by J. N. Chaney
J. N. Chaney
Copyrighted Material
Fear the Reaper Copyright © 2019 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.
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Fear the Reaper
Blade of the Reaper (April 2019)
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Fear the Reaper
Book 2 in the Last Reaper Series
J.N. Chaney
Scott Moon
Book Description
Fear the Reaper
The Last Reaper Series #2
New enemies. Unlikely allies. A neon city in the Deadlands that never sleeps.
Halek Cain has mysteries to solve, people to rescue, and a vendetta to carry out.
But he must fix his Reaper augmentations before they kill him. He needs raw materials from Gronic, a technical specialist on Roxo III, and time to put himself right before the Union comes for him.
Everything seems like it’s going to work out…until he learns Elise is in trouble.
If Cain doesn’t get to her first, everything that happened on Dreadmax will have been for nothing.
The Last Reaper will encounter assassins, Union special operators, and a mysterious rival from his past. The odds are overwhelming, and the enemies are mounting.
But when all is said and done, each of them will learn that you must always fear the Reaper.
Contents
List of Acronyms
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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About The Authors
For all the Renegade Readers. You made this possible.
-J.N. Chaney
This book is dedicated to all the readers and writers at Keystroke Medium. Without your support and encouragement, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thank you!
-Scott Moon
List of Acronyms
AI—Artificial intelligence
AWOL—Absent without leave
BMSP—Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison—Ultramax IX
CD—Climbdown Day
CIM—Computerized Inmate Monitor
CV—Curriculum Vitae
DM—Dreadmax Marines (inmates on Dreadmax, often falsely imprisoned, who have prior military experience and protect people from gangs and cannibals)
Feg—Fredrick Eugene Grady
HDK—Highly Destructive Kinetic (weapon / rifle)
HDK 4—Shortened (11 inch barrel--from the trigger assembly) HDK commonly used by spec ops and law enforcement
HDK 4 Dominator—Full length (16 inch barrel--from the trigger assembly) HDK with double high capacity magazines and a grenade launcher under the barrel)
HUD—Heads up display
LAI—Limited artificial intelligence
LED—Light Emitting Diode
LZ—Landing zone
MRE—Meals Ready to Eat
NG—Nightfall Gangsters
QRF—Quick reaction force
RC—Reaper Corps
RSG—Red Skull Gangsters
SD regulator—Slip drive regulator
UFS—Union Fleet Ship
UPG—Union Prison Guard
X-37—Halek Cain's Reaper AI (limited)
YT—Galdiz 49 rifle, sniper model. (YT is a randomly generated model number)
1
“I never liked Gronic,” I said, aware that this would prompt X-37 to gloat.
“You might recall that I warned you it was an unpleasant place,” the limited artificial intelligence I still called X-37 said. It was Reaper Corps technology, outdated and slated for destruction—just like me. The Union had developed bigger and badder assassins while I was locked up on death row for crimes I did commit.
Everything on the planet was carved from red stone, even things that didn’t need to be, like eating utensils and belt buckles. Who the hell wore a stone belt buckle? One minute I’d been crossing the galaxy in a slip tunnel on a starship called the Jellybird, and the next I was eating noodles with a fork carved from some derivative of red granite.
“The craftsmanship is exquisite,” X-37 said, reminding me the LAI saw through my eyes—sometimes better, sometimes worse than I did.
I licked the fork clean. “I didn’t know you were a forking expert.” I laughed and felt pretty good.
“My analysis suggests you’re attempting humor,” X-37 deadpanned.
“Now you’re attempting humor,” I countered.
“I was not.” X-37 beeped softly in my ear. “Stand by, I need to fix something. You may experience a distortion of your visual and auditory senses.”
One narrow line of static grew horizontally across my vision, disappearing almost as soon as it appeared.
A street merchant shouted at me—aggressively dema
nding my attention and my money. Or maybe he was telling me I couldn’t keep the exquisite bowl and the fork as I walked away from his stand.
Since I was kind of a dick, I handed the mostly empty bowl to a lurking street kid, who immediately darted into the crowd.
The soup merchant shook his fist at me but kept one hand on his cart, afraid to leave it unattended. “Cha! Chada he gonna gat my cheeda growla! You gedda godda pay meeda!”
“Hey, no comprende,” I said, hands raised.
This offended the merchant. He snatched a stick from behind the cart then waved it at me, advancing with angry words and toxic body language. Each step away from his property made him visibly anxious and increasingly angry. He looked back several times.
“What’s he saying, X?” I asked.
“I detect the use of profanity but cannot piece together the meaning. I don’t believe he trusts the other food cart vendors or citizens of Gronic in general. Theft is a serious problem on this planet.”
Backing away, I reached the area of the sidewalk that was beyond the man’s territory, apparently. He went back to his soup cart complaining to all of his neighbors about whatever I’d said or done to offend him.
“What was his problem, X?” I asked.
“You ignored the one credit deposit on stoneware that is clearly posted on the front of his rolling kiosk, redistributed said stoneware to a random child, then conveyed your belief he was robbing you with his prices by raising both hands submissively and backing away,” X-37 said.
“Look at you, talking all formal,” I said, trying to tease him despite the impossibility of this actually working since he wasn’t a person or even a fully functioning AI. Limited AIs—LAIs—often felt like they were more powerful than they were, and the Reaper Corps had pushed right up to the limits of what could be installed in an operator’s nerve-ware.
“You did ask the question,” X-37 stated.
“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for the answer. What else do you have for me?”
“You have admirers,” X-37 said.
I checked my six, then the rooftops and windows close enough to be a problem if someone wanted to snipe me. X-37 could only see what I saw. He wasn’t omniscient or tapped into whatever local communications network they had on this shithole. What he did better than me was record and sometimes analyze observations my brain filtered or ignored.
“I see them,” I said.
“Outstanding, Reaper Cain. I will put a gold star on your report card,” X-37 said.
“Nice, X. That was almost funny. You’re getting better,” I said, changing my course through the crowds.
Down the street, sweating in the Gronic heat, a half-dozen gang members watched me. Some were sitting on the curb. Others leaned against the chain-link fence that had been bolted into one of the stone walls of a three-story apartment building. They had tattoos, bad attitudes, and plenty of distance to keep them safe.
“Why are your blood pressure and heart rate increasing?” X-37 asked.
“Check your sensors. I don’t give a shit about these preening asshats and I’m certainly not worried,” I said, swaggering like I was ready for a fight. Because I was.
“I am merely reporting on your biometrics.” X-37’s tone could be completely neutral and still sound churlish.
“Well, don’t.” Ignoring the sarcastic little AI in my head, I approached a news kiosk and tabbed through the menus.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” X-37 said. “Call it a peace offering.”
“Don’t need your help. Just a simple check. I haven’t seen any news on Greendale yet,” I said.
“What are you expecting? A personal ad from Elise looking for the first starship out of there?”
“Something like that. Or maybe some sort of gun battle between rogue spec ops units and the people I asked to look after her.”
“Are you regretting your decision?” X-37 asked.
“No, of course not. The guy I knew there is a retired ground-pounder—never trained with spec ops. He’s just good guy who happened to serve with me after basic training. He’ll look after Elise, but he won’t be ready for a war with people like Briggs.”
“It sounds like you are regretting your decision,” X-37 asserted.
I cursed under my breath. “Is there a way to turn you off?”
“There is not, Reaper Cain.”
I sighed and left the news kiosk, looking for something to sanitize my hands with. My only consolation was that X-37 seemed to be more polite. He had allowed the Jellybird to update his software with the idea he would need modern algorithms to interact with many of the computers we would be encountering as we traveled through the galaxy. The results had been favorable, but there were a few side effects.
A pack of dogs ripped something out of an overturned dumpster, and they stopped to growl at me when I came too close. I kept moving, pulling a locally made cigar from my pocket and cutting off one end with a small knife from my pocket.
“That is your last one,” X-37 said.
“How did humanity survive without computers like you?” I asked.
X-37’s reply sounded smug. “It is a mystery.”
What sucked about this whole situation was that X-37 could practically read my mind. We’d been over this several times and he promised he couldn’t. I knew from my training that there was no way to link an artificial intelligence with actual human thought. But we were together constantly and it frequently seemed like my little helper was poking around in my brain.
X-37 could read my biometrics and tell when I was stressed, when I needed additional adrenaline to survive a fight, or when my hormones needed to be regulated to maximize recovery after a hard fight or grueling workout. A lot of people would die for technology like that. Probably some people had, but it seemed the Union had moved on from the Reaper program.
We’d been phased out. It was the rawest luck that I had survived the Dreadmax mission and escaped into the wild. Slip tunnel after slip tunnel, I had evaded their attempts to bring me in. Mostly their failure was because I cared a lot more about living than they cared about hunting me, and everyone but Commander Briggs and some of his elite spec ops soldiers knew that if they cornered me, they’d die.
Reapers had a reputation for a reason. Killing was easy. I could practically do it in my sleep.
“Elevated heart rate and blood pressure detected,” X-37 said.
“Check yourself, X. I’m cool as ice,” I snapped.
“That’s is incorrect,” X-37 said.
“Whatever. I know how I feel,” I said. “Heart rates and blood pressure vary. Who cares?”
“Cool as ice is a mixed metaphor,” X-37 said.
“Bullshit.”
“Ice is cold, not cool. Unless perhaps it is melting?”
“How’s my blood pressure now?” I quipped.
X-37 paused. “Interesting.”
“Well?” I asked. “Are you causing me to stroke out or not?”
“It seems that confrontation actually lowered your heart and blood pressure slightly,” X-37 noted. “My expert analysis is that you, Reaper Cain, are a freak.”
I laughed, nursing my cigar to life with a cheap lighter. “You got that right, X.”
The cigar paper was too thick and wrapped around greenhouse-grown tobacco, or maybe something even nastier like a fungus analog. I breathed it in, reaching up with my left hand to hold the cigar.
Pain shot up my neck. I knew the spasm was coming before it happened but couldn’t stop it. The augmented structure of my left arm was incredibly powerful and not always perfectly in sync with my body. My fingers crushed the cigar, sending a shower of glowing embers tumbling down the front of my shirt.
Beating away the sparks with my other hand, I jumped back and cursed in several languages.
“Shall I call the local fire brigade?” X-37 asked.
“You’re in rare form today, X. Maybe you need another tune-up. Or tune down as it were,” I said.
; “Is now a good time to state the obvious? You are officially out of cigars. Perhaps it is time to cease this needless poisoning of your body,” X-37 chastised.
“You’re absolutely right. I’ll quit. When I find some decent replacements.” My hand twitched. Static filled my vision. The limited AI that was supposed to be helping me was talking shit.
I was pretty glad to be alive, even though my only friend was a digital voice in my head—or through the smallest bones in my inner ear, to be exact—and my systems were degrading from state-of-the-art killing tools to personal, permanently implanted torture devices.
“Are you okay, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.
“Just happy to be here, even though my shit’s busted and you’re a real asshole,” I said.
“Figuratively, of course,” X-37 said.
“Oh, you’re killing me today,” I said, picking up the stub of my ruined cigar and smoking it anyway.
“Again, ‘figuratively’ is what you mean. I am not literally killing you. That would be illogical.” X-37 sounded too serious.
“Sure, X. I was just pulling your chain. And don’t say ‘figuratively,’” I snapped. “I know you wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
