Prometheus Vengeance (The New Prometheus Book 4)

by Andrew Dobell

  PROMETHEUS VENGEANCE

  The New Prometheus

  Book 4

  Books By Andrew Dobell

  The New Prometheus - Cyberpunk

  The New Prometheus

  The Prometheus Gambit

  The Magi Saga – Urban Fantasy

  Epic Calling: The Magi Saga Book 1

  Shadows of Darkness: The Magi Saga Book 2

  Black Dawn: The Magi Saga Book 3

  Infinities’ Edge: The Magi Saga Book 4

  The Magi Saga Short Stories

  Only available through my mailing list;

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  The Angel of Tarut: The Magi Saga Prologue

  His Love: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Casino Red: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Anthologies I am part of:

  The Expanding Universe – Sci-Fi

  Summer of Magic

  Alchemy & Arcana

  For more of Andrews work, visit:

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  Prometheus

  Vengeance

  The New Prometheus

  Book 4

  By

  Andrew Dobell

  Acknowledgements

  Would you leave me a Review???

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review on Amazon. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated.

  Thank you.

  Andrew Dobell.

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  4.01

  The transport bumped over an imperfection in the road, shaking the whole vehicle with a brief but jarring judder. The hardened chains that secured Tyler to the transport’s floor jangled with a distinctive metallic sound. He tested the cuffs that held his wrists in place for perhaps the hundredth time, pulling his hands apart with a short, sharp snap. Nothing shifted, nothing moved. He was still held tight in their grasp, much like his feet were.

  He sighed, feeling helpless and wronged as the transport banged over another imperfection. They could be anywhere in the city now; they’d been travelling for what seemed like hours, but was likely closer to thirty minutes.

  He wondered what awaited him at the end of their journey. He’d never been to prison before; this would be a new one on him. He figured he’d be fine. He could handle himself, after all. There wasn’t much that scared him. Not really. But it wasn’t fear that was gnawing at his mind and giving him a headache, it was the loss of freedom and the feeling of betrayal.

  Tyler leant back on the bench he was sitting on, squeezing his shoulders in between the two guys next to him and pressed his back against the outside wall of the transport.

  He knew everyone in here, and knew they were all feeling the same way. The members of his squad were next to him, looking equally grim and stoic, while members of a couple of other squads and a pair of agents filled the remaining bench opposite. They were all colleagues, fellow employees, or rather, former employees of Nano Technic’s London branch that had been fired and turned in to the local authorities.

  They had given their very lives to that Corporation, dedicated themselves to its cause and killed for it to protect it from those who would do it harm.

  Surely, a little bit of loyalty and gratitude wouldn’t have been too much to ask? So, they needed to disband their paramilitary arm: the strike teams they used in the murky world of corporate espionage and defence. He understood that. He could sympathise. This had all been forced upon the Corporation by the fallout from the Nano Liberation, which, in and of itself, was a good thing. He liked not being bound to the Corporation because of his Nanobots, but it didn’t end there. The liberation had far and wide reaching consequences, and this, the predicament he now found himself in, was one of those consequences.

  He didn’t pretend to know the details, in fact, he didn’t much care, but he felt sure that the Corporation did not need to turn them in. Wouldn’t a nice redundancy package have been better? Maybe a reference that they could take to one of the other Corporations, maybe? That would have been costly, though, and if the rumours he’d heard were true, the Corporation probably couldn’t afford to do that anyway. It was easier to just get rid of them.

  He looked up at the two agents that sat opposite him a little further up the way. He’d worked with them many times. They were strong, powerful, dangerous, but looked just as helpless as the rest of them now.

  Looking closer, he noticed the expression on Zealotte’s face. She looked calm and serene. She didn’t look too bothered by the predicament they were in at all. She was a bit of a bad ass, though, as most agents were with their Corporation sponsored cybernetic augmentations. You did not want to mess with them as they would fuck you up without breaking a sweat. He’d seen them work and fight many times, and each time, he could only watch in awe as they went to work.

  She was the most senior person from within the hierarchy of the Nano Technic Operations branch in this vehicle, and he could see several of his fellow operators watching her. They were looking to her for some kind of sign, for some kind of leadership, but so far, she had remained quiet, saying little other than to calm people down when needed.

  Now, she sat there, ignoring the metal cuffs around her wrists, looking relaxed and almost content.

  He envied her, but he couldn’t get his mind to chill out at all, He just needed someone to blame, someone to kill, someone to take out some revenge upon. He guessed he would probably bubble over at the prison and take out his pent up anger on some unsuspecting fellow inmate later.

  He didn’t envy whoever that poor schmuck would be.

  A loud and sudden noise, a heavy metallic boom, sounded from Tyler’s left, somewhere outside the transport; in front of it probably. The brakes were applied with force, and everyone shot forward towards the front of the vehicle. They slid along benches, squashing into each other before the transport suddenly stopped and everyone fell back. Had it hit something?

  ‘Aaah, shit. What was that?’ Tyler asked, looking around to see Zealotte sitting there with a smile on her face.

  ‘That, is help,’ she said.

  A series of rapid fire bangs slammed into the side of the transport. Gunfire, Tyler thought. Were they being rescued or attacked? He looked at Zealotte again. She was still smiling. He knew what she believed without even asking.

  ‘Everyone stay put,’ said one of the two guards that were in here with them. They’d been thrown to the floor by the sudden stop and were only now just standing up.

  ‘Are we under attack?’ said the second officer.

  The first took his shotgun in both hands and racked the forestock of his weapon. ‘Well, they better not come in here,’ he said.

  Big words, Tyler thought, and wondered if the officer could back them up with action.

  The gunfire continued outside, along with shouting and sounds of movement. Every so often, bullets hit the vehicle with deafening bangs, making some of those in here with him jump when it happened.

  The officers had moved away from the door, backing up into the body of the vehicle pointing their guns towards the rear loading door and waited. The tension grew as the sounds of fighting outside faded away and the gunfire stopped. Tyler looked around. Everyone was looking at each other, wondering what was going to happen next. Were they going to be freed? Were they going to
be blown up or shot? Zealotte seemed set on the idea that this was a rescue, but Tyler wasn’t so sure. He trusted her, she’d led him on missions for Nano Technic more times than he could remember, but things had changed. The rules were shifting. This might not be the rescue that she thought it was.

  Several loud explosions detonated around the rear loading door, sending smoke billowing into the compartment as the door fell away. The two officers started to unload into the smoke. Tyler ducked to the floor; he didn’t much fancy getting hit with stray buckshot.

  Several seconds of firing later, the smoke began to clear and the two officers stood there with empty guns, wondering if they had killed anyone. Tyler looked out the door and saw only the road with parked cars and people looking on against a backdrop of Neo-London.

  Two short, sharp gunshots rang out, and the two officers dropped to the floor with holes in their heads. Tyler looked up, and for a moment, saw no one outside, and then without warning, a large tank of a man walked into view. Tyler recognised him right away. It was Arden, another agent who worked for Zealotte. He strode into the back of the transport with his smooth bald, tattooed head and massive cybernetic arms swinging by his sides. His face was all fierce determination and focus, and Tyler wondered if this was a power grab. Was Arden here to kill Zealotte?

  A gun folded out of Arden’s arm. He pointed it towards Zealotte and fired without hesitation, but the shot didn’t hit her. Instead, it hit the chain that secured her to the floor of the vehicle, and she was able to stand up, smash her wrist binders against the bench, and rip the ruined remains of the binders off. She did something similar with the ones on her ankles.

  ‘You have a choice,’ she said to everyone in the vehicle, her voice all steel and purpose. ‘You can stay here, go to prison, and live in that hell hole for the rest of your life, but for what? For doing your job? Because that’s all we did. Or, you can come with me. You can fight with me, and you can take that anger and do something constructive with it. I choose to fight, I choose to stand against the tyranny that put us in this transport and was sending us to prison,’ she said as Arden freed the other agent, Destine. She stood up next to Zealotte and looked over everyone, assessing their faces.

  ‘But make your choice now,’ Zealotte said.

  Tyler didn’t need to think. He knew what he wanted to do and it was most certainly not go to prison. He felt anger and hate and needed the world to know what had happened to them and why. He stood at once.

  ‘I’m with you,’ he said.

  Zealotte smiled.

  Then another man stood up and repeated Tyler's words. ‘I’m with you, too.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  More and more stood up, and within moments, everyone in here had pledged their loyalty to Zealotte and her cause. Another minute later, they were free and climbing out of the van. There were more operators out here on the road. They were all geared up and had secured the perimeter around the vehicle.

  Tyler looked towards the front of the transport and saw a truck sitting across the road at a right angle to the flow of traffic. It was beaten up and would likely not move under its own steam anymore. Wondering where it had come from, Tyler looked up and saw a little smoke at the top of a nearby tower where the edge of the roof had taken damage. Had they driven that thing off a rooftop?

  They got points for audacity if nothing else, he mused.

  The faint noise of approaching flyers could be heard, along with some red and blue lights flashing off in the distance.

  The authorities were on their way.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ Zealotte shouted to the crowd who followed her off the side of the elevated highway and down a short access stairwell. Tyler noticed that his squad stood with him and was looking to him, obviously wondering if they should follow Zealotte’s orders.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Tyler said, and moved with the crowd.

  They were fugitives now; on the run with a charismatic leader who looked like she had a plan. He had no idea what that plan was, but it sounded like revenge against those who had wronged them, and that was good enough for him.

  4.02

  Frankie walked down the corridor in the A.C.T. building, her boots making tiny squeaking sounds on the polished floor as she moved and made her way through the complex. It had been a few weeks since the ambush in the support building by Hellion and her team of mercenaries. After the doctor had fixed up the damage she had taken that day, she’d hardly seen Xenox at all. She’d been busy dealing with more of the exiles of the Nano Liberation and their misguided attempts to hurt the Corporations, which inevitably only got more of them killed. It was a job she had thrown herself into, but these last few days it seemed to have calmed down. She wondered if word was getting around that this course of action was actually not working and usually detrimental to your health. She hoped that was the case anyway.

  She’d been on a small mission earlier today, nothing too serious, and she still wore her fitted stealth-suit. Its tight black formfitting shape was extremely comfortable to wear. It was like wearing leggings over your whole body. But this outfit was more than just simple fabric. Its body armour capabilities had saved her from damage on more than one occasion, not to mention its other useful features, such as its ability to change into a wing suit and more.

  She also still had her tactical belt around her waist and drop holster attached to her thigh with her Carran Armour side arm strapped to it.

  Frankie reached the double doors that led into Xenox’s lab and saw herself in the reflection in the window that had been blocked up from the inside. Xenox never locked the door, but he always preferred to have a little privacy. He didn’t like to see people peering into the lab through the door.

  Frankie glanced at herself in the mirror-like reflection, pulling a stray hair from in front of her face and back over her ear before she went to open the door.

  Frankie was quite a short girl even with her cybernetic body. She had shoulder length dark hair and features that she considered to be acceptable. She didn’t think of herself as attractive or desirable, but something about her had attracted the doctor's attention earlier in the year when he had built her likeness into this Cybernetic body before he even knew she’d be the one to inhabit it.

  She pushed the door open and walked inside. The doctor’s lab was one of the larger rooms in the building and was filled with tables and surfaces covered in technology of all kinds, including tools, fabricators, and bits of spare prosthetics. She always thought that this room looked rather morbid, almost like an abattoir for cyborgs with the endless body parts that were lying here and there or hanging down from the ceiling.

  It made her feel a little uncomfortable, which is why she didn’t come by here often. Her visits were usually more of a necessity so that she could get fixed up after sustaining severe damage. Her Nanobots could handle minor scratches and such, but the more serious stuff, if she wanted it done quickly, was fixed in here, often with replacement parts.

  Frankie walked around several tables, making her way through the room towards the sound of someone speaking, only for Frankie to realise that Xenox was sat watching a news report that was talking about the new Russian President. She’d seen reports on him, too, both on the news and in her capacity as a member of the A.C.T. He was a controversial figure, hailing from a criminal past that some said was linked to the Russian Mafia. He seemed to be enveloped with scandal after scandal, and yet, he was loved by many within his country. He personified a new direction for the country, a change in the status quo, and that appealed the people. Of course, the elections over there were usually rigged and corrupt, so it was entirely possible that he had bought and bribed his way to the top, too. They weren’t the worst rumours, though; not by a long shot.

  ‘He’s a dangerous man by all accounts,’ Frankie said.

  Xenox jumped, he hadn’t realised she was there. ‘Jeez, Frankie, don’t sneak up on me like that,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ sh
e answered with a smile.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I agree, though, he does seem like a dangerous man,’ Xenox said, looking back at the face of the president.

  ‘Well, at least he’s over there and not over here,’ she said, not quite sure where this conversation was going.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Xenox said before he turned to her and shut off the news report. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘I just wanted to pop in and say hi, really. It’s been a while since I last saw you, so, I thought it was about time for a visit,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s nice of you. I’m fine. You know, just working away in here, keeping myself to myself,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘That’s great, I figured as much. Have you been working on anything interesting?’ she asked, glancing about the room, looking for this latest project, but also just showing to Xenox that she was interested in what he was up to.

  ‘Well, I’ve always got ten different things on the go at any one time, but sure, I have something that I think you will be interested in,’ he said, standing up from the stool he was sitting on before guiding her across the lab. She could see two cyber beds up ahead, sitting next to each other. One of them was probably the same bed that she always lay upon when he was doing work on her.

  They were big chunky things made from metal with dextrous robot arms holding worrying looking tools on the ends of them, arrayed around the edge of the bed. There was a body laid out on each bed, one of which she recognised. To her right, the body of Spectre, the ninja girl that had worked with Hellion lay there, flayed open and picked apart as Xenox had studied its cybernetic innards. Spectre had been a tough opponent. Faster than any cyborg she had ever come across before, including being able to knock bullets out of the air with her sword.