‘Oh, shut up. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You talk so much crap these days. You’ve ruined everything, you know that? You and your mates, running around kidnapping people. You’ve destroyed our marriage, our livelihood, and the Corporation that we work for.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Frankie asked.
‘Oh, don’t play coy with me, you idiot. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I can’t see what’s going on? I saw you kidnap Angela from the train. I saw the reports on the Nano Liberation, I know you were involved, you and your mates. Don’t you deny it,’ he barked at her.
‘I’m not confirming or denying anything, but what the hell has tha…’ Frankie started to say, but was brought up short when her dad pulled a gun from the back of his trousers and pointed it at her.
‘What? What are you doing, Mark?’’ Frankie’s mum asked.
‘Now, let’s just calm down,’ Frankie said.
‘Why the hell should I calm the fuck down? You’ve destroyed everything, you and your friends. And now I find you here with my wife, tainting her further; poisoning her against me.’
‘I’m your daughter, Dad. I only want to help you. I only want what’s best for you.’
‘Stop with your lies, Francesca. You’ve been nothing but trouble from the start, and ever since university you’ve turned against us, becoming some kind of anti-Corporation hate monger. I sometimes wish we’d never had you.’
‘Mark, how dare you…’ Frankie’s mum said, shocked.
‘Shut up, Fiona. I brought her into this world, I can take her out of it,’ he said and pulled back the hammer on the gun.
The front door was suddenly smashed off it's hinges to Frankie’s left, dropping to the floor not far from her feet with a huge fracture through it. Looking up, Frankie saw a single figure stood in the doorway with her long blonde hair and shiny fitted stealth suit.
Frankie muttered to herself under her breath. ‘Hellion.’
4.13
‘Who the hell are you?’ her dad spat.
‘Death,’ Hellion said with a smile, raising her hand so quickly it barely seemed to move at all. Instead, it appeared to flicker from her side to pointing at Frankie and firing. Several bullets ripped into her body, the surrounding furnishings and wall behind her. Frankie moved, ducking back and away, trying to draw Hellion’s fire away from her parents as red warning icons flickered up in her vision. The rounds were armour piercing and tore ragged holes in her ballistic polymer flesh, but she was far from incapacitated.
‘You’re a walking cliché, Hellion,’ Frankie quipped as she hit the floor behind a sofa, hearing the gun click to empty as she rolled up into a crouch.
‘A cliché that’s going to tear you a new one,’ Hellion said and flung her arms out in the direction of Frankie’s parents.
Small metallic objects flew through the air, one of them hitting and sticking to her mum, the other to her dad. There was half a second of confusion in the faces of her parents before the two shiny disks abruptly exploded with light as glowing electricity arced from them and into their bodies.
Her parents went stiff, their bodies shaking violently before they dropped to the floor as the light from the devices faded.
‘Mum!’ Frankie yelled before she looked back at Hellion. ‘If you’ve…’
‘Done what?’ Hellion asked, scowling at her.
‘You know what,’ Frankie said and leapt forward, vaulting over the sofa towards Hellion.
Hellion stepped back and twisted into a ready stance, drawing her sword with a flash of steel in the light.
Frankie charged in. Seeing Hellion’s swing of her sword, she raised her arm to parry it. She slapped the flat of the blade away before she delivered a punch to Hellion’s face.
Hellion didn’t flinch much and went in with another swing. Frankie knocked it away before Hellion immediately followed it up with a knee to the torso. Frankie staggered, the force of her attack knocking her back before Hellion was on her again.
The speed and ferocity of Hellion’s attacks brought back clear memories of when they had first met in the support building in the Undercity. Frankie had marvelled at Hellion’s speed back then, but it seemed that Hellion was even faster now.
Frankie moved on instinct, feeling or merely sensing where she thought the next attack was coming from and somehow, although she couldn’t say how, managing to dodge or parry them with her hands, arms, or something else.
Hellion twisted again and smashed the pommel of her sword into Frankie's face, knocking her prone.
‘Is that all you’ve got? Is it going to be that easy?’ Hellion asked.
‘Smugness is not an endearing quality,’ Frankie answered her. ‘And wasn’t it I who destroyed your team and kicked you from the flyer?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ve not forgotten what you did to my team. I’ll never forget that. Ever,’ Hellion answered.
Frankie frowned, sensing some very raw emotion in Hellion as she spoke. Had Hellion been quite close to one or more of her team? A glint of metal caught Frankie’s attention, and she suddenly spotted the gun her dad had pulled on her laying on the floor a short distance away.
Frankie spun and kicked out with her leg, catching Hellion in the stomach and knocking her backwards. Frankie continued into a roll and grabbed the gun before flicking back the way she had come as Hellion lunged for her. Frankie fired at almost point blank range into Hellion’s body, sending her reeling.
‘Hah, bitch,’ Frankie said as she jumped to her feet and aimed again.
There was a sudden flash of steel and a cutting sensation on her forearm along with an electrical shock as glowing blue electricity arced up the blade for a second. Frankie stared in shock at where her right hand used to be.
Now it lay on the floor, still holding her gun.
Frankie was barely aware of Hellion moving again until a stabbing sensation shot through her gut and more warning messages flashed up in her vision. Hellion had plunged her sword right through the right side of Frankie’s lower body before she ripped it out sideways, sending flecks of her ballistic polymer flesh flying over the room.
Hellion stepped up and grabbed Frankie by the neck and held her aloft. ‘You killed my sister,’ she growled at her.
‘What?’ Frankie asked, still in shock over losing her hand. ‘Sister?’
Hellion roared and threw Frankie across the room. For a second, she was flying, weightless as the furniture sailed past her until she hit the wall and dropped to the floor.
‘Spectre, you killed Spectre, my sister,’ Hellion roared.
‘Gibson, it's Frankie, get down here,’ Frankie said through her link as she started to pick herself up, she felt sure she could not do this alone.
‘On my way, what’s up?’ Gibson sent back.
‘Hellion,’ Frankie said simply, and closed the link. She needed to concentrate.
Frankie looked up and shook her head. She’d heard what Hellion had said, but she didn’t much care. Spectre had tried to kill her twice before in the same day, she felt perfectly justified in returning the favour. It wasn’t her fault she was more successful at it.
‘I did, so what? Should I have let her kill me instead?’ Frankie asked.
‘That would have been preferable,’ Hellion said and stepped in with a swing of her blade. Frankie parried it with her left arm as Hellion went for her again and again. Frankie concentrated and blocked each and every one, her hand and arms getting cut on some of these hits, but not cut off, fortunately.
Frankie missed parrying Hellion’s next kick, though. It slammed into her chest unblocked. Had she still had lungs, the air would have been knocked clean out of her, not to mention the broken rib cage she would have suffered.
Hellion was on her again and grabbed her by the front of her badly ripped dress with her off hand. Frankie grabbed the hand as Hellion lifted her off of the wall and then slammed her back against it with incredible force.
Frankie crunched
right through the wall, which was not terribly thick anyway, and landed in Oliver’s apartment on her back.
Movement to her left drew her eyes that way, and she saw Oliver sitting at his terminal, staring over at her and slowly pulling off his earphones.
She was suddenly aware of what she looked like, still in her now indecently ripped dress, her shoes long gone, her arms cut to ribbons and her right hand missing entirely, covered in dust and plaster from the wall she had just been slammed through.
‘What the hell,’ he said as Hellion strode through the hole.
‘Oliver, run; get out of here,’ she shouted at him.
‘What? Why? Are you okay? Shit, Frankie, where’s your hand?
‘Friend of yours?’ Hellion asked.
Frankie looked back up at Hellion who was smiling, but it was not a smile Frankie wanted to see. It spoke of hate and cruelty rather than laughter and fun.
Hellion twisted, her arm snapping out as something flew through the air.
Frankie looked over in time to see a six-inch blade bury itself in Oliver’s forehead, right up to the hilt.
‘No!’ Frankie cried.
Oliver’s body twitched for a moment before it dropped to the floor and fell still.
Frankie stared at Oliver for what felt like an eternity, watching as blood oozed up around the blade and travelled down the handle in runnels. It felt like her brain had just stopped and all coherent thought had just vanished, and for that brief moment, all she could do was to stare at the young man who less than an hour before she had kissed and enjoyed a lovely evening with.
Now, he was gone, taken from her by this blonde demon.
‘Oops, looks like I slipped,’ Hellion said, mirth in her voice.
Frankie turned her head slowly to look at Hellion, who stood before her, looking calm and relaxed and very self-satisfied.
Movement in the room beyond Hellion caught Frankie’s attention as she saw her mother shift her position. She was alive! Hellion had given her parents incapacitating electrical shocks, but they were alive.
Frankie looked back up at Hellion who seemed to sense she was being looked at and turned back to Frankie from Oliver.
‘Were you close to him?’ Hellion asked.
Frankie didn’t answer. She knew only one thing. That Hellion wanted to destroy her world. Frankie could not let her do that. Gibson would be on his way down here and would burst through those doors any moment now, and Hellion would proceed to kill him, quickly and painfully, before moving onto her mum and dad. She needed to get Hellion out of here.
She had an idea, but it was a complete gamble. It seemed to her that Hellion was most focused on her. She would kill anyone who came to help her, but ultimately, Hellion’s hatred was directed at her. She’d followed her through to this room, away from her parents. Would Hellion follow her further away?
Frankie had lived in this building for over six months. She knew what was outside the window. She knew the view very well. She also knew there was an elevated highway that passed very close to the building a short drop below.
Frankie looked down and spotted a fist sized metal Buddha laying amongst the plaster and bits of wall that were all around her. She picked it up and sprang to her feet, her body warning her about all the injuries she had sustained so far.
Frankie ignored them, she only wanted to escape and lead Hellion away from her parents and friends. Frankie threw that statue at the window with as much force as she could muster, which was a lot, causing a spider web of cracks to appear across the whole window pane.
She might have gone straight through the hardened glass had she just jumped at it, but maybe not, and that would have been a disaster. Ideally, she would have preferred to have had a gun with which she could have shot out the glass, but she had lost that in the previous room, along with her hand. The metal Buddha would have to suffice.
Frankie charged the window with as much force as she could bring and slammed her shoulder into it. The pane broke, smashing into tiny bits as she fell through.
She twisted and flipped herself over to watch where she was falling. Her educated guess as to where the road was and how much force she’d need to reach it paid off, and she dropped down towards the road.
She’d jumped from heights before several times, each time landing safely with just a few minor stress fractures in her skeleton to show for it. This, however, was further than she had ever fallen before. She readied herself for the landing as the asphalt highway rose up beneath her with vertigo inducing speed.
She landed with a thump, her legs bending and her body crunching down on top of them as the road beneath her cracked from the force of her landing. Warning icons and alerts flashed up in her vision as she wobbled and dropped to her side. She’d suffered some severe damage to her skeleton in the form of several nasty stress fractures what were much worse than what she had suffered from before, as well as crushing parts of her synth flesh and skin.
Car horns blared at her as tyres screeched, bringing the approaching cars to a sudden halt.
Frankie groaned as she attempted to pull herself to her feet. She didn’t really hurt at all, but she could feel that her body was not quite working at one hundred percent efficiency. Using her hands, she started to pull herself to her feet and looked up, just in time to see Hellion come hurtling down just above her. Frankie leapt away into the road as she heard more screeching tyres and the distinctive sound of vehicles smashing into each other.
Hellion landed on the roof of the car Frankie had been holding onto, crushing it entirely as Frankie hit the floor and looked up. Someone in the car was screaming, but Hellion just stood there and smiled down at Frankie.
‘Running away, my dear?’ Hellion asked.
‘It’s called a tactical retreat,’ Frankie said, wanting to engage Hellion in conversation to give herself time to think things through and work out her next move. Frankie staggered to her feet, feeling very wobbly as she looked up at Hellion.
‘Call it what you like, I just see you running away from me,’ Hellion said.
‘Is that right?’ Frankie answered, steadying herself against the door of the car that had stopped just next to her. ‘Is this personal now, or are you still working for the Corporations?’ Frankie asked.
‘Trying to distract me, are you?’ Hellion said, dropping off the top of the car she had crushed. The screaming from inside it had stopped. ‘Okay, sure, I’ll bite,’ she said. ‘It’s both, if truth be told. They’re helping me, backing my revenge against you, I suppose. What does it matter? You’re dead either way.’
Hellion looked at the car beside her and reached down, sinking her fingers into the metal door like it was butter before ripping the door off, revealing the half crushed but very dead driver within.
Frankie saw it coming and followed Hellion’s lead, grabbing the door of the car beside her and in a show of brute strength, ripping it off and holding it out before herself as a shield just in time to deflect the door that Hellion had thrown at her.
The makeshift missile slammed into the door Frankie used as a shield and bounced off sideways, hitting the car behind her before falling to the floor. Frankie glanced back as she heard screaming and yells from inside the car, spotting a mother and two children inside.
This couldn’t happen here, Frankie thought. There were too many people about; it was too dangerous. She might have led Hellion away from those she cared about, but she was now surrounded by innocents, people who did not deserve to suffer.
A flicker of movement and the sound of scuffing boots on concrete warned Frankie of Hellion’s charge. Frankie whipped the car door in front of her before she’d even looked to see what Hellion was doing.
It was a lucky hit, and as Frankie watched, she saw Hellion flying backwards to the edge of the highway. She landed against the freeway’s waist high sidewall, crunching into it.
She could hear the scared yelps from inside the car behind her and saw her chance - maybe her one and only chance to t
ake the fight elsewhere right in front of her. Frankie didn’t need to think about this anymore, she only needed to act.
Frankie ran, as fast and as well as her damaged legs would allow her and charged right for Hellion, who looked up half a second before Frankie was on her. Hellion stood up straight to meet her, which worked out perfectly for Frankie as she lowered her body and tackled Hellion, ramming her shoulder into Hellion’s sternum and lifting her as Frankie leapt over the barrier.
The road that had been beneath her disappeared above her as she fell, not really concentrating on what she was doing other than feeling happy that she had moved the fight away from those kids.
Hellion grunted as she twisted in Frankie’s grip, hitting Frankie in the face, and suddenly Frankie was falling backwards with Hellion on top of her, holding her in place with a grip like steel.
Frankie struggled as the seconds passed. Buildings and highways and flyers zipped by as they fell past them to who knew where. Half a second before she hit the floor, Hellion let go of her as her stealth suit transformed into a wingsuit.
But that didn’t help Frankie, and she hit the concrete with a crunch. Her vision glitched as digital interference began flickering through what she could see.
More alerts flashed up warning her of the catastrophic damage to her body. Hellion’s wingsuit withdrew again, and she dropped the short distance to the ground, landing on top of Frankie’s body with her feet.
Frankie’s body jerked with the impact, but it didn’t actually damage her any further. Frankie couldn’t move, the injuries she’d suffered were too much. She was at the mercy of Hellion now.
‘Well, well, well. It’s come to this. My word, you look a sight,’ Hellion said. Her voice was joyful almost, but Frankie didn’t share her good humour. ‘What am I to do with you, hey?’
‘Get it over with,’ Frankie said.
Hellion lashed out with her foot, stomping on her face with a crack, causing more glitching through her vision.
Prometheus Vengeance (The New Prometheus Book 4) Page 15
