  "Dhin!" Ryan yelled. "Pull us up."

  "What?"

  "Get us farther up. NOW!"

  But it was too late. Burnout reached the periphery of the compound and jumped. He was moving fast, having dropped his weapons to gain speed, up to about eighty klicks per hour. His leap carried him up, higher and higher out over the abyss, the darkness stretching to infinity below.

  Dhin lifted the helo and angled it away from the compound, and for a second it looked like the cyberzombie would miss. That he would plummet into the chasm.

  At the last second, Burnout reached out with a cybernetic hand. The last joint of his fingers cocked back as Ryan watched, blood dripping from the torn skin at the edges as the telescoping fingers shot out. The chrome snakes extended from his hand and touched the helo's runner below Ryan. Three of the fingers wrapped around the metal bar and hung on.

  The floor tilted abruptly as Burnout's weight came down. The helo sank slightly, then centered as Dhin compensated.

  Ryan drew his gun and pushed Nadja to the back of the cargo hold as Burnout tried to grab hold with his other hand. Then Ryan focused his energy, drawing strength from the Dragon Heart, and pummeled Burnout's secure hand with a distance strike.

  The extendible fingers bent under the impact, two of them shearing off. A hairline crack appeared in the third, the weight of the cyberzombie hanging by a metal thread. It snapped a second later, and Burnout fell.

  Then the cyberzombie's other hand swung around and caught the metal runner. Burnout started to pull his huge body up, and he was looking at Ryan, his eyes narrowing to pinpoints. "You will die, Ryan Mercury," Burnout said. "I beat you once. This time will be no different. And when you're dead, I'll take your magic."

  Ryan slapped in his clip of armor-piercing rounds and fired. The first bullet penetrated Burnout's shoulder, burying itself in the synthetic muscles and stripping away some vat-grown skin to reveal shiny chrome beneath. The second missed as Burnout moved, swinging to the side and up.

  Standing on the runner now, close enough that Ryan could smell the machine oil, Burnout reached behind his back for an Ares Alpha Combatgun. Ryan pummeled the cyberzombie' s hand as the weapon came around. The quickness of the move took Burnout by surprise. Ryan's foot shot out and connected with the fingers just as they were about to ratchet into full grip. The gun went flying out of the cyberzombie's hand, falling into the canyon below.

  Ryan pulled his foot back. I'm faster now. I can beat this mockery of life. Burnout leaped from the runner, intending to land inside the cargo hold. A sick feeling of deja vu slicked through Ryan as the cyberzombie loomed in front of him.

  The mountain cliff above the compound framed Burnout's silhouette in burnished red rock as Ryan struck, going for the leg sweep again. But he wasn't going to make the same mistake as last time. When the two had fought in Aztlan, Burnout had simply grabbed Ryan's leg in his unyielding grasp, then tranquilized Ryan with a long, sharp needle that slid out from a compartment in his arm.

  This time Ryan changed tactics. At the exact same moment as his leg struck for Burnout's ankles, Ryan used his telekinetic strike, focusing his energy to bludgeon Burnout in the chest. Trying to knock him backward. Trying to dislodge this unrelenting beast and send him plummeting into the depths of Hell where he belonged.

  The cyberzombie lifted his feet to
dodge the leg attack, but he wasn't expecting the third strike. For the briefest of moments, Burnout was airborne in mid-jump. Instead of holding on to the helo, his hands reached toward Ryan. It was in that moment that Ryan's invisible pummel landed. Like a ram in the center of Burnout's chest, the power of the Dragon Heart behind it.

  The blow lifted the heavy metal body of the cyberzombie and sent him reeling back. He sailed out the open door and fell.

  Ryan saw the expression on the cyberzombie's face as he realized he'd been beaten. It was a combination of surprise and admiration. That he had finally met an adversary he could respect. Then the expression changed to one of sheer hatred as a leer flashed across Burnout's features.

  The chrome fingers shot out again. Broken off and flailing, the metal snakes flashed toward Ryan. They weren't aiming for the helo's runners. They came directly for Ryan.

  He brought up his hands in defense, but realized Burnout's true goal too late. At their furthest extension, the fingers touched Ryan at the waist. They curled their sharp and mangled ends around the nylon net bag that held the Dragon Heart. And when they snapped taut, the whole weight of Burnout's body came down like an anchor.

  Ryan jerked forward at the waist, pulled off this feet, flying for the door. He scrabbled for a hold, frantically grabbing for anything. He found nothing but grooved flooring. He fell out the side door, the hot air of Hell baking around him as he followed the cyberzombie down.

  "No, Ryan! No!" came Nadja's scream.

  The helicopter's runner caught Ryan in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. But it slowed him enough that his hands found purchase, wrapping around the hot metal. Then he slipped over and their combined weight pulled at his grasp.

  His sweaty fingers slipped against the metal of the runner. White-hot needles jabbed the back of his hands and arms as he tried to focus, tried to hold on.

  "I will have your magic, Ryan Mercury," said Burnout, his voice the grating of metal on metal.

  Ryan looked down. Below him, Burnout hung suspended, his metal parts tinged with the pink of the dying sun. Framed by the impenetrable black of the abyss. Ryan felt his fingers giving way, slipping on the smooth round metal as his strength waned.

  Then the nylon web bag tore, ripping away from his belt. And Burnout fell into the dark canyon below. He made no sound as he fell. He simply disappeared, a dark silhouette melting into the inky void. The Dragon Heart went with him, his chrome fingers still clutching it. Still gripping the one thing Dunkelzahn said could save the world.

  How could this have happened? At the very moment Ryan had finally come to accept that it was his mission to deliver the Dragon Heart, he'd lost it for the second time.

  48

  Lethe watched Burnout fall, the creature of metal and flesh plummeting from the helicopter. Holding the Dragon Heart in his cybernetic grip. Taking it from Ryan Mercury, who hung from the runner of the flying machine.

  In the astral, the cyberzombie glowed brightly against the dark wasteland of the narrowing cliffs as he fell. The center of his aura was a black emptiness, a void where his spirit should be. Instead, his spirit was diffuse, a dim edge of light along the periphery of his aura.

  All around Burnout's aura were magics designed to seal the spirit inside. Those spells were all that kept him alive; there wasn't enough natural flesh left. It was like a boat riddled with holes that had been patched too often and refused to sink only because the pumps continued to work overtime.

  Lethe followed Burnout's plunge, watching him bounce off the narrowing canyon wall. Hells Canyon was a giant, wedge-shaped slash in the earth, and at the bottom of the slash flowed the Snake River. It was the deepest gorge in the world—the longest fall. But the walls were angled, not perfectly vertical.

  Burnout hit the rock wall again, smashing down on the Dragon Heart still clutched tightly in his mangled metal hand. He bounced off and continued falling. The cyberzombie would certainly die during the fall; he should be dead already. His continued existence was a perversion, a violent abuse of magic that would only lead to astral pollution.

  But the Dragon Heart must not be allowed to be lost or damaged. Its magic seemed intact to Lethe as he moved close to Burnout. But when the huge cyborg hit the cliff again, what then? And if Burnout landed on top of it when he crashed with it on the bottom of the gorge, would the Dragon Heart survive intact?

  Lethe could allow nothing to happen to it. He would not disappoint Thayla. The sanctity of her song must be protected from the spread of the dark stain. Only the Dragon Heart could help her.

  This perversion of metal and flesh was the only thing Lethe had left. He could not let Burnout die. He must protect the Dragon Heart at any cost. There was only one way he could be certain that all of Burnout's effort, every last vestige of his energy, was devoted to preventing harm from coming to the Dragon Heart.

  And if the cyberzombie survived somehow, Lethe could take control of his body and use it to deliver it to Thayla. It was evident that Ryan Mercury could no longer be trusted, despite Dunkelzahn's confidence in him. And despite Ryan's display at the very end, when he seemed to have overcome his internal struggle, Lethe did not trust him. Would never trust him.

  Burnout was the obvious choice.

  Lethe moved up close to the falling cyberzombie and entered his body. He possessed the mind and flesh of the man who had been Burnout. And by the time Lethe realized the magnitude of his mistake, it was too late.

  It was way too late.

  49

  A midnight blue-tinted sky darkened to black in the east. A hot wind, stirred up by the helicopter blades, stung Ryan's skin as he climbed back inside the hovering Hughes Airstar. He was tired and in pain from the fight with Burnout, but he couldn't stop yet. He had to get the Dragon Heart back. Pain shot in bolts up his legs as he sat next to Nadja. He clenched his teeth against the pain, too fatigued to use magic to channel it away.

  A calm sense of purpose filled Ryan. An almost surreal understanding of who he was and what he must do. His indecision gone. Dissipated into the night. "Dhin," Ryan said. "Take us down to the bottom."

  "Now?"

  "Now! And power up a search light so we can see."

  "Jane?" came the ork's voice over the speakers, "do I trust him?"

  It was Nadja who answered. "Yes," she said. "Do it."

  Dhin complied a few seconds later, sending the 'copter into a plunge. "Got the spotlight on," he said, "but can't see him."

  Ryan stood and looked out the side door. The Snake River was about ten meters across at the bottom, flowing slowly, a black-glass surface in the darkness. The canyon walls rose precipitously from the surface of the water, no ledges or outcroppings in sight. But the spotlight could illuminate only a tiny circle, and Burnout could have fallen anywhere. He could be under water; he could have been swept downstream.

  Ryan shifted his focus into the astral. The river lit up with life, algae and fish and bottom plants. But he could see no sign of the cyberzombie. If he had come this way, Ryan should be able to see a slight shift in the astral, a trail of pollution like a bad odor left by Burnout's passing. He should also be able to sense the Dragon Heart if it was close. And where was the spirit, Lethe?

  Ryan saw no astral trail. He felt no Heart, and Lethe was nowhere to be seen. Ryan sensed nothing.

  After an hour of searching, Dhin called back, "We're running low on fuel."

  "Thanks, Dhin," Ryan said. "Take us back up. We'll try again in the light."

  As Dhin brought the machine up the canyon and over the rim to the compound, Jane's voice came over Ryan's wrist-phone. "Can I talk to you?" she said.

  "Hoi, Jane. Sorry about whatever I said to you back there."

  "It's blank memory," she said. "Forgotten."

  "Thanks," Ryan said. "So what do you want to chat about?"

  "I need a favor."

  "Name it."

  "It requires that you enter the Matrix and meet a friend of mine. Alice."

  "Oh?"

&nbs
p; "You can use the 'trode rig that Axler has," she said. "I'll explain everything after you're in."

  Ryan wondered just what Jane was scheming, but decided not to question her now. "Will it take long?" he asked. "I'm beat."

  "Not long," Jane said. "And I promise you'll like what Alice has planned." Then Jane's voice cut off.

  Dhin set the helicopter down, giving wide berth to the ruined hull of Nadja's jet, which still burned on the end of the airstrip. Axler and Grind stood near it, checking the fallen security guards for signs of life. Ryan felt a wave of sadness as he watched. It was his fault that those people had died. Because of my weakness, he thought.

  Because I lacked the strength to beat Roxborough, Burnout killed those people and took the Dragon Heart.

  Ryan had failed, but not completely. He had beaten Burnout. He had overcome Roxborough. But all that seemed empty without the Dragon Heart. Until he got it back, he would feel like he was letting Dunkelzahn down. Like he was letting himself down.

  That was why he wouldn't rest until his mission was complete.

  50

  Thomas Roxborough dreamed he was in a real body.

  One minute he was sitting at his virtual desk, analyzing productivity numbers. The next minute, the walls of his mansion were dissolving, their planar uniformity splitting in constituent bits and floating away on an invisible current.

  He floated in a void, his consciousness drifting. Then he felt his body around him, sensed every detail as though he were inside actual flesh. He felt the delicious rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the gentle sensation of sprinkling rain on his face. The smell of cigarette smoke. So close, so real it could not be denied.

  At first he thought that Meyer had performed the spirit-transfer without telling him. Or perhaps I just forgot that the ritual had been scheduled, Roxborough thought. But then he wondered where he was. Which body he was in. He opened his eyes.

  Skyscrapers towered above him, their façades all blue glass and mirrors, reflecting the city's street lamps. There were no sounds of traffic, but he heard the whisper of the falling rain and the soothing rush of wind through the buildings.