by T. C. Edge
“Now who the hell are these guys,” grunted Tanner, looking at Ragan.
He shook his head.
“I’ve got no idea. Looks like a rival gang.”
“And what’s a rival gang doing here?” asked Nadia. “This meet’s meant to be between the Marauders and Mikel, isn’t it?”
“That was the assumption,” said Ragan, watching on as this new group of mercenaries gathered at the northern edge of town. “It could be a bidding war. Mikel might be playing them off against each other.”
“Great. This day just got a lot harder,” said Tanner. “And where the hell’s Mikel anyway? Chloe, is Remus picking him up yet?”
“Nothing yet,” said Chloe. “He’s still not here.”
A tension was gathering among the group as the new team of mercenaries headed for the square. They appeared equally well armed, men hurrying into position as their leader, flanked by two guards, stepped down the main street. From up the hill, details were sparse. From above, Remus had a better view.
“Looks like a woman,” said Chloe, relaying what the drone was picking up. “Middle aged, slim, tall. Um, black hair by the looks of things, pale, stern face. Know anyone like that?”
The question was directed at Ragan primarily.
He thought for a moment, then it came to him.
“Madam Joy,” he said. “She’s a known arms dealer in the region. Fits the description.”
“Madam Joy? Doesn’t look particularly joyous,” remarked Chloe.
“That’s the irony,” said Ragan.
“But what’s a damn arms dealer doing here?” asked Tanner. “Are you sure about the intel, Ragan? This looks like a simple arms deal between two gangs to me.”
Ragan looked out from the hillside, now falling into the shade of the coming night. Tanner was right, this didn’t look like the transaction they’d expected.
“Chatter suggested a deal at sundown,” said Ragan. “The assumption of Mikel’s participation was based on the image of him captured by the surveillance drone.”
“Which is looking more and more like a coincidence,” said Nadia. “He could have just been passing through. I’m with Tanner. This looks like an arms deal, nothing more.”
A short silence fell. Remus, hovering above the gathering in the central square of the town, remained hard at work, scanning the streets below him. There, stepping together from their various groups, the two leaders came - Madam Joy and the Pirate, both flanked by personal bodyguards.
“Chloe, can Remus overhear what they’re saying?” asked Ragan, peering through the gap in the buildings from the western hills. From where they were, the meet up was just about visible, though impossible to hear.
“I’ll send him lower,” whispered Chloe, concentrating hard.
Away in the middle of town, Remus began descending gently and silently. All around the square, the dozens of armed men had taken position on each side. A tension was bubbling, such transactions fraught with danger. There was little honour among thieves and bandits, and the sheer number of armed mercenaries was a means of making the prospect of betrayal unappealing. If one gun went off, dozens would follow. It would be a bloodbath.
Quietly, Remus slipped low, and the voices of those below him began to be picked up. Chloe listened carefully as Remus transferred the info, passing it onto her friends.
“It’s an arms deal,” she whispered, giving confirmation. Tanner grunted in disappointment. Nadia merely nodded knowingly, as if she expected it all along. “They’re talking high calibre weapons and prices. Millions of dollars. Weapons are stocked in the trunks of the vehicles Madam Joy came in. Money is with the others…”
“And Mikel?” asked Ragan. “Any mention of Mikel?”
Chloe shook her head.
“No. Nothing. Seems the deal came up quickly, quite impromptu. Planned overnight. Nadia must have been right. Mikel was just passing through. It’s just a coincidence.”
“And what a coincidence,” growled Tanner. “Are you sure you’re hearing right?”
Chloe glanced over with sharp eyes sufficient to cut right through her visor.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I’m just relaying what they’re saying.”
“Then I guess we’ve wasted our time. There’s no point in us being…”
“Hold on.” Chloe’s voice cut him off, slicing like a scythe. She shut her eyes and took in Remus’ perception, the drone drawing her attention. He was eyeing a position towards the north of town, right to the rear and in the same direction the gang led by Madam Joy had appeared. “Movement,” she whispered. “There’s someone to the north.”
A tension gripped the squad up on the hill. All eyes worked off towards the north, searching for the figure Remus had spotted. From this distance, they could see nothing through the growing blur of darkness. Only Remus, and therefore Chloe, could make out the dark figure creeping into position, stalking those ahead of him with a rifle in hand.
“Jesus, it’s him,” she whispered, her eyes shut tight. “I think it’s Mikel!”
A flurry of adrenaline shot through the bodies of the nano-augmented soldiers, spiking their powers.
“He’s with Madam Joy’s people?” asked Nadia. “You said he’s coming from the north.”
Chloe shook her head, her pulse quickening by what she was seeing. Mikel was lifting his rifle to his shoulder, keeping out of sight. She watched as he aimed right ahead, down the central street, straight at the group conducting business at its heart.
“He’s…he’s about to fire,” she said, breathless. “He’s going to fire on…”
She didn’t complete her sentence.
Oblivious to the threat behind them, no one saw the attack coming. It took only a single bullet, a single shot, to ignite a war right there in that square. From nowhere, it seemed, the loud crack filled the sky, cutting the quiet. And a split second later, the Pirate was falling to the dirt, a single round sent through his intact eye.
The result was pandemonium.
Towards the south of the square, the mercenaries of the Marauder gang opened fire, assuming Madam Joy’s gang to be to blame. As over a dozen guns began to ring out, her bodyguards grappled her off to one side, cut down by gunfire as they tried to get her to safety.
The rest of the arms dealers came to their leader’s defence, firing with their heavy weaponry. From atop the hill over in the west, the town of Devil’s Pike was lit up like a Christmas tree, bathed in the flashing lights of gunfire. And all through the valley, the raucous sounds of war spread for miles around.
All it took was a single bullet to incite such madness, and lead to such death.
And no one up on the hill knew quite why Mikel had done it.
Ragan was quickly onto his feet, setting into a crouching position. He looked over to Tanner and Nadia.
“OK, on me,” he said. “We go, right now. Use the distraction. Take out Mikel and retrieve the data.” Tanner and Nadia hauled themselves up. Ragan looked over at Chloe. “Use Remus. Guide us to Mikel. Stay back here and out of sight.”
With that, he began moving straight off towards the town, keeping to a low crouch as Tanner and Nadia followed right behind. Chloe watched them rush off for a moment before she shut her eyes once again, returning to Remus’ bird’s-eye view.
It took her a split second to take in the world from her drone’s lofty vantage. The town came into focus from thirty metres up, right over the central square as the violence broke out in the streets below. She quickly took command of the drone, telling him to search to the north, up the street, to where Mikel had fired from.
He did so immediately, and Chloe’s pulse spiked.
Mikel was gone.
41
“Ragan! Ragan, do you hear me,” hurried Chloe’s voice. “I’ve lost sight of Mikel. He isn’t where he was. Do you copy?!”
“I hear you,” came Ragan’s reply, whispering through the comms device in her helmet. “Scan the area. Find him, Chloe!”
Down
on the western edge of town, Ragan, Tanner and Nadia stopped in their tracks, dropping into cover behind the wall of an old building. A few streets away, in the middle of Devil’s Pike, the carnage was now in full swing, the two gangs intent on wiping each other out. Ragan waited anxiously for Chloe to speak again.
A few moments later, she did so.
“I can’t find him,” she said, panicking. “Remus is picking up heat signatures, but he doesn’t know who’s who. There’s too much activity down there, Ragan, and it’s getting too dark. He could be anyone.”
Ragan looked to Tanner and Nadia, both listening in as well.
“Then we take them all out,” said Tanner, locking eyes with his friend. “Wipe out the lot of them, Mikel included, and get the data once we’re done.”
Ragan looked to Nadia for confirmation and assent. Her eyes narrowed, her chin dipping into a nod.
“OK,” said Ragan. “You hear that, Chloe? We’re heading in, and will attack from different directions. If you see anyone on our backs, or in a blindspot, call them out, OK? Can you do that, Chloe?”
“I…I can try. Be careful in there. All of you.”
“This is what we do, gorgeous,” said Tanner, body brimming at the prospect of battle. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Right,” grunted Ragan, nodding to his allies. “Tanner, you head down to the south of town, flank in behind the Marauders. Nadia, move in from here, try to get a high vantage if you can to cover us. I’ll head north to Mikel’s last known position, and move in from there. We attack silent. Stealth kills, working from the outside in. The gangs will already have taken a few of each other’s men out. Numbers aren’t against us anymore.”
“Erm…I’m counting about twenty signatures down there,” came Chloe’s voice. “Looks like ten or so people are already down.”
“Good,” said Ragan. “And more will follow. We’ll close in like a pincer, tightening the net. We can’t let Mikel escape this time. Ready? Good. Let’s go.”
Immediately, the three soldiers dispersed, Tanner and Ragan heading off to the south and north, and Nadia creeping a little further inwards from the west of town. Ragan and Tanner hurried on at pace, hidden by the buildings and able to rush quickly. With Remus above them, watching their every step, they were able to move fast without fear of running into anyone.
Within a minute or so, they were in position. Ragan’s voice hurried down comms in a tight whisper.
“OK, I’m set,” he said. “Are we all ready?”
“Ready,” said Tanner. “I have two enemies in sight fifty yards ahead. They’ll be my first.”
“Nadia?” asked Ragan.
“Reaching the roof of a tenement block now,” hurried Nadia’s voice in a whispering bark. “Good vantage. Roof is clear. I have half a dozen enemies in sight below, others in cover. Ready to strike on command.”
“Hold,” commanded Ragan. “Activate silence mode on your weapon. We want to stay unseen for as long as we can.”
“Copy that,” said Nadia. “Ready and waiting when you are.”
Ragan took a moment to continue on, carefully creeping through the shadows of the main street and keeping behind the husks of cars and in the darkened recesses of old storefronts. Chloe watched him go through Remus’ perception, heading right for where Mikel had last been spotted.
“You’re all clear, Ragan,” she told him. “First enemy is down the street on the eastern side, taking cover behind an old station wagon. See him?”
“See him,” confirmed Ragan. “Chloe, focus on Tanner and Nadia from here on out. I have my scanning lens to guide me.”
“Copy that,” said Chloe, getting in on the parlance.
“OK, are we all ready to play?” asked Ragan. The immediate confirmation came from Nadia and Tanner by way of focused grunts. “Good. Strike them down, one by one. If anyone encounters Mikel, let us know. We’ll converge. He’s as deadly a nano-vamp as there is, and we all know what they’re like. He’s in there somewhere. Let’s go get him.”
Ragan took a breath, sent his gaze down the street, and then whispered the command.
“Strike.”
From up on the hill, Chloe lay under the darkening cover of night, watching the battle ensue down below through Remus’ perspective. The little drone continued to hover over the main square, his focus specifically towards the south, where Tanner was closing in, and just off to the west, where Nadia was in sniping position from the top of a three storey tenement block.
Eyes shut tight, she watched on and tried her best to relay relevant information to her allies. As soon as Ragan gave the order to attack, all three worked quickly inwards, taking out several soldiers before they even knew what hit them.
From her bird’s-eye view, the manner in which they went to work was brutal and staggering in its efficiency. Tanner, closing in on two enemies at the rear, chose to get up close and personal before dispatching them. From his crouching position, he rose up tall, cutting the men down with a razor-sharp retractable knife, before zipping back off into the shadows at remarkable speed.
Nadia, from her perch, was like a metronome, accurate as a pocket watch as she fired from the roof. She took out three mercenaries, one after another, before any of them were aware she was there. And all the while, her position was never spotted, her silenced gunfire hidden by the raging automatic weapons still firing across the square.
Ragan was closing in too, taking out one man, then another, eyes searching and intense, desperate for some sign of Mikel. Though he told Chloe to keep an eye on Tanner and Nadia alone, she couldn’t help but order the drone to watch over him too, turning from one of her allies to the next, noting any hidden enemies and calling out their positions.
They worked with such proficiency and skill, however, that she felt mostly redundant. It took only a minute or so for a further ten mercenaries to have been killed, leaving roughly a dozen remaining. The chattering gunfire started to fade out, and the lights down there in the town became few and far between. Mercenaries turned to seek out their friends behind them, only to find them lying dead in the dirt. And from the shadows, the warriors of the Crimson Corps came again, appearing as spectres in the gloomy night, emerging as if from nowhere before slinking away once more before being spotted.
Yet still, Mikel was nowhere to be seen.
Each downed solder was checked, their helmets pulled away to reveal their faces. Tanner and Ragan, down on the ground, grunted each time as they saw a stranger.
“It’s not him,” they whispered down comms, updating their allies. “He’s not here…”
And as they searched, and continued to take out the arms dealers and Marauders, Chloe felt a spiking fear within her. Alone up there on the hill, with her eyes closed to watch the action below through her trusty drone, she’d become unaware of her own surroundings.
But now, she was aware.
Aware that she wasn’t alone…
She opened her eyes up, stark and wide, and the hillside came into view. Leaving the rest unattended in the town down in the valley, she turned her eyes upon the open plain, hidden in the gloom of the darkening night. A panic struck at her, isolated and without Remus to watch her back. On instinct, the drone came flying from Devil’s Pike, feeling his master’s fear, hurrying to help.
Chloe gripped her weapon tight, and lifted it to her shoulder. It was large, cumbersome, not the extension to her body as it was for the others. Her wrist guns were absent from her. She reached to her eyes, thinking to activate the contact lenses given to her by Dax, but realised immediately that they were absent too, left back in her room at the base in the mountains.
She drew in all the light she could using only her natural features, the moonlight shallow and stars yet to fully appear. A light smog of dust hovered in the air, kicked up from the desert floor by a wind that came whistling past her ear. She scanned the environment, searching for a shadow, for the form of a man, cloaked in black, hunting her as he had before.
Adrenaline surge
d, spreading through her veins, fuelling her nanites. She drew a long breath, her respirocytes filling up, and didn’t take another. A silence fell, a short lull in the fighting below letting her ears take in the lightest crunch of sand nearby and to her left.
She turned, suddenly, swinging her rifle, and found a dark form materialise not far ahead. She fired, her gun bellowing loudly in the night, its barrel sparking to life and briefly lighting up the world ahead. And in that flash she saw him, saw the nano-vamp and his teeth, his fangs white and lit against his black attire.
He was smiling, and the bullets weren’t hitting. He slid left and right, seeming to lose form and re-materialise as he moved, so swift on his feet, so light he barely affected the dirt and grit as his feet planted into the earth and pushed him on towards his quarry.
“Chloe…Chloe Phantom…”
Chloe could hear his voice in her head, mellifluous, seductive. It was a spell, a deception. It fed into her mind, honey in her ears, trying to hold her in place, to paralyse her where she crouched.
She fought against it, and fired again, but the vamp was too quick. He flew through the night, leaving her sight once more. She turned, left, right, behind her. He was gone.
Silence fell once more, and through her helmet she heard a sudden chatter. Ragan, Tanner, and Nadia were taking out the final mercenaries below, calling out all those who weren’t Mikel. The sudden barrage of voices was a distraction, but a reminder. Chloe’s voice broke from the quiet, whispering with some difficulty from her throat, breaking through the odd spell Mikel was trying to set upon her.
“He’s….here,” she croaked. “Mikel…is…here…”
Her words were a whisper, weak and barely audible. She got no reply, unheard over the chatter below and the final skirmishes of the battle. Her eyes swerved around her again, and she fired her weapon, spraying bullets all over and lighting the night in a brief blaze of yellow.
