《Morgue [Cyberpunk Thriller]》
Chapter 1: Assignment
¡°Got a job for you, X-18.¡±
Commissioner Gregor¡¯s voice was crisp and tight as ever through the comm line. I ignore it for the moment. It¡¯s not a live message. Just a pre-recorded briefing for the next assignment he¡¯s gotten ready for me. Got a job for you, X-18 is basically a ringtone.
Right now, I needed to focus. The only reason I¡¯m still able to insert Arclight drives into my arm is because, over the years, I¡¯ve learned that you have to focus when doing it.
Otherwise, Arclight has a tendency of blowing up whatever it¡¯s inserted into.
I hold out my arm. A patch of skin turns into neatly fitted hexagons, each of which glow before disappearing to reveal an illuminated pocket. I pull out the old, thumb-sized Arclight drive. It¡¯s worn out. The cuboid was slightly overheated and smudged with wear.
I place it carefully in the separate trash. Can¡¯t let Arclight contaminate anything else. That¡¯s a shortcut to getting it in a system it doesn¡¯t belong in.
Mutton pad-clanked towards the bin.
¡°No, boy,¡± I mutter, securing the trash bin¡¯s lid. ¡°You know that¡¯s not for you.¡±
He gives me the saddest puppy eyes known to dog-kind. We¡¯ve been through this routine. Mutton will pretend to be interested in everything he¡¯s not supposed to be interested in and then look tragically devastated until I reluctantly make him happy.
With treats, of course.
Sighing, I get up and retrieve a bone-shaped treat with my still-functional hand. ¡°Here you go, little guy. Happy now?¡±
Mutton was indeed happy. He took the treat graciously from my hand, yipped in delight, then wagged his tail hard as he pad-clanked away.
¡°Stop wagging your tail,¡± I called after him. ¡°Or you¡¯ll generate too much power and won¡¯t be able to sleep again. Dumb dog,¡± I muttered as Mutton disappears.
With that furry distraction gone, I finished plugging in the sleek little Arclight drive into the pocket of my right arm. The hexagonal patches reappeared and sealed it in.
I poked through the Interface. The holographic screen in front of my eyes ran through some diagnostics and ensured everything was linked correctly before finally approving the connection. Then the Arclight flooded into my system.
Describing the feeling of Arclight would be akin to describing the sensation of sunlight on the skin. Or articulating what it¡¯s like coming home after a long day.
It felt like it belonged. Like I was missing a piece of me that I always failed to appreciate before it slotted in place, like I was always at 98% without Arclight pulsing through me and when it was, I rocketed to 110%.
Almost sounded wholesome when put that way. But that¡¯s what made Arclight so dangerous, so carefully regulated.
So expensive.
If this new drive didn¡¯t last me for the next three weeks, I¡¯d be shit out of luck. Which brought me back to the briefing I¡¯d received from the commissioner.
At the same time, Mutton pad-clanked back to the dingy dining room.
¡°You wanna listen in too, boy?¡± I asked.
Mutton yipped.
¡°Alright, settle down then.¡±
I navigated back to my Interface, then looked at my recent comm lines. Commissioner Gregor¡¯s was at the top. I selected it.
¡°Got a job for you, X-18¡¡±
¡°This everything you needed, Mister?¡± the girl at my door asked.
I wasn¡¯t going to unpack my delivery in front of some unsuspecting delivery worker. Especially not someone so young. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be in school or something, kijo?¡±
The girl huffed. A lock of her silver hair, some of which looked like literal steel implants, fluttered. ¡°I¡¯m not a kid, Mister. In fact.¡± She thumped her chest. There was a small clink. Not on her chest, but on her fist instead. She had knuckle implants. Wild choice, honestly. ¡°I¡¯m saving up for the Academy.¡±
¡°Oh, yeah?¡± I lifted the heavily wrapped package to take it deeper into my apartment. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me that¡¯s why you¡¯re doing this delivery.¡±
She didn¡¯t bat an eye. Well, not the one I could see at least. Couldn¡¯t say for the one hidden behind the ocular implant. ¡°Richter¡¯s shitting pricey, so. But I got a bit of a scholarship, and with this money¡¡± She hesitated for a second, then brightened again. ¡°I can make it!¡±
I whistled under my breath, though it was a little hard. My jaw wasn¡¯t exactly normal anymore. ¡°Richter Academy¡¯s on Level 3, isn¡¯t it? That¡¯s damn impressive.¡±
The girl beamed.
She waited while I pulled the package into my dining room. Mutton sniffed around at it.
¡°Not for you again, boy,¡± I said.
The puppy eyes routine followed, as did me throwing a treat at the little bugger. I returned to my front door with payment. Mutton pad-clanked along behind me, now curious.
¡°Ooohhh!¡± The girl fell to her haunches, completely ignoring the little payment chip I was offering her. ¡°A doggo! He¡¯s so cute.¡±
Mutton, seeing that he had just found a new friend, woofed and got in close. The delivery girl eagerly reached forward and rubbed a hand on his husky head.
¡°What¡¯s this cutie pie¡¯s name?¡± she asked.
¡°Mutton,¡± I said.
Mutton yipped and leaned into delivery girl¡¯s touch.
She looked up at me in surprise. ¡°You named this adorable floof Mutton?¡±
I sighed. ¡°It¡¯s¡ it¡¯s a pun.¡±
She blinked at me. ¡°Mutton. Mut ton.¡± She looked down at where Mutton¡¯s fur ended and his prosthetic portion began. ¡°He¡¯s not actually a ton, is he?¡±
I snorted. ¡°He¡¯s a ton of fucking work, is what he is.¡±
Mutton yipped happily.
With the Commissioner¡¯s briefing still ringing in my ear and the package secured at the end of my bike, I got on my sleek racer.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Mutton woofed a farewell from the balcony. I held up my lips to him for silence. It was late. Night had fallen a while ago on Silver City. I didn¡¯t need to wake up to complaints from my neighbours that my dog was ruining their beauty sleep.
It being late meant the streets were mostly empty as I drove to my target destination.
X-18: On my way to the target.
I sent the message to the Commissioner. Protocol was that I at least send one message at the start of a mission, and one at the end to confirm that it was completed. Occasionally, Gregor was interested enough in the details to request a report. More often though, he¡¯d just ask me directly. He was rarely a stickler for the rules, was Commissioner Gregor.
The Interface popped up. I blinked in surprise. The Commissioner was calling.
I accepted the call. ¡°Commissioner?¡±
¡°X-18,¡± he said. There was a laxness to his voice, but it wasn¡¯t abnormal. His briefings were tight, but actual conversation with him was a lot more natural. ¡°Was the briefing sufficient?¡±
¡°You really called to ask that, Commissioner?¡±
He was silent. The Underlevel of Silver City passed me by. Dank, featureless buildings. Streets slowly devolving into dirt tracks. Clothes hanging on lines bridging the gap between apartment buildings that allowed a patter of rain to slink onto the dirty roads.
¡°No,¡± the Commissioner said. ¡°Not really. What I actually wanted was to mark an occasion.¡±
I turned a corner and got onto a darker street, where the meagre light of the streetlamps didn¡¯t reach as far. ¡°Occasion?¡±
¡°You¡¯re forgetting, X-18. This will be your twentieth job. For me.¡±
¡°Huh. I hadn¡¯t kept count.¡±
¡°It¡¯s an important milestone. We¡¯ve been at this for almost a year now, X-18.¡± His short laugh transmitted through the comm line pretty clearly. ¡°A whole year and not a single hitch. Really impressive when you stop to think about it, considering the state I found you in.¡±
I was silent for a while as I parked my bike in the darkest corner possible and started preparing for the assignment. The silence was nice. Comfortable. The Commissioner was patient. Always. I¡¯d never known him to rush.
¡°You¡¯re failing to consider one thing, Commissioner,¡± I said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t working in the Underlevel when you found me.¡±
Another short laugh. ¡°True enough. This work is no doubt beneath someone of your capabilities. I¡¯ve known that for a while. And I¡¯ve never questioned why a man of your talents would accept these meaningless and inconsequential little missions I offered. But that¡¯s because I always suspected¡¡±
He left it hanging. I didn¡¯t speak up until I¡¯d opened the package. Bullets. Arclight-forged. Just the three of them. ¡°What did you suspect, Commissioner? That a man with particular inclinations such as yours needs someone with particular capabilities like myself?¡±
It was the Commissioner¡¯s turn to answer with silence. As hexagonal patches opened up on my left arm, I loaded my ammo.
I wasn¡¯t kidding. If Commissioner Gregor sent me three bullets, then I was supposed to use all three bullets. No more and no less. Although, I wasn¡¯t supposed to kill my target with any of them. Only to test if he was still alive or not. Like I said, particular.
That was one of his tamer directives, to be honest.
A few weeks back, I¡¯d suffocated a thief to death, injecting Arclight straight into his lungs. It really didn¡¯t belong inside a body. Not in parts without cybernetics, at least. He¡¯d needed a few bullets to make sure he was dead.
More than a month back, I¡¯d slipped some Arclight in an extortionist¡¯s drink. She hadn¡¯t lasted the night. A bullet to the brain made sure she really wasn¡¯t harming anyone again.
The strangest one, and probably my longest act yet, was me just scaring the life out of one hapless Arcpill dealer. You don¡¯t make a profit off of drugs in Underlevel without getting people hooked for life. But that also means you¡¯re now scared one of your destitute druggies will be coming for your conniving ass.
No big deal to take advantage of that innate fear and make the asshole jump off a rooftop in fright. Of course, I needed to contaminate one of his own pills with rogue Arclight first. Plus, needed a couple of bullets to make sure he was no longer causing misery.
Yes. Everybody got one or more bullets.
¡°It¡¯s not about inclinations and capabilities,¡± Commissioner Gregor finally said. ¡°It¡¯s really about our goals. Not the surface level ones. It¡¯s the motivation in our heart of hearts. What I suspected, X-18, is that our ideals align.¡±
I paused, considering how to answer that. But a small beep on my Interface brought up the alert I¡¯d set before the mission. The target was in position.
¡°Looks like we¡¯re going to have to cut this short, Commissioner,¡± I said.
¡°So it would seem.¡± The Commissioner sounded slightly wistful it was time to call our little chat quits. ¡°Finish the job, X-18.¡±
The line went dead.
I left my bike in the shadows and headed to complete my mission.
The douche was making the rounds.
He had climbed up the fire escape and was standing at the window of some poor family who had taken a loan from him. It wouldn¡¯t do to take the main stairs like a normal person. No, no, if you really wanted to terrify your targets, you had to appear via unconventional means. Thus, the fire escape.
I waited until he was done making the life of his victims living hell. Waited until he had climbed down the fire escape and reached street level.
Waited until he was cloaked in the darkness of Underlevel.
I sent out a pulse of invisible Arclight. Its heady power washed through me, comforting, familiar, and enlivening.
¡°Who are you, cobber?¡± the man asked, noticing me. He paused. ¡°Shit, my comms. Did you jam them?¡±
Careful man, already pulling out his gun.
¡°Is that an ST-97C Luger?¡± My flesh-capped metal palms thudded dully as I clapped in appreciation. ¡°What¡¯s a loan shark doing with a weapon like that?¡±
¡°Ah, shit. Not just any old cobber. What¡¯s an Augmented human doing here?¡±
It was dark, with the streetlights far too distant to reach anywhere close and all the windows blacker than sin. A normal person wouldn¡¯t have been able to see shit, much less the details needed to identify the very specific make and model of a handgun. ¡°Looks like you catch on fast, loan shark.¡±
He proved that by firing his gun at me. I supposed you didn¡¯t get by in this line of work if your instincts weren¡¯t honed to a razor-sharp edge.
But my instincts¡ªmy reactions¡ªwere significantly faster.
The bullets stopped about a foot in front of me, seemingly floating on the air on their own, their momentum completely eradicated.
Arclight flowed within me, a delightful dance of power. Tiny rivulets of it ran through dozens of augmented pores on my skin to erupt in a disruptive forcefield in front of me. The heady feeling was there as always. A belief that I could do anything with enough Arclight. I¡¯d gotten used to controlling it, though.
¡°Fuck,¡± the shark hissed. ¡°Military-grade mag-shield huh? What else are you hiding, you fucking fleshbot?¡±
I disabled the mag-shield as I stepped closer. It would be so easy to kill him off with the bullets loaded in my arm. But I¡¯d given specific orders. It wasn¡¯t supposed to be easy. Not for me. Definitely not for my target.
A couple more shots fired in my direction, but they were just as ineffectual. The Arclight mag-shield took care of them.
The loan shark turned and fled.
¡°You¡¯re trying to run?¡± I asked. Arclight fired through the augments in my legs. Three steps. That was all it took for me to appear in front of my target. ¡°From me?¡±
The loan shark stopped short. His face was flushed, his jowls quivering in a mixture of anger and fear. ¡°Why the hell are you after me, fleshbot?¡±
¡°Can you truly think of no reason?¡±
¡°No!¡± He shook a little with the conviction he carried. ¡°I¡¯ve done nothing to nobody. I kept up my payments, even after the hag choked on her drink. I made sure the judge had his pockets lined no matter how many cases came up about my business, and when he croaked, I kept sending the payments to the court anyway. I¡ª¡±
He froze.
¡°No way,¡± he whispered. Then he slapped his forehead. ¡°You¡¯re not from any of them. Of course, not. Look at you. Nobody in this dump can afford an Augmented cobber like you. I¡¯m so stupid. They were right. Somebody was coming for everybody. Is coming.¡±
He didn¡¯t even react when I reached out and placed a hand over his cranium, gripping his skull in a vice. My target had given up. Not record time for me. But close.
¡°Who¡¯re you with, fleshbot?¡± he asked. His eyes were wide, curious, determined to dig out what he could before this body of his collapsed. ¡°Who¡¯s the big shot coming down here to Underlevel? Wait, no. All those deaths¡ the big shot¡¯s been here a while, right? Who is it? How many of them are there? What are they up¡ª¡±
¡°Shh,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re a dead man. Dead men don¡¯t talk.¡±
Needles drove out of my palm, punctured through my target¡¯s skull, and stabbed into his brain.
He jerked in my grip, his body instinctively fighting the pain. Fighting the threat of what was about to happen. ¡°You¡¯re known, fleshbot. You¡¯ll be found. There are hounds after you already. Come tomorrow, you¡¯ll be dead¡ª¡±
The shot of Arclight injected straight into his grey matter short circuited the asshole I was holding onto by his skull. His body jerked, violently this time, his words turning to gibberish. A second later, his eyeballs melted down his face and his ears and nostrils began steaming and spewing blood.
Limp though the body was, my job wasn¡¯t quite done yet. I raised my left hand and aimed the palm at the loan shark¡¯s chest. Hexagonal patches opened to reveal a handgun nozzle.
Three bullets from my Commissioner. Three shots into the body to confirm he was truly dead.
X-18: Target down. Mission accomplished. Although the target seemed unconcerned about the body¡¯s fate. Unsure if life drive was backed up elsewhere.
Once I¡¯d sent the update to the Commissioner, I carried the body back to my bike. I still needed to dispose of the corpse correctly. But as I hitched the former loan shark to my ride, I could only frown at his last words.
Hounds after you already.
Chapter 2: Hounds
The ride to the Morgue wasn¡¯t eventful. This was the Underlevel of Silver City. People occasionally carried corpses when they were out doing groceries. Hauling their dead child, sibling, parent, whatever to turn into the Morgue while buying some meagre¡ªbut no doubt necessary¡ªshopping on the trip back. Not an uncommon sight.
What was uncommon, however, was said corpse sporting three bullet wounds. Now that would attract the attention of the authorities in a manner most people would do anything to avoid.
Not even I wanted to deal with Enforcers if I could help it. They were a pain, but more in the bureaucratic sense than the actual ¡°handling¡± sense.
To that end, I¡¯d wrapped the loan shark¡¯s body in corpse tape. In truth, it was a special kind of packaging tape used to wrap perishable goods, including foodstuff that could rot or get contaminated easily. They were excellent for covering up dead bodies too. So naturally, I used them as corpse tape.
Commissioner Gregor hadn¡¯t gotten back to me after the update, so, as the Morgue appeared before me, I focused on ditching my target. The blocky building with the spires sticking out and the thick wires running out of it looked abandoned as ever. But I knew better.
I slowed my bike as I got closer, though. Usually, there was just the one car parked in the lot before it.
Now, there were two, one of which was unfamiliar.
I parked my bike at a more hidden location, making sure anybody coming out of the front entrance or looking out a window wasn¡¯t going to see the wrapped corpse. Then I headed to the side entrance.
My line of work meant that I¡¯d had to get pretty good at hacking into the Interface of others, so long as I could secure a connection.
Not just people, which was usually harder to accomplish, but for security systems too.
So it was that five small hexes opened up at the end of my right-hand fingers, revealing a bunch of toolheads I needed to open up the security panel beside the side entrance. A minute of tinkering later, I had access to the outlet I needed.
Another hex on the pointer of my left hand revealed the drive I needed to log into the Morgue¡¯s security.
The Interface was similar to the one I possessed. That most people with Augments or even simpler implants got access to.
I stayed clear of the main security lanes and worked my way through the code to the snippet that handled the side entrances to the Morgue. All I had to do was insert a few lines to block the alert while I opened the door, and once I was inside the dim corridor, I reverted the security code to its original state by accessing another panel within. Simple enough.
But I couldn¡¯t exit the Interface just yet. There were other security measures. Aliya wouldn¡¯t appreciate me rifling through her Morgue¡¯s security system, but the strange car had ignited a curiosity in me
And so had everything I¡¯d heard from the loan shark.
Hounds after you already.
Could the car belong to these hounds? Unlikely. It was too clean, looked too official to associate with the shady criminals of Underlevel. But I couldn¡¯t push away the nagging sensation that it was important, nevertheless.
I paused the various other security measures in the Morgue¡¯s side-entrance corridor, all the way up to the antechamber. Then along the side hallways to Aliya¡¯s office, and to the main disposal power hall too, just to be sure. I had spotted her car as well, so she had to be meeting them somewhere. Now I could sneak up to whichever room they were in.
It took a little bit to find the right place. Antechamber. My first guess was right all along.
I stayed hidden as I listened in.
¡°That was the last of them,¡± said a man walking in through the door that led to the main disposal hall. ¡°You won¡¯t be seeing us for another couple of months at least, Operator.¡±
¡°Maybe a whole quarter if we can help it,¡± said the other cobber.
I recognized their uniforms now. The white-and-orange suits had the logo of the Abel Tine Corp. Essentially, the power company that oversaw the operation of the Morgue and other facilities that burned bodies to generate power via Arclight mechanisms.
But these were mechanics. The Morgue had already had their bimonthly checkup just over a couple of weeks ago.
My question was vocalized by Aliya.
¡°That¡¯s what the last guys said.¡± She was already standing in the antechamber, her hands buried in her lab coat pockets, her words muffled from behind her old-fashioned gas mask. ¡°How do I know I¡¯m not going to be seeing another bunch of you in a week?¡±
She looked tired. Her coat was ruffled, her dirty blonde hair mussed up. I was tempted to attribute that to the time of night, but then again, she always looked like that.
The men didn¡¯t seem to be bothered by the fact that Aliya was bothered.
¡°You won¡¯t be seeing us again for a while,¡± the cobber who had exited the disposal chamber said. ¡°Trust us.¡±
Doffing their hats at Aliya, both men exited the Morgue. I waited for a while until I was sure their car had left the parking lot as well. Then I knocked on the door between my side-corridor and the antechamber.
Aliya was a little startled. She waved, and the door opened, admitting me in. ¡°Don¡¯t see you without a¡ delivery usually, Xylen.¡±
I smiled in greeting. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry. I got what you need. I was just waiting for your visitors to leave. Would have stayed away, but the time of day had me curious.¡±
Aliya frowned back to the main door. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting a call at this time either. The notice came in late. Less than two hours ago, in fact. Even more surprising, they mentioned there wasn¡¯t anything wrong.¡±
¡°What were they here for? A routine check-up?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure. Apparently, there¡¯s some issue going around in all the Morgues, so they¡¯ve been checking them up one by one.¡±
¡°Sounds like an emergency. Except¡¡± It was my turn to frown a little. ¡°They didn¡¯t look like they were in a hurry.¡± I looked back at Aliya. ¡°Or that tired. You¡¯d think people dragged out at this time of night to go touring around Underlevel would look at least a little unkempt, but not those cobbers.¡±
Aliya snorted. ¡°Go get your delivery, Xylen. They¡¯re gone now, so who gives a shit. Maybe we¡¯re lucky and they¡¯re actually telling the truth, so we really won¡¯t have to see any of them again.¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I nodded. As I returned the way I¡¯d entered, I heard her muttering.
¡°Though, these guys didn¡¯t look anything like Shian and Jerus¡¡±
Were those the names of the maintenance techies who normally came to this Morgue? I had no clue. This was Aliya¡¯s business, not mine. All I had to do was deliver the bodies. That was a part of the Commissioner¡¯s mission requirements.
¡°Mind bringing the package to the disposal chamber?¡± Aliya asked once I¡¯d returned with the wrapped body.
She could have carried it there herself. But once we entered, she immediately busied herself with one of the other corpses. I had to take the loan shark¡¯s body to the appropriate table on my own.
The Morgue¡¯s disposal chamber was essentially an enormous oven. Each table with a body rested on notches so that when the Arclight mechanism was turned on, the tables would automatically move into the walls. It was the walls that held the main firing mechanism that utilized the remains of the corpses to drive the generators and create energy.
A layman¡¯s explanation was that the bodies were simply burned up like fuel to power turbines to produce electricity. But that was ancient tech. It wasn¡¯t accurate to today¡¯s procedure.
The Morgue used specialized Arclight machinery to delve into every corpse brought in and compress them to such a degree that they started creating Arclight of their own. I wasn¡¯t aware of the physics behind it. Arclight was just a strange substance. But the way it could self-propagate in the right conditions was something a lot of mechanisms took full advantage of.
I blocked off my nostrils with a little focus on my Interface. A lot of corpses were old inside the disposal chamber. While they kept the bodies flooded with preservatives to prevent decomposition, they couldn¡¯t keep it at bay completely.
¡°Which one was this, Xylen?¡±
I looked back once I¡¯d placed the corpse properly. The back of Aliya¡¯s coat had split open, allowing her spiderlike mechanical limbs to curl around her and start operating on her subject corpse.
¡°Just a loan shark,¡± I said.
¡°You know I don¡¯t care about that,¡± Aliya said sharply. ¡°Name, profession, maybe family. That¡¯s it. Something to keep a record. Everything else is incriminating.¡±
I nodded remorsefully. ¡°Fair enough. I¡¯ll send the details to your Interface.¡±
Aliya¡¯s job was Aliya¡¯s because she could remain unconcerned with anyone¡¯s affiliation to anyone else. If a body was brought to the Morgue, it stayed in the Morgue. The Change-of-Heart Statute drawn up ages ago made sure bodies couldn¡¯t be pulled out, even if there had been some sort of mistake.
There had been legal challenges to such an ironclad law. A ruling from one of the lawsuits required Operators like Aliya to practice plausible deniability. She just had to keep the basic record of who was brought in. Anything else was unnecessary.
I looked around, noticing some of the other bodies I¡¯d brought in over the weeks and months were still here. The corrupt judge the loan shark had been talking about was lying halfway across the room. Aliya had plugged up the bullet holes with something. I wasn¡¯t sure what, but the holes themselves were still unmistakeable.
Always a little funny seeing the state of the dead in comparison to what the body had been like when alive.
Like comparing a majestic tree to the firewood it became.
¡°How many bodies does the Morgue eat?¡± I asked. ¡°Like, say, in half a year.¡±
She didn¡¯t look back, still busy with her corpse. ¡°Don¡¯t you know that already? Or are you just trying to make small talk to keep yourself awake?¡±
¡°Aren¡¯t you curious how the money plays out, Operator?¡±
Unlike most people, I didn¡¯t get paid to bring the bodies into the Morgue. Not directly, at least. Instead, the money went to the account controlled by Commissioner Gregor. Can¡¯t blame a guy for wanting to know what percentage of the cut he got for his work.
I¡¯d never discussed this with the Commissioner himself. He gave me a set number of credits, regardless of what the job entailed. He¡¯d probably give me the same amount even if the body of my target spontaneously combusted halfway to the Morgue. Commissioner Gregor was reliable that way.
But still. I was curious just how much of my payments were sourced from the returns that the Commissioner got from the Morgue.
¡°I¡¯m not curious, no,¡± Aliya said. ¡°I¡¯m happy with what I get.¡±
¡°Happy?¡± My smile turned sardonic. ¡°In Underlevel?¡±
She sighed. ¡°If you¡¯ve gotta be stuck someplace, best to try to be happy there, no?¡±
I grunted. She was right in a sense. Once you were in Underlevel, you don¡¯t really get to get out. It marked you. Stained you. Not just with the despair branded into that little flesh-and-blood nook of your brain that wasn¡¯t overrun with nanobots and cybernetics.
It marked your life. The people who could sniff out the Underlevel from your records would make sure it was known to everybody. They¡¯d judge you, mark you in turn. Shun you for it.
They¡¯d make sure everyone else did too.
¡°So,¡± I said. ¡°About the¡ª¡±
I was cut short when I received a sudden alert. An alarm back home had just gone off.
¡°I have to go.¡± I hurried away. ¡°I¡¯ll see you around, Operator.¡±
¡°Everything alright?¡±
Another alarm sounded through my Interface. They had breached the interior of the apartment. In basically no time too. Cold prickles popped up along my spine. Hounds after you already.
I shot Aliya a departing smile. ¡°Everything¡¯s just fine. Just something urgent has come up.¡±
As I turned around, I caught the look in her eyes. She clearly suspected something. But we didn¡¯t have time to address any of that. I didn¡¯t have time.
If they¡¯d done anything to Mutton¡
I sent another message off to the Commissioner as I got on my bike and rushed homewards.
X-18: Hounds came after me. Heard anything, Commissioner?
Still no reply to my original update. Gregor would get back to me anywhere between minutes to several hours after an update. He never left a message un-replied for over twelve hours, so this wasn¡¯t unusual. But for once, I wished he¡¯d hurry up and get back to me.
I¡¯d never received a level 2 alert like that. Wherever I established my home base, I¡¯d take the time to set up a security system around my place. Barebones, portable, but still pretty effective.
This security was in layers. Or, as I liked to call them in mockery of Silver City¡¯s structure, levels. Level 1 was the outside perimeter. Just outside my front door, the back door, and the windows. Level 2 was just inside those. The main indicator that someone besides was inside my home.
Level 3 was on Mutton himself. No alerts for that yet. It only activated if he was actually injured or otherwise severely distressed.
The wind was cold but relieving on my face as I accelerated my bike.
It took me a whole twenty minutes to get close to my own apartment. Each minute had gripped my heart like the tines of a rusty fork scratching on a blackboard. Pictures of Mutton kept replaying in my head. Dumb dog eating the treats, sniffing what he shouldn¡¯t.
I parked my bike well away from my apartment once I was close enough and took a back alley towards my home.
The hounds hadn¡¯t arrived by car, clearly. Or they had parked someplace else and had jogged to my apartment. The window on the east side was open. It was close to the fire escape, so I vaulted up, going fast but trying not to make too much noise.
Quiet. It was all too quiet. I knew what I¡¯d be doing if I was the aggressor here and my main target was missing.
Wait quietly to spring a trap.
Instead of heading to the back door that led to the fire escape, I leaned forward and jumped to the open window. My hands caught the windowsill and managed to hang on. A three-storey fall now would have been real bad.
I dragged myself up and into the dark interior of my apartment. The window was along my bathroom, and the bathroom door was ajar, opening into darkness. My motions had caused some scuffing noise here and there. Unavoidable. But hard to tell if the so-called hounds had heard me yet or not.
Keeping my body low but tense, I inched forward. The smell of death made me unconsciously send my Arclight drive into overdrive. But then, I got close enough to see the heat signatures in the dark. Two unmoving, a smaller one going from one prone figure to the other.
I froze, then sighed in relief. A quick step into my dining room revealed that Mutton was perfectly fine. Pretty sure the blood coating his paws wasn¡¯t even his.
As for the so-called hounds, they were both lying on the floor in growing pools of dark red, their throats torn open.
I looked around. ¡°You made a mess of the apartment, huh boy?¡±
Mutton woofed in greeting, lolling out a blood-soaked tongue when he saw me.
I righted an upended chair, then took a seat on it. ¡°Don¡¯t worry boy, I¡¯ll clean up the mess. But don¡¯t eat any more of them. Killers give your diarrhoea, remember?¡±
Leaning back, I took a moment to settle down. Mutton was fine. First priority taken care of. But that didn¡¯t mean everything was okay. I now had people who knew where I lived. People who were hunting me.
Another alert beeped off on my Interface, but this one had a note of familiarity.
¡°Got a job for you, X-18.¡±
A briefing from the Commissioner. What fantastic timing.
I ignored the briefing for now, then went straight to the comm line. If he was around to send me a briefing, he¡¯d no doubt be around to pick up a call.
Sure enough, it only took two rings before the Commissioner answered.
¡°X-18,¡± Commissioner Gregor said. There was the tiniest note of relief in his voice. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re safe.¡±
¡°¡you knew about it, then, Commissioner?¡±
¡°You¡¯ve survived this long because you¡¯re careful, X-18. Extremely so. If it were up to you and you alone, no one would ever find you.¡±
I was silent for a moment. A whole year of working together, and it had all led to this. ¡°Mind telling me, then, why you leaked my location to these hounds?¡±
Chapter 3: Turnover
¡°You haven¡¯t listened to the briefing yet, have you, X-18?¡± Commissioner Gregor asked.
¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°I decided to give you a call first. Looks like I was right to do so.¡±
¡°Maybe you should listen to the briefing, first. It¡¯s not long. I¡¯ll wait.¡±
I was almost tempted to make Gregor summarize it for me. After all, he was telling me it wasn¡¯t long. Couldn¡¯t be that hard to tell me the gist of it, then.
But my slowly rising anger wanted to see what the mission actually entailed. What the Commissioner could possibly have asked me to do after more or less betraying me to the very enemies we had both fought against for over a year.
He was right. It didn¡¯t take me long to listen to the whole thing. The anger was now reaching a feverish peak.
¡°You sold me out,¡± I said.
¡°I started the first step of your mission.¡± Commissioner Gregor¡¯s words had a bite to them now. Like I was an unruly kid and he was a teacher losing his patience. ¡°Because I needed the timing to work out correctly. You seem to be ignoring my main directive at the end of the mission, X-18. Survive.¡±
I was trying not to act out. Mutton could pick up when I was upset, and after what had just happened in my little apartment, I didn¡¯t want to distress the little guy any further.
But it was getting really hard not to slam my fist into the table.
¡°I got it, Commissioner,¡± I said. ¡°You need a distraction from whatever else you¡¯re cooking up. I¡¯m supposed to be that distraction. You assumed I would be on board, so you simply decided to leak my private information to our enemies. You just started the distraction part without giving me the time to prepare for it.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t tell me you really weren¡¯t ready for this. What did you think would happen after a year of assassinations?¡± He continued before I could retort. ¡°You¡¯re X-18. You¡¯re the war hero¡ªthe Juggernaut of Korkorrain. You¡¯re the only one who almost killed one of the Untouchables of Silver City. You¡¯re fucking Xylen Sears. If you¡¯re not ready, then no one is.¡±
I laughed softly. ¡°We both know that¡¯s not my real name.¡±
Gregor was silent for a while. I was glad for the little reprieve too, honestly. It was letting me get back my head. It was letting the anger dissipate just enough for me to think clearly.
Mutton came up and rubbed his furry head against my leg. I smiled, then rubbed under his chin just how he liked it.
¡°I have a dog, you know,¡± I said. ¡°I know I never mentioned, so you couldn¡¯t have known there¡¯d be anybody at my place when the hounds got here, but yeah. That¡¯s why I got angry.¡±
Another moment of silence. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, X-18. Is¡¡±
¡°He¡¯s fine. Mutton¡¯s a good boy. He ripped both hounds¡¯ throats out without taking a scratch. Although, he did rip through half my apartment to do so.¡±
Commissioner Gregor actually sighed in relief. ¡°You found yourself a good boy.¡±
Almost as though Mutton had heard, he yipped in agreement.
¡°I¡¯m not accepting the mission, Commissioner,¡± I said. ¡°But you knew that. That¡¯s why you set it in motion before informing me about it, so I¡¯d have no choice but to get it done, whether I want to or not.¡±
¡°As I said before, it¡¯s a matter of timing. The last stages are set in motion. We don¡¯t have a moment to waste.¡± Gregor sighed again. ¡°Maybe I should have trusted you more, brought you up to speed on the whole thing beforehand. But I trust you to do your job, X-18.¡±
¡°You trust me to make sure I live.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but scoff a little. ¡°What makes you think I won¡¯t just sell you out?¡±
¡°You can¡¯t.¡±
¡°Can¡¯t I? I¡¯m not totally unaware, you know. The precise methods of murder, the specific number of bullets, the fact that all the bodies all needed to be delivered to the Morgue¡ You¡¯ve got something planned, and it¡¯s big.¡±
¡°You can¡¯t, X-18, because you¡¯ve worked too hard for this to be giving up on it now. You¡¯ve put in way too much effort to throw it all away at the eleventh hour.¡±
¡°You have way too much faith in my appreciation for your plan, Commissioner. A plan I still don¡¯t really know the full extent of.¡±
¡°No. What I have faith in is the fact that you¡¯re a good man. Just like me.¡±
I got to my feet. Mutton whined a bit, but I patted his head to shush him. There was nothing for it. We needed to get moving. This home of ours was compromised.
¡°You took a lot of risks and sacrificed a great deal in the war,¡± Gregor continued. ¡°You made sure Silver City was victorious against its enemies. You believed you gave enough, that you wouldn¡¯t just be a hero during the war, but one when it was over too. Must have felt shitting awful when that turned out to be horse shit, huh?¡±
I started puttering about, picking up things I¡¯d need, packing up what I could carry without too much trouble. Hmm, I¡¯d have to leave a note to the landlord. Probably explain the bodies. ¡°Oh yeah, I¡¯m well familiar with the taste of betrayal,¡±
If the Commissioner heard any admonition in my voice at that, he didn¡¯t let on. ¡°The leaders of Silver City had no use for you now that the war was over. Your sacrifices meant nothing to them. You realized just what a rotten society you¡¯d been supporting all that while. That was the start of your radicalization.¡±
¡°Didn¡¯t realize I¡¯d radicalized myself.¡±
¡°No? What else do you call a terrorist?¡±
¡°A revolutionary?¡±
Commissioner Gregor laughed shortly. ¡°Two sides of the same coin, I suppose. But point is, you found out just how shit Silver City was, if you weren¡¯t rich and powerful and born to a family on the higher levels. So, with the help of your fellow revolutionaries, the war hero, the Juggernaut of Korkorrain, assaulted Level 3.¡±
¡°And like you said, I almost got it.¡±
I paused in my preparations, suddenly unable to pull out of my memories. Unable to get the taste of smoke and blood from my mouth. Unable to prevent my muscles from threatening to seize up.
This wasn¡¯t new. I knew this had been coming as soon as Gregor had started talking about the past.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Arclight fired through my veins and Augments. I could breathe again. Move again.
¡°You did,¡± the Commissioner said. ¡°You got farther than anyone. Where the rest of your little revolution failed, you nearly killed an Untouchable. The elites were shocked. Frightened. No one should have ever come that close. No one should have gotten away with it. Not after something like that.¡±
¡°And yet,¡± I whispered. ¡°I did get away.¡±
¡°You did. Amazingly, incredibly, you came out of that alive. Broken, barely alive, forced to go into hiding where no one would find you, but still. You did it. You died to the world¡ªthe Untouchables couldn¡¯t let anyone think you¡¯d gotten away, so they faked your death and announced it to everyone¡ªbut in reality, you survived.¡±
¡°Until now.¡±
I resumed. In moments, I was done, Mutton patiently waiting in place as I took care of everything. No leaving anything incriminating behind. No clues pointing to my whereabouts. No items of identification.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of traces of DNA I couldn¡¯t exfoliate fully. That would take me too long. But at least they wouldn¡¯t be too dangerous.
Plus, I made sure to remove all the Arclight stuff.
¡°How long?¡± I asked. Patient as ever, Commissioner Gregor was still on the call, even while I had been busy packing up. ¡°How long will they be hounding me? How long are you asking me to survive?¡±
¡°Depends on how long it takes¡ to complete the rest of the plan.¡± His tone changed. ¡°You know why I really want you to survive, X-18?¡±
I was tempted to tell him that if he really wanted me to survive, he would have discussed this whole crazy plan with me beforehand. Instead, I just asked, ¡°Why?¡±
¡°You know why dead men tell the best tales?¡±
¡°What?¡±
¡°It¡¯s because they¡¯re dead. You had several lives, X-18. A war hero in one life. A revolutionary in another. And now, an assassin in the gutters of Silver City. But the war hero died so the revolutionary could live, who in turn died to give birth to the assassin.¡±
I shook my head, still not getting it. ¡°Where are you going with this?¡±
¡°Right now, you can¡¯t change the past because your past versions died. No one will be convinced that some Underlevel killer is the Juggernaut of Korkorrain. But maybe, if you live after what¡¯s going to happen, you might have a chance to tell your whole story again, X-18.¡±
I didn¡¯t bother replying. We had talked enough. Now, I needed to get going and get out of here.
Was I being used? To my own detriment? Maybe? Most likely. But it wasn¡¯t going to stay that way for long. Not if I could help it.
¡°I¡¯ll talk with you later, Commissioner,¡± I said. ¡°If I survive.¡±
¡°Good luck, X-18.¡± At least Gregor had the grace to sound regretful. ¡°For what it¡¯s worth, I do have faith in you.¡±
I cut off the comm line. Gathered all my packed stuff in one place. Retrieved the carrier for Mutton. Took one last look at the place I had called home for over a year now. ¡°Let¡¯s go, boy.¡±
Mutton¡¯s low bark had a note of sorrow.
Of course, I didn¡¯t leave just like that. There was one last thing I needed to prepare.
My appearance.
If they could track me all the way to my home, then I had no idea what other sort of information they had about me. I had to scowl at that line of thought. What other sort of intel had been leaked about me?
Point was, I couldn¡¯t walk around the same way I had been doing for the last year. Which was where changing how I looked came in.
Discarding my usual long coat for a bomber jacket and wearing new boots were only the first of some superficial changes. The real difference came on my face. Thanks to my lower jaw having been ripped off and replaced by a cybernetic one, I could adopt a quick, patchwork blond beard. Spraying my hair the same colour and chopping off the excess wasn¡¯t hard either.
The best things to help were the changes in my posture. I had learned how to hunch my knees a little. I knew how to square my shoulder to really look different from normal.
All thanks to the revolutionaries Commissioner Gregor had so kindly brought up. You had to be quite unorthodox to survive as an instigator in Silver City.
I had debated whether I ought to take my bike as well when I was leaving. It could be known too. Checking for bugs had revealed nothing, especially after I used Arclight to make sure. But still. Moving faster wasn¡¯t going to help if I just led my foes to me.
Good thing I could carry all my shit and move both far and fast. Small pro of getting Augmented legs in the war.
Mutton woofed low from within his little cage as we got moving.
¡°Shh, boy, we don¡¯t want to draw any attention.¡± I fumbled around with one of the packs. ¡°Here, munach on a treat.¡±
Mutton started happily nibbling on his favourite candy.
We reached the safe house about an hour later. I¡¯d prepped some safe houses for this exact scenario over the last year in Underlevel. Little out-of-the-way places I could shelter at if my real home ever got compromised.
Not exactly the most ostentatious of living quarters, but refugees couldn¡¯t be choosers.
¡°Stay here,¡± I told Mutton. ¡°I¡¯ll be back, alright? Just keep an eye out and get out if things become troublesome, okay?¡±
The safe house was nothing more than a shed-sized room in a dingy building far away from my original apartment. The landlord didn¡¯t care whether anyone was actually living there or not, so long as he got paid, which I made sure to keep up in a timely manner. I also kept the place stocked with provisions in case of emergencies. Mutton had better appreciate that.
By the time I went out, dawn was well on its way. The streets of Underlevel took on a golden-brown tint as the morning light slowly rose.
It was an effect of Silver City. Underlevel was the lowest rung of the city, surrounded and hemmed in by the massive spires that stretched skywards. The way the sunlight reflected and refracted through the panes on the towers and the bridges always cast a chromatic shadow all over Underlevel. A shadow that made everything look a little too sepia for my tastes.
The colour was far from the only dreary thing about them. With the presence of light, the first of the Zombies were crawling out of the gutters.
They were rousing from their blankets and from the little shaded spots they slept in, looking hungry, destitute, malnourished. Looking dead, except they weren¡¯t. Not yet. Desiccated skin and spindly limbs though they might sport, but their existence wasn¡¯t going to be tamped out just yet.
I could never tell if it was brave that they persevered in life, or foolish. They had nothing to look forward to. Addicts, beggars, amputees selling off pieces of their own body just to exist for another day. I¡ probably wouldn¡¯t have survived a day in that state.
The rest of Underlevel passed me by in a blur.
Ever-weary people stuffing themselves into the train-elevators to be carried to their meagre jobs on the higher Levels of Silver City.
Carts pulled by kids dragging the dead to the Morgues.
A pack of dogs fighting over a corpse, before some plucky brat doused them with water then ran off with what remained of the body. Probably headed to a Morgue too. Although, I did catch him twisting off a few of the corpse¡¯s fingers and pocketing them for his own use.
¡°Hey!¡± A boy ran up to me. He couldn¡¯t have been more than eleven. ¡°Hey, Mister! You happened to see this cobber?¡±
He showed me a crude sketch on a paper. I blinked. That¡ was me. A terrible rendition, because I looked way too much of a robot pretending to be a person by wearing a gigantic coat, but I of all people could note the similarities.
¡°Nope,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen anybody like that. Where¡¯d you get that, kijo, and who¡¯s it supposed to be?¡±
¡°Enforcers are looking for him. Said they¡¯d give ten Arclight drives to anybody who comes up with reliable info.¡±
Shit. They had already taken it to that level of a manhunt? I thought it was just the crime lords of Underlevel starting to put a bounty on my head. But now, the Enforcers were involved too, according to this kid.
My mouth soured. Of course. Of course. If the Commissioner wanted a distraction¡ª
Arclight buzzed in alarm. Someone was shooting. I dived just in time, shouting at the kid, but even that was too late. A glowing, fritzing blue shot struck the ground where I had stood an instant ago.
The whole place erupted. I was sent flying by the impact, the shockwave destroying the entire area, dust clouding everything as debris rained in blue hellfire.
My Arclight shield had saved me from the worse of the blast, although my skin still burned and my Interface was showing no small a number of warnings. But I ignored them for the moment, rising quickly out of the debris before moving off. There¡¯d be more shots coming as soon as they were charged. I had to move.
A comm lined dinged in my Interface. Aliya?
¡°Do you know something about this?¡± I asked as soon as I picked up.
¡°Oh, so they are after you,¡± she said. ¡°Figured as much.¡±
¡°They just killed a kid in broad daylight, Aliya. Check the newscasts. They¡¯ll be reporting the blast any second now.¡±
¡°Sorry. I thought I was going to be fast enough to warn you, but it looks like they got to you before I did.¡±
I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask just then, but my first priority was getting to safety. Questions could come later. But Aliya¡¯s call had reminded me about my get-out-of-jail-free card. Which, considering the kind of foes I was now facing, I might just need a lot.
¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± I said. ¡°You can help me get out of this mess, because I¡¯ve got a plan.¡±
Chapter4: Assassin
It was a little hard not to curse myself as I sneaked out through the smoke and debris.
I knew why I¡¯d gotten caught. For all the things I¡¯d attempted to take care of before leaving my home, I¡¯d overlooked one little detail. My Arclight.
It was the only reason I could think of. My appearance was different, Mutton wasn¡¯t with me, and I had no other visual identifiers that my assassination targets might have somehow sent to the group that was now after me. It was also hard to believe the crime lords would be cooperating with whoever the Untouchables had sent. They tended to hate each other¡¯s guts.
But considering I was likely being hunted by professionals, there was no doubt they¡¯d try to check for Arclight signatures.
Of course, as soon as I had realized that, I had rectified the issue. Diffusing my Arclight stores, I sent out pulses around me to further scramble any attempts to pinpoint Arclight signatures by any scanners. The process was not dissimilar from when I had cut off the loan shark¡¯s comms.
¡°You still there, Operator?¡± I sent through the comms.
¡°I¡¯m working on it,¡± Aliya said. ¡°Give me a second.¡±
I had given her a small job to help me with my current quandary. One of the problems with being the target yourself is that you couldn¡¯t take the kinds of countermeasures that would be most efficient.
Ideally, I¡¯d be hacking into the local security systems to try to pinpoint my attacker in turn. But for now, I had been forced to hide.
So instead, I set Aliya on the job.
Not that I was depending on her alone. The dust and smoke were clearing, though the fire from the explosion still raged high. I winced, thinking about the kijo I¡¯d been talking with. But no time to be distracted.
My assailant had no way of confirming that I was dead or alive. Visual confirmation was impossible in the aftermath of the explosion. Heat signatures? Forget it. Plus, with me diffusing my Arclight, that avenue was gone too. Basically, my would-be killer¡ªor killers¡ªhad screwed themselves over.
So, they¡¯d either wait for better visuals, or they¡¯d come to the ground to check it out for themselves.
If there were more than one of them, I could see them going for the latter. One to check the street in person, while the other covered the first from a vantage point. Not the original location from where they had fired. A different one, because the first was now compromised.
That they¡¯d shot from higher up was a given. I¡¯d have done the same in their shoes.
Regardless of which option they went with, there would most likely be at least one assailant still at some point far above me. That was what I needed to take advantage of.
Sirens were booming in the distance. The Enforcers were no doubt coming hard and fast, along with other emergency services. There weren¡¯t that many locals about. Most workers had gone on to higher levels for their jobs. But those that were here were still panicking.
I moved along the alley, squeezed between a few buildings, then came to a gate that opened onto the main road. Now I had a better visual of the surroundings.
Identifying the buildings most likely containing the assailants wasn¡¯t difficult. It had to be the one that not only had an accessible roof, but also one that had other, shorter buildings around as a secondary means of getaway instead of just using the stairs. But that would likely be the original location from where the shot had come.
The second spot, where the other assassin was likely covering everything, would be somewhat more innocuous.
I drove a pinch of Arclight into my eyes. Twelve times zoom was really handy for checking every window and balcony in the neighbourhood.
Sadly, quite a few were covered by smoke. Plus, some of them had the locals sticking their heads out, trying to see what the commotion was. A few of them had come down to street level, checking things out in person. I pressed my lips together.
One of them was no doubt the assassin.
¡°I¡¯m in,¡± Aliya said. ¡°Want me to send you the feed?¡±
¡°Yeah. Did it really take you that long to hack into the local security?¡±
¡°You¡¯re lucky it didn¡¯t take me longer. Unlike you, I don¡¯t make a habit of hacking into anything.¡±
I supposed she had me there. The feed arrived a second later, and I navigated to it through my Interface.
It was a list of all the security cameras and sensors Aliya had been able to get access to on short notice. There were more than I had anticipated. I had to wonder if she had been manually trying to hack into them one by one, which would explain why it had taken her a few minutes instead of a few dozen seconds.
They were old, which would make hacking them easy. But the fact they were old also meant they were unlikely to be in one, unified system, which would make hacking them tedious. Shitting corpos always cutting corners.
I went through all the feeds as fast as I could. They allowed me to see past the smoke and fires, check out spots that were obscured to me from my limited point of view but still had a good overview of where I had almost been hit.
And I finally found the assassin.
One of them, at least. Some of the sensors were Arclight sensors, meant to report any flashes and bursts of Arclight. As already stated, they were old, so they¡¯d never be able to sense Arclight carried within an Augmented human like me. But externals were a different matter.
Clearly, my would-be killers weren¡¯t at all worried about being spotted. The man I¡¯d found on a balcony had a canister full of bullets next to him, all brimming fit to bursting with Arclight. He even looked the part of a professional killer. Sleek pants, tight jacket, eyes covered with shades.
¡°I¡¯m sending you a specific feed channel,¡± I told Aliya. ¡°Keep an eye on our friend while I make my way over.¡±
I could have kept an eye on him myself. It would be easy to relegate the viewing feed to one corner of my sight using the Interface, while the rest of my focus remained on navigating to my target.
But I wanted to use that space to see if there were any other assailants on ground level, so I left it to Aliya.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
¡°You¡¯re dragging me too deep into this¡¡± she said.
¡°I¡¯ll make it up to you if I get out alive.¡±
My target was on the other side of the area. The explosion had occurred at a T-junction. I¡¯d have to travel along the main road to get to my attempted killer. That was, if I was suicidal.
Which I wasn¡¯t, so I tried to sneak around and find a hidden alley instead.
I was successful. I was also spotted by someone making her way over to the explosion site. She only glanced at me before moving on. I wasn¡¯t that interesting.
My heart thudded harder as I got closer to my target. The feeds I was reviewing didn¡¯t reveal anyone on the ground who looked even remotely like the target I had spotted. A bad feeling ricocheted through my head. The second¡ªor more¡ªassassin would pop up just when it would be least convenient.
Which was what probably had my heart racing a bit. For over a year, my targets were all these dumb crooks who couldn¡¯t hold a candle to me even if they had wanted to.
Now, I was against actual pros. It gave me the same exhilarating feeling as when I was on a battlefield.
The same feeling that had led me to the moniker of Juggernaut.
I found a tucked away fire escape near my target¡¯s building and climbed as fast as I could. His attention was still focused on the explosion¡¯s aftermath.
My feed revealed the Enforcers had arrived, bringing with them an old-fashioned fire truck that was dousing the flames. The uniformed Enforcers were taking statements from everybody, and I wondered if one of them was after me.
Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t get an angle to take out my killer from on high. I¡¯d have to manoeuvre around.
So, I got onto the roof using the fire escape. It was sloped, not a flat surface that could have been used as a setup for long-distance sniping. Regardless, I shimmied my way across it until I finally saw my target.
Or, where he should have been. Asshole was now gone.
¡°He only just went inside,¡± Aliya said. ¡°Not far from his original location. But I¡¯m losing track of him, fast.¡±
Of course, the feed she was viewing probably wouldn¡¯t be able to see that far into the building. I needed to act. Now.
The bullets burst out of the side of my target¡¯s building without warning. Instinctive use of Arclight was all that saved me. The mag-shield came to life, ripping the momentum away from the shots and freezing them in front of me.
What an ass. He must have spotted me and immediately fired. Didn¡¯t matter there was solid concrete between him and his target. His ammunition apparently didn¡¯t care.
I really wanted to think it was my turn to shoot back. Commissioner Gregor hadn¡¯t given me bullet limits this time. I had packed as much ammo as I could store in my holsters, and now it was time to use them.
Or it would have been had my asshole of an opponent allowed any openings. I could get shots off from behind my mag-shield but the storm of bullets from my assassin would simply act like a shield against anything I fired too.
So instead, I pushed a significant amount of Arclight into my legs. The hexes came to life, glowing with burgeoning power.
Then I jumped and fell through the building.
I hadn¡¯t increased my weight with Arclight. Simply the impact power in my legs. It would allow me to move fast. In this scenario, it would also let me crash through the roof to the floor beneath, then the floor underneath, and so on until I reached a floor that was no longer suffering a hail of concrete-piercing bullets.
It was at that floor that I heard someone screaming. Like I had said, most people were either out of the building or away at work. But not everybody. Hopefully, the poor guy hadn¡¯t gotten hurt.
I hadn¡¯t turned off the Arclight in my legs. Just paused it so I didn¡¯t keep crashing through the floors. When I repowered it again, I burst through the wall horizontally this time, exploding into the building my target was on.
Alright, I was in. Now to actually reach my would-be killer.
I brushed the dust and dirt off me. Then I raised my arm high. Nice thing about Arclight was that it could be modified into various frequencies and densities. This time, I modified it into a single powerful and penetrative pulse. Before I could second guess myself about whether my target was even on the building still and if any innocents were in the way, I fired.
The top half of the building basically erupted. Despite the smoke and the crashing debris and the detonating sounds all around me, I didn¡¯t dare lower my sensitivity via the Interface. I needed everything I had to take down the government goons I was facing.
Speaking of which, said hunter fell to my floor with basically no scratch at all. He was dressed in a shiny coat, an Arclight shock baton in one hand and handgun in the other. A Boltstride 88A. if I died here, at least I¡¯d be dying to top-of-the-line weaponry.
¡°Neat trick,¡± the assassin said. ¡°I can see why they call you the Juggernaut.¡±
A little jolt rushed up my spine. It was the first time I had been addressed by that moniker by anyone other than Commissioner Gregor in almost two years.
¡°You¡ª¡±
¡°Sorry, not interested in convo.¡± The assassin attacked. ¡°Die.¡±
Arclight had a lot of strange properties that different tech and people could take advantage of. In this case, my assailant was apparently appearing and disappearing at will.
I couldn¡¯t detect what exactly he was doing. Probably some new tech developed on the higher levels. A secret one I hadn¡¯t been told about. That was fine. My mag-shield was blocking the shots from his handgun no matter which direction he fired them from. Which meant he¡¯d try to get at me melee-style.
That¡¯s when my advanced Arclight technique kicked in. Condensing Arclight into tiny needle threads, then holding it, holding it, holding it, until¡ª
The assassin closed in with his shock baton raised, but my needle threads lashed out. They made the very air sizzle with burning strength, like the crackle of lightning. The assassin fell back with a cry. Oh, yes. It felt good to exercise my real power once in a while.
I had landed a strong blow against my adversary. Most of his coat was vaporized, burnt skin oozing blood and oily fluids at several spots. He was far from done, though.
¡°And here I thought you could take down the mythical Juggernaut by my lonesome.¡± The assassin tutted, his shades glinting. ¡°For a dead guy, you¡¯re more of a handful than I thought. But that¡¯s alright. You won¡¯t be around for much longer.¡±
I cricked my neck. He was right. Our fight had lasted merely a minute or so, but it had no doubt already gotten everybody¡¯s attention. More importantly, it must have dragged in all his colleagues¡¯ attention.
Not that I needed to worry about any of that.
¡°See, you¡¯re forgetting something, pal,¡± I said. ¡°You forgot where you are.¡±
I bull-rushed him. The same way I had pushed extra power using Arclight into my legs came into play here, sending me bursting towards my target. He tried to dodge, but one outstretched arm was enough to catch him¡ªthanks to our previous interaction having fried some of his Augments¡ªand then we went tumbling over the side of the ruined building.
¡°Where¡ª¡±
¡°This is Underlevel, asshole.¡±
Our collision had snapped the shock baton out of his grip, but the assassin¡¯s hands were reaching for me. Hands peppered with little spikes protruding from the palm and fingertips.
But they failed to reach me when our plummet ended as we struck the roof of the train elevator.
Of course, an Augmented body would survive even a multi-storey fall like that. The whole train elevator shook, panicked shouts of people from within serenading my assailant¡¯s curses. But the elevator didn¡¯t stop moving. Why would it? If even half the occupants reached their destination alive, that was good enough for the Untouchables on higher levels.
¡°You¡¯re a dead man,¡± the assassin shouted. I was trying to reach his head with my own needle-palmed grip while keeping him grappled to the floor. ¡°You should stay dead!¡±
¡°I¡¯m tired of being dead.¡±
¡°Then why¡¯d you have to come alive, huh?¡±
We couldn¡¯t do much more than grunt and wrestle against each other. Both of our Arclight was going haywire as we both continuously sent out interrupting pulses. The elevator continued shaking as it travelled on its tracks, the air sizzling with power and pounding with the panicked shouts.
A rough grapple later, the assassin had flipped us just enough so that he now had my arm in a tight lock. ¡°So this is all that the Juggernaut¡¯s got, huh?¡± The needles on his hand stabbed into the skin of my trapped arm. ¡°Pathetic.¡±
It was then I realized that upper level tech had developed enough to send Arclight into any part of the body and affect it. Unlike my ability, where I needed to inject it into directly into the brain.
¡°Well, nothing for it, then,¡± I said.
¡°What?¡±
I had already cut off the Arclight connections between my trapped arm and the rest of my body. Whatever poison the assassin was injecting wasn¡¯t going to affect the rest of me. Which meant my arm was no longer useful.
So, I blew it up.
It took less than a millisecond to initiate the self-detonation via a mental command. I didn¡¯t even need my Interface. Gave me all the time to see the shock on the assassin¡¯s face, hear his scream for the briefest instant, before we were both sent flying in opposite directions off the train elevator¡¯s roof.
My only regret as my burning body fell back to street level was that we¡¯d fallen on opposite sides. It was going to be a pain to find my would-be killers brain.