“I am sorry, sir,” said the placid female voice of the room attendant. “I am afraid your death has been unfortunately delayed. Emperor Suites regrets this inconvenience and will take all necessary steps to ensure the rest of your murder is pleasant and free of inconvenience.”
He staggered to the side, managing to leap onto the bed before the disc bot could ram his other anklebone. White foam seeped out from the gaps in the reassembler door.
“What is that demon of an AI doing?” He muttered, not expecting an answer.
“Food assembler has generated a complimentary dinner, sir.” The attendant sounded cheerful.
“What dinner?”
“Successful synthesis of organophosphorus compound, formula C4H10FO2P.”
A loud click came from the room’s door.
Mamoru didn’t like the sound of that, and pulled on his shirt, coat, and boots without bothering to fasten any of the clips or buttons.
“I apologize for the confusion,” said the placid woman, her voice warping into a deep masculine sound laced with the scrape of metal on metal. “You might be more familiar with the term Sarin.”
Mamoru held his breath, grabbed the katana by the scabbard, and ran to the door. Disc bots whirred underfoot, trying to trip him. The first one he saw and avoided, the second got under his left boot as he watched the first. It accelerated, flinging his foot out from under him. He whirled his arms, preventing a fall with a graceful spin down to one knee.
“I cannot explain what you did within the net.” The voice of Nightwing rumbled the ceiling on speakers never meant to handle such bass. “In this world, it is you who are the worm.”
Holo-projectors in the ceiling created a wide panel screen along the left wall, a rectangular hole in reality rimmed with dark smoke. The shape of a great ebon dragon glided closer, as if peering into a window from another world.
Mamoru drove his fist into the next disc bot to make a run at him, crushing it in a shower of sparks. He sprinted to the exit, still holding his breath. Not even bothering to try the controls, he drew his sword and sliced it along the edge where the door slid into the wall before punting the loose slab of Epoxil to the ground.
Out in the hallway, he gasped for air. Two housekeeping dolls ran at him from a distant intersection. Again, Mamoru tapped his kinetic power and plunged the world into slow motion, taking their heads before they could lay a hand on him. Every light went dark. Muted shouts of angry guests cried out from various rooms as he felt his way along with a hand on the wall.
He decided to skip the elevator.
The stairwell proved uneventful except for a steady assault from fire-suppression hoverbots. He made it to the lobby covered in foam, ignoring the four receptionist dolls that rose from their seats to chase him, and ran outside.
For three blocks, Mamoru sprinted, all but unnoticed by the pedestrians despite his bare chest and drawn sword. He stopped at an intersection out of instinct, due to a red light. With a moment of quiet at last, he buttoned his shirt, cinched his coat, and stooped to fasten his boots.
Lights washed over him.
Mamoru’s head snapped up. A PubTran taxi came at him on the sidewalk, accelerating. Bodies slid up and over its hood as it plowed into people. A young couple inside screamed and banged on the door. Mamoru shot a burst of psionic power into his legs, amplifying his strength. He leapt straight up as the tiny car rocketed past him and t-boned a much larger sedan waiting for the light. The PubTran’s windows flashed white in an instant from impact suppression foam.
He landed amid thirty moaning people. Before he could mentally process what happened, a man behind him screamed. He spun; an advert bot careened out of the sky, headed right at him. Driven by Awakened kinetics, his muscles launched him sideways as the coffin-sized hover-bot, still displaying advertisements for lingerie, crashed into the screaming man.
A fine red mist painted everyone and everything within thirty feet. The demolished advert bot must have sensed all the injured people nearby, for as ruined as it was, it had enough power left to switch its failing holographic displays to offer medical products.
Another PubTran car, this one riderless, attempted to drive diagonally across six lanes of traffic to get him, but a huge cargo transport intercepted it by chance, crushing the little car like a synthbeer canister.
Mamoru sprinted. Every ten to fifteen seconds, another advert bot made a suicide dive. He sliced orbs the size of bowling balls out of the air, tapped his power for superhuman sprints to avoid the larger ones, and flung himself through a window to evade a thirty-foot long billboard display that fell like a stone straight down when its thrusters cut off.
The ground shook from the impact, which caused the electronics store he’d invaded to go dark. Customers screamed and ran in all directions, hands up to shield their faces from the rain of sparks falling from above. Mamoru rushed outside among the crowd, breaking to his left as soon as he could. His gift pushed him up to a forty-mile-an-hour sprint.
Tens of thousands of PubTran cars trying to get to him in defiance of traffic safety caused widespread snarls and brought ground vehicles in southeastern West City to a halt. Mamoru ran atop the stalled cars to avoid the slowdown of other people in his way.
Already, the NewsNet displays at almost every street corner as well as flying overhead bathed the area with reports of unexplained malfunctions of the PubTran network. A short, bald, man in a shiny metallic-maroon coat came on and announced that ComTec International was not to blame for a spate of advert bot crashes. He reassured the public that the hacker or hackers responsible would be found and prosecuted.
Chaos followed him for miles. By the time he’d run himself to gasping, the confident man from ComTec had been backed into a panicked corner when Kimberly Brightman, the public face of the NewsNet, remarked at how easily hackers could take over his company’s robots. He blurted without thinking, blaming hostile action from the Allied Corporate Council, and thus started a wave of paranoia about World War Four.
Three blocks later, the NewsNet panels erupted with debate after debate. Everyone wondered if this strange behavior signaled the beginning of international aggression. The ACC, the only other superpower to remain aside from the UCF, had been a simmering rival since the end of the Corporate War. Everyone waited for the shooting to start again, but no one had ever dared suggest it imminent.
Still stranded in traffic, people got out of their cars to watch what they all believed to be the end of civilization. No one much noticed the Japanese man running over traffic and swatting an unending rain of advert bots out of the sky with a seething hot vibro-katana.
He wanted a hovercar but didn’t trust it to be more than a deathtrap at that moment. As much as he loathed the thought of it, the Badlands would be the safest place for him. He growled. Mamoru would not let a mere program beat him. It was right. Out here, in the real world, he was weak. The only way to destroy a beast like that would be to confront it where he could kill it.
A woman’s amplified voice barking at people to remain calm made him abandon the elevated walkway of stranded cars and duck down an alley. Red and blue flashing lights at the end cast a larger-than-life silhouette of a female figure on the grime-stained wall of a hundred story residential tower.
A short woman with dark brown skin in blue Division 1 armor stood beside a police hovercar half on the sidewalk a modest distance from the alley. She had parked by a blasted-out window, damaged when a PubTran car had driven through it into the counter of a Chinese takeout place, likely following the most direct path to wherever Mamoru had been at that moment. Her silver visor was up, exposing her face. A wireless connection carried her voice from her helmet to loudspeakers on the patrol craft at her side, encouraging the crowd of onlookers to go on about their business.
He ran up to her, skidding to a halt a few feet away.
She spun toward him, one hand on her sidearm, one raised. “Easy, citizen.”
“Where is the closest grey zone?”
“W
hat’s going on? Did you dose an illegal chem?”
“No. A dragon is trying to kill me.”
She looked at his sword, at his face, and pulled her gun. “Drop the knife.”
He sighed. “I don’t have time for—”
A rounded bulge in the patrol craft’s roof above the passenger seat split open, exposing a three-foot-long laser cannon, which rose on a strut and pivoted toward him.
The officer glanced over her shoulder at the mechanical whirring. “¡Dios mío! What in the…”
Mamoru’s arms lit with a brilliant psionic glow as he pushed himself to the limit of his ability. The officer’s motions slowed to a veritable standstill as he lunged forward, diving into a somersault under an intense blue-white laser blast. The turret swiveled after him. To his accelerated perception, the whine of its actuators sounded like the dire groan of stressed metal warping. His leap skimmed past the range of its motion, ahead of it by less than a second. Mamoru sailed over the car, severing the weapon from its strut with a quick slash as he passed. The laser cannon fell onto the armored windshield with a clank before sliding onto the hood.
The astounded look on the officer’s face told him she’d seen him disappear and reappear on the other side of the car. Or, perhaps she had simply never seen a Japanese man covered in white flames before.
“Grey zone. Where is the closest?”
She pointed without a word.
He ran, keeping to narrow alleys as often as possible to limit the angle from which aerial assault could dive on him, yet Nightwing’s thousand steel claws grasped at him for sixteen miles. Visible decline in the surroundings had never been so welcome a sight. The energy simmering along his shoulders, his psionic power bolstering his endurance, kept people away or staring—either suited him fine. Deep in the blighted ruin of a grey zone, where no advert bots dared to go, Mamoru felt safe.
His security lasted about a minute.
A flash of sparks overhead made him look up a split second before a dog-sized advert bot smashed into the ground two feet to his left. A chance encounter with a fourth-story cable run between two buildings had altered its dive enough to cause it to miss. Mamoru stared at the wreckage, willing his heart to beat again.
I need a deck. I cannot go to a store with this chaos around me. He stumbled on, barely able to remain upright. I cannot order one; it will override the delivery—
Mamoru felt like a fool.
At last, he realized how Nightwing followed him. He jammed his hand into his pocket, clasping his NetMini, and forced it to power down. His psionic influence over technology was faster than the long-winded ‘safe’ power down sequence. In the span of a quarter second, it went dark. Now he could take a moment to gather himself. He stumbled across the street and into an abandoned building. Walls of bare grey concrete surrounded him, lit only by the pale glow of a faltering streetlight outside.
Why does fate deny me the comfort of civilization?
He stood in the middle of crumbling ruin, head bowed, breaths ragged. Sweat dripped from his nose, appearing as dark dots on the dusty floor between his feet. This place offered a small degree of solace for now, devoid of cameras, technology, or others who would interfere in his affairs.
Mamoru trudged over to a pile of debris, and sat to rest.
The strange presence in the back of his mind returned, calming him.
Soon, they would get their revenge on this city for its insolence.
Soon, everything would burn.
19
Tactical Training
Kate
Kate had signed on the proverbial dotted line less than a week ago. David knew the things she had done for El Tío, and yet they still welcomed her, even issued her an energy weapon. They had no guarantee she’d cast aside her old life. Officer Aaron Pryce hung over her, a boulder suspended on a thread with no good way out from under it. The look on El Tío’s face when he’d asked her to kill that man made her think he already expected betrayal. Misplaced guilt sent her to the terminal. A little digging in the open warrant database confirmed what her former employer said. Division 0 had Pryce listed as a rogue operative, wanted for questioning—and considered extremely dangerous. She bowed her head, desperate to think of a way she could make El Tío happy without getting herself killed or locked up. Nothing came to mind, and she needed to report in soon.
With a sigh, she got up to put the rest of her clothes on; command would probably object to her showing up in underwear and socks. The holo-panel at her desk terminal shut itself off when it sensed her move away.
The woman staring at Kate from the mirror looked like a stranger. Less than two months ago, the thought of wearing clothing of any kind seemed an unattainable dream, and a police uniform hadn’t even been on the list. The snug Division 0 blacks, shiny silver belt, and heavy shin-high boots felt more like a Halloween costume than reality. She took the E-90 laser pistol out of its holster and smirked at the warped, skin-toned smear her face became upon its mirrored housing.
I can’t believe they trust me with one of these.
She rubbed her thumb between the soft, rubberized grip and the smooth silver plastic.
I don’t even trust me with this.
A patch of iridescence on the trigger reminded her of the ten-minute instruction she’d been given about the security interlock. This weapon would only work with her finger on the trigger. Anyone else trying to fire it would get a nasty shock. She didn’t let her finger get anywhere near it. Merely looking at it made her nervous. Kate let the air out of her lungs and slid the weapon back into the holster.
She stared at the total stranger wearing her face a moment longer. Not quite what I wanted… A smile teased at her lips as she rubbed a hand over the material covering her stomach. But I’ll take it.
She walked toward the apartment door. “I’m leaving, Andy.”
“Understood,” chimed a subdued male voice from the ceiling.
The windows along the rear wall went from clear to amber, darkening until they approached black.
“Shall I prepare a meal for you at six?”
She sighed. “Yeah, David’s in the East for a few days for some inter-coastal cooperative exchange.”
“What would you like?” asked the ephemeral voice.
“Surprise me.”
The door hissed closed behind her.
She encountered no one in the corridor outside, or the elevator, or the lobby of her apartment building. When she emerged on the street, she hadn’t prepared herself for the reaction of pedestrians. The uniform she thought silly had a profound effect on anyone who bothered to peel their eyes away from their NetMinis long enough to look at her. Backs stiffened, conversations got quieter, some walked faster, and a small minority offered tentative smiles. Most had fear in their eyes. To her surprise, no one ogled her, despite the snug fabric.
Confidence welled up inside her.
The sense of being isolated from society was nothing new; however, she much preferred standing proud in her uniform than sneaking bare-assed around the alleys of a black zone hoping no one saw her. Not that she’d been ashamed, but getting seen always wound up ending in one of two ways: accidentally burning someone who wanted to help her or not-so-accidentally melting the face off a thug.
At the edge of the sidewalk, she used her NetMini to summon a PubTran taxi.
They’ll issue me a damn laser pistol before training, but no department car until I’m on the roster. She grumbled. Guess it really is all about the money.
Kate folded her arms, grinned at the crowd giving her a comfortable distance, and gazed up at the stream of hovercar traffic while waiting for her ride. A basic search by inexperienced hands in the police database found no activity on Pryce’s registered NetMini for months. She’d expected that. No different from any of the people she’d hunted for the Syndicate. Anyone with at least a quarter of a functioning brain got a burner NetMini. Her mind went in circles trying to think of where to start hunting for someone even the cops
couldn’t find.
A few minutes later, a little teal-and-grey car pulled to a halt in front of her.
Not quite half way into the ride, her NetMini chirped with an incoming call. She answered without looking and went rigid as the face of El Tío appeared in hologram.
“I hope you’re not slipping, Kate. I expected some news by now.”
A sudden feeling of not deserving her uniform made her pick at the snug fabric. “I’ve been looking… the man’s a ghost. Zero can’t find him either, and they’ve got clairvoyants hunting for him. None of my gifts help me find people. I have to do that part like everyone else.”
The air inside the car dropped ten degrees. She’d have thought it psychological if her breath hadn’t begun to fog.
“Perhaps you need a little… assistance.”
Her heart pounded. “I’m sorry, El Tío.” Desperation added an uncharacteristic whine to her voice. “I’m doing everything I can… he’s not in the city. I’ve been looking everywhere. I—”
“Calm yourself, my girl.” The old man smiled. “Not everything I say is a veiled threat. I meant assistance, not encouragement. We know he’s using a false personal identity. If we isolated his PID code, and only you knew it, you could find him before he knew he was compromised.”
“Yes, El Tío.” Her knuckles whitened on the NetMini, but she kept her shame out of her expression.
His holographic head collapsed into a tiny point of light and vanished. She stared at the inert device for a minute without moving. Something white bobbed in her field of view. A bare foot, the color of clouds. Kate’s head snapped up; she let off a yelp at the suddenness of no longer being alone in a moving car. A nude woman with calf-length lemon blonde hair sat on the rear-facing seat, smiling at her. Onyx eyes glimmered with mirth.
Aurora.
“Oh, shit.” Kate flattened herself against the back of the car, hands poised to conjure flames. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Calm down, dear.” Aurora winked. “All I wanted to do was take some weight off your mind.”
Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6) Page 21
