Chromed- Rogue

by Richard Parry

  The chassis swung to face Gorsky, stumbling. “Damn. This is harder than I thought. Ah. There.” The chain cannon on the chassis’ arm spun up, the howl of it primal as it stood over Sanders. The cannon drew a line of white and fire through her team, tearing men and women into fragments. Crates of machinery and parts shattered, torn, metal and shrapnel spraying through the hangar.

  The cannon slowed, stopping. The chassis hummed, then stepped away from Sanders. A red mist spun about in eddies, the hangar’s air recyclers playful. “Huh,” said the woman.

  “Wh… What?” Sanders’ ears weren’t human-normal, but the chain cannon’s noise had reset the spike levels and she couldn’t hear right. Her legs were slick, and she realized she’d pissed herself.

  “I thought I was going to kill you all,” admitted the woman. “Turns out, I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  “Why?” Sanders wanted to say a hundred other things, but this seemed the most important.

  “I don’t know.” The chassis stamped toward Sanders, leaning to bring its optics closer. “Sanders, is it?”

  Sanders nodded. She spat out the taste of burnt coffee, her overtime fluttering like torn hessian.

  “Sanders, I figure it’s like this. You told me straight. You were honest. I’m here on the last day of my life, and I find that I don’t want to kill you for being in the wrong place, the wrong time, working for the wrong people. It’s that simple.” She paused. “You and me, we share a similar story.”

  “What do you mean, story?”

  “We both didn’t figure our day would go this way. You really shouldn’t eat the store brand bagels. Too much salt. Sanders? Get the hell out. Get out now. Go live your life. And if you see Mason Floyd, stay out of his way. He’s pissed.”

  “How did you pilot the chassis? You’re not plugged in.”

  “Because I’m Carter.”

  Zane Aster had a team.

  Had. That bitch. His unit were just rags now, bits and pieces, a rabble rather than a force. They were getting lower in the Federate tower. Carter chipped away, picking off his people one by one. No one said it’d be easy.

  McKlersky had died first. He’d ignored Aster’s warning to not use the elevators. Dumb sonofabitch had asked what the worst thing that could happen was. That was right before the elevator doors snapped shut, shearing off one of his arms and dropping the car sixty floors down. The arm had sat on the ground, twitching as sparks and blood and other shit had come out of the stump.

  The rest of the team had shown more enthusiasm for Aster’s warnings after that, but it hadn’t helped. Simmons had died when an automated cleaner, a little thing the size of a dinner plate, popped out of a serving hatch. It had been cleaning the carpet, sucking at the big lush pile, and Simmons had made some joke about how the robots got the easy jobs.

  The cleaner had spun around three times, then sped down the carpet toward Simmons. It had exploded, the power cell inside shorting, a bolt of arctic blue shearing through Simmons and leaving his smoking torso to cough twice before the light had faded from his eyes.

  “Robots don’t get easy jobs,” she’d said.

  It’d gone on like that, and each man or woman down made Aster angrier. There was going to be a reckoning. He was going to cut out her heart.

  “What do you mean by busy?” asked Mason. The link felt quieter than usual, lacking the many paths he could usually feel. He kicked the APC’s door open, jumping onto the pavement.

  “I mean, they’re busy,” said Carter. “You know. Girl stuff.”

  Sadie stamped through puddles to stand at his side. “What’s the music today?”

  “You’re going to play a track I know. It’s called ‘Stay Here.’” Mason frowned. “Seriously.”

  She looked at him, the ghost of a smile playing across her lips. “You think that’s going to work?”

  “It’s going to work.”

  “I don’t even know that music.” Sadie kicked at a puddle, and Mason dodged sideways as the water danced toward him. “I don’t play solo gigs.”

  “Sadie, it’s…” Mason sighed. “We’ve taken too much from you.”

  “Me? You only kidnapped and took me to a dead city. It had no bars. I could have died. And then there were the…” She waved her hands in the air in a what-the-fuck gesture. “Mutants?”

  “Not you specifically. All of you.” Mason lifted his eyes to the Federate’s tower, blinking in the rain. “We take, then take a little more.”

  “Yeah.” Sadie looked sad for a second. “Yeah, you do.”

  “Believe me when I tell you I don’t think we can take anything else. I’ve got this.” Mason turned from her, pulling the side of the APC open. He grabbed a rifle, all black Metatech edges, and looked down the scope. The hard link came on as his hand touched the stock, the scope lining up with his eyes, a living, breathing thing. Almost without thinking, he snared the case holding the dress, the old leather sucking up water from the rain.

  “You want me to stand out here in the rain?” She walked closer to him. “Have you seen my hair?”

  He smiled at her. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “It’s like I’ve ruined it for nothing.”

  “Keep the engine running,” said Mason. “It’s weird. There’s no one here. We should have about fifty Apsel guys all over us.”

  “Maybe they’re busy,” said Carter over the link.

  “Maybe they’re busy,” said Sadie in the real, oblivious to Carter’s words. She glanced at the tower. “Fifty guys?”

  “More or less.”

  “You best get moving then.” Sadie climbed in the APC and shut the door in his face.

  Mason sighed, hefting the rifle. “I will never, as long as I live, understand that woman.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Carter.

  Mason jogged toward the tower entrance, optics scanning, flicking between thermal and visual. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. “Carter? I need to know. Where is everyone?”

  “Trying to kill me,” she said. “See you soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Laia’s mouth was a jumble of wrong sensations, her lips not moving right. She probed her teeth with her tongue. It was like licking stones. Laia couldn’t taste anything except dirt.

  “She’s coming around,” said a man. His voice was nervous.

  Laia cracked an eye open. The world was all muted colors without scent, and her nerves jangled and crashed inside her skin. The room was…

  Off-white, the color of old marble. The chair that held her was built on the sweat of thirty men and women, the leather from a creature born and raised in a cage of filth and grime. The metal was torn from stone far to the east, machines of the same metal rending ore from the living rock. There were three such chairs; one she lay in, one empty, and the third holding Zacharies. Two men were in the room. The nervous man was clean and clear, standing tall in front of her. The other man was dark, but not in color. His body was made from metal and sin.

  The nervous man hovered over her. His coat was white, whiter than the room, near as she could tell. The bile in her throat made her think she must have thrown up.

  “You’ll feel a little woozy,” he said. “It’s a side effect.”

  “Ssside…” Laia didn’t know if it was what the lightning had done as it had crawled across her skin, or the gas that carried it, but she couldn’t talk right. Couldn’t think right.

  The dark man spoke. “He’ll be so pleased you’re awake.”

  “Who…?” She tried to make her lips work right.

  The dark man smiled without humor. “My Master.”

  Oh no. Oh no. “Please.”

  “You know I can’t. You know what I’ve got to do.”

  She tried to nod. “Please,” she said again, but without hope.

  He stepped forward, glancing to the nervous man. “Doc? She good to go?”

  “She is. He’s not.” The nervous man nodded to Zacharies, head lolling to the side. “He’ll be a while
. Julian?”

  The dark man — Julian — raised his eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “They’re kids. Can’t we say—”

  “Say we lost them? They got away? A couple of kids?” Julian’s face twisted. Laia saw how much he hated himself in that moment. “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” The nervous man looked at his feet, then back at Laia. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  She pulled at the thread of her mind, reaching out to the dark man, the threads of life flowing around the metal in his body.

  Fluid, not blood, moved inside him, a tide of life. It was quicker, faster, more alive than she’d seen. Just like the angel, just like Mason, but something less as well. She tried to focus, grasping at the edges of the flow, pulling…

  She cried out, pain slamming her mind.

  “Yeah, about that.” Julian lifted her chin. He let his finger drop to her neck, touching a collar, the metal hard around her throat. “He said you might try to start some shit. We got you something to stop that kind of fuckery. He gave us the design and everything.”

  “He designed it.” Laia wanted to cry.

  Julian smiled, a crippled twist of his lips. “Let’s go meet him. He’ll be so pleased.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Laia. The small room rose inside the building, sliding smooth and silent toward the heavens. Glass looked out over a city tired and old. Dirty, filthy at the core. Not Heaven. That was a lie. It had to be. The angel wasn’t here. Only the Master, the collar, and pain.

  The dark man, Julian, threw her a look.

  “What I mean is, we can escape. It’s possible.”

  “It’s possible.” Julian looked straight ahead. “I just don’t want to.”

  Laia opened her mouth then closed it again. “What?”

  “Kid, the man has power. Real power. And I’m in the inner circle. One of the team. I’m not at the bottom rung, playing fetch quests for a bunch of geriatrics disconnected from how the world works. I’ll have equity.”

  The city fell below them as the small room continued to rise. There were hundreds, thousands of people at the base of the tower, his thralls, his slaves. The clouds were approaching from on high, and she could see lightning walk and dance within. She shivered. I know what comes with the lightning. The demon would be distracted with so many minds to tease. It roiled and curled in the clouds. “Sometimes he makes people feel that way.”

  “What?” Julian faced her.

  “He can make you think and feel things that are different. Sometimes he does.” Laia shrugged, then said in a smaller voice, “Sometimes he doesn’t.”

  “You’re saying he’s making me want to…” Julian’s hand clawed the air. “He’s making me…”

  “Maybe.” Laia watched the city, buildings tiny and small before the clouds snatched them from view.

  Julian cleared his throat. “No one controls my thoughts.”

  “Has anyone ever done something you’d think wrong?” Laia shifted from foot to foot. “Something different. Something odd.”

  “What do you mean, odd?”

  “Kiss a stranger. Kill a lover.” Laia frowned. “You would know, if you’d seen it.”

  “I’ve seen him use men like puppets.”

  “That’s not the same.” Laia shook her head. “Usually, it’s just one. He picks a favorite. He makes you… He makes them want it.” She wiped her palms against her shirt as if they were dirty.

  “How do you know?” Julian grabbed her arm, pulling her around. She stumbled and found herself face to face with him. “How can you be sure?”

  Laia looked at Julian’s face. Saw the strain. The need. “Because I was his favorite.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Something dripped at the end of the corridor. The lights flickered between dark and fucking annoying. Mike’s overlay slipped into infrared, cool gray washing over everything. Footprints stamped from water drew a path, the painted concrete showing a pair of feet moving between a room and an elevator. The elevator was long gone, but the room was right there.

  The footprints were what caught his eye. He’d gone straight to the bottom of the tower and started working up. The basement was a good start. But shit, Reed needed to up their maintenance program. Lights out, water leaking, doors unlocked, the whole place was broken.

  Good, in a way, because that’s what let him see the footprints. One big set, looked like a decent pair of business soles, tracking beside a smaller set. Sometimes stepping, sometimes not. Here and there, the smaller set showed where a foot dragged.

  Mike looked at the door at the end of the corridor. Odds were someone was drunk or sedated or both, dragged against their will. This being those snuff king Reed assholes, he was going with sedated. Time to find out what was behind the door.

  He padded to it, his overlay tugging for his attention. He let his optics slip to thermal, a quick scan showing him two people in the room. A person standing, light upgrades, the cool lick of link hardware nestled in the back of their skull. Another person, sitting in a chair, but the posture slumped, out cold.

  The person standing moved toward the one sitting, a tube held up. The tube moved toward the slumped person’s arm. Mike felt the lattice yank him, his weapon coming up as he kicked the door open. He saw the kid, out cold in a chair, a collar around his neck. A man in a white coat holding a syringe, the needle already in the kid’s arm. Machines, med hardware scattered in no real order.

  The weapon in his hand barked three times as the lattice directed his arm. The man standing was hit, a round tearing through the arm holding the syringe, the second through his chest, the last shearing the top of his head off. The body slumped to the ground, the syringe clattering beside him.

  “Wuzzz.” Zacharies opened a bleary eye.

  “I don’t like needles,” said Mike. “It’s okay kid. Cavalry’s here.”

  “Lie.”

  “I’m not lying.” Mike turned the fallen body over. The Reed logo on the jacket was stamped above a barcode. Under the barcode, PERSONAL ENHANCEMENT RESEARCH. “I really don’t like needles. Do you have any idea what this guy was going to do? Strip you down. Find out what’s in your head.”

  “Not lie,” mumbled Zacharies. “Lie. Ah.”

  Laia. Mike looked at the fallen body. Maybe I should have kept him alive. “Oh.”

  “Sssright. Find Laia.”

  “Was she here with you?”

  “Don’t know.” Zacharies tried to pull himself upright. His hand rose to the collar at his neck. Zacharies tugged, his movements weak.

  “Here.” Mike grabbed either side of the collar, trying to find the clasp, but it felt like a perfect ring of metal. “How’d they get it on?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Okay.” Mike looked at the machines and tools in the room. “You know what? We could use my handler about now.” Zacharies shrugged, the movement limp and listless. “Well, it’s a thing. If I put a call in, we’ll have about a billion Reed guys in here. We’re flying under the radar right now.”

  Zacharies looked at him with bleary eyes. “It’s stopping my gift. If I have my gift, together we can find Laia.”

  “Right now, you and your gift couldn’t pull the tab off a can of Coke.”

  “Please. He’s here.”

  “Who?”

  “The Master.”

  “The motherfucker who came through with you?” Mike looked at the door. “Controls minds?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Collar.” Zacharies coughed and spat, shifting his feet from the spread of blood on the floor. “It’s how they control us. Controlled us, before.”

  “Cock. Sucker.” Mike looked at his sidearm, the overlay flicking up an ammo count. He touched the edge of the link, then clicked it on. “Sam.”

  “Holy shit,” she said, the link’s bright edges flickering. “You’re not dead. We had a pool running.”

  “What are my odds?”

  “They’re not great,”
Sam admitted. “I’m being honest. I wasn’t betting on you.”

  “I’ve got a situation.”

  “You’ve got more than a situation. You’re inside Reed Interactive.”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is going to change the odds on the pool.”

  “Up or down?”

  She went quiet for a second. “Okay. I’m pretty sure you’re screwed. I can’t get air support next to the tower, because they’ll shoot it down. I can’t get ground support next to the tower either.”

  “Why not?”

  “‘Bout a thousand assholes out front.”

  “People?”

  “More or less.” Sam’s tone was evasive. “Hard to say from orbit.”

  “I don’t need ground support, Sam.”

  “Why are you calling then?”

  “It’s complicated. I’m here with the kid—”

  “The kid? He’s with you?”

  “Yeah. He’s got a—”

  “The kid who can move shit with his mind?”

  “Same kid. He’s got a—”

  “The boss is going to be pissed.”

  Mike sighed. Zacharies’ eyes were shut, the drug still in his system. I know what that feels like. “He’s got some kind of Reed shit on his neck. Looks like a collar. I need you to get it off.”

  She laughed. “Wait, you’re serious. Can I see?” Mike okayed her request for optics access, peering at the collar. “Okay. I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”

  “Bad news. Always bad news first.”

  “Actually, two bits of bad news.”

  “Is there any good news?” Mike tapped his foot. “There’d better be good news.”

  “There’s good news,” Sam promised. “Bad news is, I have no idea what that collar is. Also, I’ve been running a scan of activity. They’re coming your way.”