Matthew S. Cox's Blog, page 30

Release Date Updates

Curiosity Quills has just informed me of the release schedule for 2014. Several of my titles will be coming out over the course of the year, including the first two titles in the Division Zero series as well as the first Awakened title. Also, Virtual Immortality and Caller 107 (whispers: the non-sci fi one) are due as well.

Release Calendar:

Division Zero
3/7/2014


Caller 107
5/19/2014


Virtual Immortality
7/22/2014


Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis
9/8/2014


Prophet of the Badlands: The Awakened Book 1
11/3/2014

Divergent Fate #24

Distant thrumming lulled Risa into a state of restful calm. Neither awake nor asleep, she peered out from her nest of scrap cloth. Light from Garrison’s office created a pattern of lines on the metal two feet away. Coarse fabric and smooth steel engulfed her; the ballistic stealth armor made for a serviceable, but squishy pillow. As scary as it was to be out of it, her skin needed to breathe when she slept. The ductwork provided the security of an old, familiar home.

Warm air drifted through the shaft, adding to the forces preventing her from moving. It had been so long since sleep had come without the tax of awful dreams; she wanted to eke out a little more. Her cybernetic eyes were in sleep mode, providing no heads-up display. It was anyone’s guess what time it was. She tucked her arm under her head, squeezing herself into a tighter ball.

A man’s face appeared in the slats. “Sir, I thought I heard something move.”

Her world turned red as a portable light found her closed eyes. She opened them; two points of violet peering out of a tangled mass of debris.

“You got a big ass rat in your vent,” said a man.

“It’s just me.”

Despite the fatigue in her voice, the man jumped at hearing her. He fell out of sight amid the clatter of a flashlight rolling away.

“Calm down, Kendrick. It’s Risa,” said Garrison.

Boots squeaked on the floor. “What the hell is she in there for? We have barracks.”

Garrison moved past the vent, retrieving the light. “Don’t worry about it.”

She sat up in a shaft just tall enough to permit it. After a stretch, she unrolled the flexible armor and wriggled into it. Risa stared into space, shivering at the thought of sleeping out in the open. She curled up again, wrapping her arms around her legs. Spending a night in a dingy hotel was bad enough; she would never be able to shut her eyes in the barracks room. After fastening the suit closed up to her jawline, she put on her boots and weapon harness. By the time she emerged from the duct, the two men had finished discussing a small hit-and-run raid on an ACC supply shipment.

Garrison dismissed Kendrick, shaking his head at her as she put the vent cover back. “I was wondering when you would check in. Is everything alright?”

She went to him, studying the floor. “Fine, why?”

“You usually sleep way off in the middle of deep, dark nowhere.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re in my vent like a stray cat looking for a home but afraid to come inside.”

“Up here”―she tapped her head―“I know the barracks are safe, but I can’t. The fire…” She looked up at him, great running cracks split the walls of her stoicism. “I’m tired of being hunted.”

“They’ll never find you.” He gave her a brief fatherly hug and patted her before gesturing at his terminal. “You’ll be fine. There’s no one on Mars good enough to catch you. Heck, they can’t even find this―”

Risa put a finger on his mouth. “Don’t say it.”

He tugged her arm down, grinning. “Superstitious?”

She gave him a flat look. “I talk to an angel, don’t I?” The face he made brought her to scowling. “I know it sounds crazy, but if it was all in my head, how could he tell me things I have no way to already know?”

Garrison poked the screen as she sat on the edge of his desk. “I don’t know. How did it go with Murasame?”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought I’m Cat-6 myself. Some of the things Raziel has told me have been true and there’s no way I could have had any of it buried in my subconscious. The warning I got with Tamashī, how do you explain that?” She helped herself to his lukewarm coffee. “Fine. He’s interested in helping us, but wants us to stop action against UCF targets for the interim.”

One eyebrow went up. “Backlash?”

“He is afraid his situation on Earth may deteriorate if he is connected to us.” She stared at the cup for a moment of silence. “Dad?”

He looked at her, speechless.

“Do you think if we got the ACC off Mars, we could be rid of the UCF with politics?”

The chair groaned as Garrison let his weight fall into it. He continued looking at her.

Risa lifted her head and met his stare. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called you that a long time ago.”

Garrison lifted his eyebrow. “You wouldn’t just be trying to make me feel guilty about sending my daughter off on dangerous missions, would you?” He winked.

She bit her lower lip. “Maybe a little. What am I blowing up this time?”

Shock lasted only as long as it took him to realize the email from Denmark was two feet to her left on his terminal; he laughed. “A few miles southwest of Secundus lies a mostly abandoned military installation.” Garrison raised his hand. “I know what you’re going to say. This won’t bother Murasame. We have it on good authority that they are using this installation to house a dedicated unit with the express purpose of coming after us.”

Risa gasped. “Secundus is one of the oldest cities on Mars, it’s all underground. There’s almost nothing there anymore but slums and brothels.”

“We have to knock that facility out. Some of the intelligence I’ve seen indicates that some of the people involved with ordering your father’s death are there.”

Her posture collapsed into that of the broken doll. “What’s the plan?”

Divergent Fate #23

Risa could not get comfortable. The cloth clung to her body as though she had been dipped up to the armpits in dark blue paint. Patches of pale skin showed between the ankle-long leggings and gloss black flats. The snug fit was not what bothered her, having long ago gotten used to the feel of her armor. It was the lack of protection made worse by leaving her weapons behind.

The driver glanced over his shoulder through the two-inch thick barrier. The way he kept looking at her made her appreciate the bullet-resistant partition even more. Few cabbies were as dangerous as they appeared; Elysium City was cruel to those who looked weak. Still, her current attire left little to the imagination. At least her armor was thick enough to obscure certain curves, this, not so much.

She fidgeted at the small fake sapphire set near her right armpit. It popped open with a click to reveal a standard M3 connector on the end of a micro-thin wire. The plug went into the socket behind her right ear as the cab pulled to the side of the street. Her NetMini chimed as she waved it past the reader to pay the fare.

Outside, she sighed in her mind at the façade of the Crimson Rose. Shiro had chosen the place for their meeting, figuring it as close to high end as one could get before verging on pretentious. One doesn’t stay rich by wasting credits. A synapse fired; intent carried down the wire to the processor in the false gem. The garment rippled and she brought her feet together. The fabric adhered on contact, changing from tight leggings to flowing skirt as it shrank up to just above her knees.

With a frown at the people hovering around the door, she lifted one foot and pushed a button on the toe. A heel strut popped out of the sole. Adjusting to the sense of walking like that, she entered the lobby and approached a man behind a podium.

“Can I help you, miss?”

A dozen micro-corrections per second rippled the muscles of her legs as she worked not to fall over. I’ve spent more time crawling than walking on heels. “Yes. Can you tell me if Shiro Murasame is here yet? He’s expecting me.”

A faint panel of light appeared over the podium, black text unreadable from the back. The man studied it for a moment, and extended his right arm to the side.

She walked around into the dining room, greeted by a fist-sized orb droid. The front lens flickered white and it wobbled with delight before spinning and gliding away at a walking pace. The designers of combat neuralware probably never imagined it would be used to keep a first-time high-heeled shoe wearer looking elegant, but it worked.

The orb led her to a table occupied by a Japanese man dressed in a suit. Every article of clothing he wore from shoes to tie was pure white. Green eyes sized her up as her own violet ones flipped through alternate scan modes. Metallurgical revealed some blurriness in his arms and skull, fainter in the legs. Not the usual fine detail the scanner usually revealed about cyberware. The mystery brought a smile to the corner of her mouth.

“Murasame Shiro. I am honored to meet you.” She bowed.

He moved from his seat, standing with an elegant flair as he stood as if to help her into a chair. “It is quite alright, Miss Black. I am not a native speaker myself. I do not see much point in us both using Japanese language chips.”

She sat, smiling at the white-lacquered katana scabbard leaning on the table. Synthetic rubber grips simulated the pattern of a traditional braided handle. “I thought that was a stereotype.”

“It is,” he said, turning to attract the attention of a waiter. “I decided to run with it. Throws people off. You seem uncomfortable.”

Every other woman in the room sat with her legs crossed; Risa adopt a similar posture not to stand out. A tiny trace of motion at his eye told her he had noticed her squirming. She frowned, picking at the dress around her hip. “I’m fine. It’s been a few years since I’ve worn underwear. Not used to the feeling.”

Shiro’s face reddened in a valiant effort not to cough sake all over the table. When he could again breathe, he forced a smile. One tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “I see we both study the art of keeping others off balance.”

“Sorry, I’m not much of a negotiator.”

The waiter arrived, took their orders, and left.

“I find it pleasant on Mars, Miss Black. There are very few dolls to take jobs away from humans. It’s nice to deal with people. We are not negotiating. I am sympathetic to your cause, but wanted to learn more about what it is you do. How committed are your people to harming the ACC or the UCF?”

She studied the pattern in the tablecloth, white like his suit. “We take no pleasure in harming anyone. Our goal is independence from both Earth governments. Our allies had spent almost twenty years attempting it through peaceful means, but you know how politicians are. Unless blood spills, they ignore it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, pausing for the waiter to drop off their food. “Someone close to you was hurt; I can see it in your eyes.”

Fork stabbed fish. “My father.” Her right shoe slipped from her heel, dangling on her toes. “I was seven or eight, I don’t really remember.”

“I offer my condolences. How did he get caught up in the Martian independence issue?”

Risa made a one-shoulder shrug. The wire rubbed across her bare skin. “I still don’t know. He was a colonel in the UCF military. Other soldiers kicked in the door and killed him. We found out that he wanted Mars to be free, and they killed him for it.”

Shiro finished a mouthful of shrimp, dabbing a napkin to his mouth. “Curious that you spend most of your time in UCF territory then.”

“ACC cities are more like prison camps. It’s miserable to live there.”

He made an appraising face. “That would explain why your people attack them more frequently. I suppose it’s bad politics to soil one’s own bed.”

“I―she uncrossed her legs, tired of the strange position―“I don’ t doubt for one second that Mars deserves to be her own world, but I’m not so sure that killing people helps us.”

“So, the infamous Risa Black has a soft spot in the middle?” He plucked a shrimp from his plate. “Again, you keep me off balance.”

She shifted in the chair. “You requested a meeting, in person, with me. Sounds like you’re pretty interested in my soft spot.”

Shiro clamped the napkin over his mouth to keep his food from spraying. Once he gathered his composure, he gestured. “You are not one to mince words. That is a trait I find most admirable. I am willing to offer my support, however I have one small request.”

“Not happening. I’m not a pro―”

“No.” He met her withering stare without fear. “I would never insult you in such a manner.” Joviality returned to his face. “What I ask is that your efforts remain focused on the ACC for the time being. I have numerous business interests in the UCF, and if word got out I am entertaining an affiliation with your people―it would be ruinous. I need to see how well your group can keep secrets.”

Risa thought of Raziel. The angel. The keeper of secrets. A wide smile spread across her face as her appetite returned. “No one will know.”

Divergent Fate #22

 

Navigating the dark had become something of a second nature to Risa. The vast system of air ducts, fans, filter stations, and seemingly purposeless chambers afforded her both a home as well as a path to anywhere she needed to be in Primus City. As with most times she found herself crawling through the dark, her idle mind dwelled on the cloud of flames that devoured her father’s face.

Her hands flashed into her field of view in a rhythmic back and forth, the entire world rendered in various shades of monochromatic green. She wondered where her real eyes had ended up. Did someone needy get them? Of course not, the monetary value of a seventeen-year-old’s eyes guaranteed they’d go to some rich bastard with macular degeneration, or just someone that wanted… She paused, one hand on a band of metal creating a ladder down. Risa couldn’t remember what color her natural eyes had been. A strange mournful sadness crept over her, soon flushed away with anger.

Normal eyes can’t see in the dark. If I didn’t do it, I’d be dead by now. She climbed down, steeping in her own fury at the soldiers who killed her father, more so the person who ordered it. Even Garrison couldn’t find out who it was. Raziel could, of that she had no doubt. However, for reasons she could not determine, he had thus far been unwilling to.

The fragrance of food drifted by on a breeze that stank of metal and dust; smells she no longer much noticed until something else altered the taste of her breaths. An air handler halted her progress long enough for her to pound the emergency maintenance button. When the enormous fan came to a halt, she hit the button again to extend the timer and shimmied through a gap in the blades.

Ten meters later, she stopped again, this time listening. To her right, silence. From straight ahead came the din of a restaurant: the clank of a plate, click of a utensil, random snippets of conversation, and a distant crowd. A grunt from the right broke the quiet. She smiled when the sound became the unmistakable churn of an energetic bowel evacuation. Sure enough, the first vent led to the men’s room. She crawled past it to the next one.

Once the space below was empty, Risa pulled back the grating, slipped through the hole, and dangled on her fingertips for a few seconds before dropping to the ground. She swatted dust from her coat until it was once again brown.

In the dining area, Garrison sat with his back to the wall at the far corner. The eatery was part of a shopping concourse, a simple design consisting of a one-room rectangle open at the distant side. At just past noon, a steady mass of people moved in both directions and the occasional squawk of a small child or shout of a security officer broke through the sound of civilization.

She played the usual game, moving slow and blending into the surroundings. Whenever she met Garrison outside of the nest, it was the same game. How close could she get before he saw her? Of course, she did not use any tricks other than pace. Startling him could prove painful. He still jumped when he caught sight of her. The old accusing smirk he used every time still made her want to laugh.

“I didn’t see you come in.”

Risa sat in the other chair against the wall; he had chosen a corner table. “I used the back door.”

He released the grip of a weapon under his coat and slid his hand over the table to hers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you more direct support on that mine run. General Maris doesn’t like to piss in the coffee of independent companies. We’re going to need their backing someday. I got it for not stopping you.”

She squeezed his hand. “We’re not trying to re-create the ACC. Independent or not, they were treating their workers like slaves. That isn’t the Mars we want. Fuck the general and fuck―”

“Hi, Miss. Can I get you something?” A woman in a plain black garment, a turtleneck long enough to be a dress, and silver leggings smiled.

She’s my age. Would that be me if things were different? Risa’s mouth opened, though all she managed was a trapped stare.

“Ji Mei Fun, please. Vat-grown meat.” Garrison patted Risa’s hand. “On me. I can’t make my daughter pay for her own food.”

The waitress smiled, nodded, and wandered off tapping something into a device on a bracelet. Risa let her head forward, hiding behind her hair.

“I know you’ve got a thing about that but…” He leaned in, whispering. “I’m not trying to replace him, just be there for you.”

One tear rolled over her right cheek. She could stop it by thinking about something that would make her angry, but she didn’t bother. Her voice came weak, barely as loud as an electronic recording of a ghost. “You found me when I was little. I should think of you like a father, but…” You’re the reason I’m involved with the MLF. If my real father was still alive, I’d be happy. I wouldn’t be killing people. I’m no better than they are.

“I don’t like that look in your eyes, Risa. I’ll find out who killed him.”

She exhaled, wiping her face and fixing her hair. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. How much of me is left? My fingers are weapons, I have wires all through me, my eyes are fake.”

“Even your father is fake?” he asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

“No…”

“I honestly can’t say where you would be if I never found you. Sure, you can blame me for getting you neck deep in the Front, but… That normal, happy life you deserve is waiting for us at the end of a difficult road.”

They both got quiet as the server returned with a plate of fine white noodles interspersed with strips of chicken, peas, and chopped scallions. She also dropped off a cup of hot tea. Risa gathered a clump on chopsticks before studying it and putting it in her mouth. She chewed, staring at silver dragons wrapped around the black lacquer utensils.

“Pavo told me about the bad wiring. You should’ve said something. I thought that”―he waved his hand in a circle―“weird posture thing you did was just to be creepy.”

“It is,” she said through a mouthful. “I prefer it when they run away.” She lowered the chopsticks, staring off at the crowd outside. “When I kill people, it makes me no better than the bastards that destroyed my life.”

“We need your help again. I promise there’s no killing needed.” Garrison smiled. “Just need you to meet someone for dinner.”

“Why me? There’s a dozen women in the nest.”

“They all look like soldiers, most have the scars to prove it. The ones that don’t are too young.”

“Oh, like I’m some kind of old maid. I don’t even think I’m twenty-five yet.”

“You’re pretty, you’re capable, and almost no one can connect your face to the MLF.”

“No, just my eyes,” she said, taking another bite. “Skinny chick with violet eyes doesn’t stand out, not at all.”

“Bah, not as much as you think you do. The MDF caught a ton of shit for detaining people based on that. They clipped Senator Undine’s mistress a few months ago. Come to think of it, she does kind of resemble you… in ten years.”

“Hah.” Risa laughed. “Bet that went over well.”

“Yeah it caused a bit of a hassle. Look, I need you to meet with this man. He’s a heavy hitter from Earth. Owns a respectable investment firm and is on the board of directors for another, larger one.”

Garrison pushed a datapad across the table. On it, the image of a Japanese man stood in six inch hologram. White shirt, white tie, white leather coat, and of course―white shoes. Risa smirked at him.

“How old is he? I can’t tell.”

“According to our intel, twenty eight.”

“So you’re pimping me out?” She winked.

Garrison leaned back, raising his hands. “I don’t want to know anything about anything in that respect. You’re not expected to do anything other than meet with him. He is sympathetic to our cause and looking for a way to help us out financially. Nothing of this exchange can leak.” He pointed at the little figure. “He can finance us. He can influence people on Earth―”

Risa scoffed.

“Hey. I don’t know what kind of frontier cowgirl world you’re living in, but cutting the umbilical binding Mars to Earth is going to take more than six inch Nano-claws. We need help, even if it means accepting it from someone from Earth. Not everyone down there thinks they deserve to own us.”

“No,” she mumbled. “Only the bastards in power. So what’s this tool’s name?”

“Shiro Murasame.”

Prophet Hon. Mention

Some time ago (I think around August 2013) I became aware of the Writers of the Future contest as a result of reading the bio of Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind [a good read, btw]. So, figuring why  not – I decided to send in an excerpt from Prophet of the Badlands and see what happened.

Despite my best efforts to ‘fire and forget’, as December approached and the time for results to be announced drew closer, I wound up thinking about it.  Sometime around mid-month, I got an email from Joni (contest director) announcing it rated an Honorable Mention. Considering the likes of who reads and judges this contest, I was quite humbled at being acknowledged. Congratulations to those who placed

Divergent Fate #21

Nine people stood in silence. Dust sparkled through angled shafts, illuminating the center of the chamber. Risa stared into a tiny circle of blinding dots; overhead lights reflected in a faceless onyx helmet. The gun at Tamashī’s head creaked as the man flexed his grip. Pavo glanced at her, moving only his eyes. Five armored silhouettes lurked behind rifles in the dark edges of the room, behind the shifting particles. Risa’s stance relaxed; she stood in an awkward posture, a marionette dangling on strings.

“Don’t you read the Newsnet? Why do you expect me to care if you kill her?”

Tamashī looked up, a bubble of indignant anger burst with realization. She stared into Risa’s violet eyes and winked. Canine teeth lengthened to fangs with a mechanical whir audible only to her and the girl whose skull they occupied. A droplet of clear liquid formed on the tip.

“What I expect is the for daughter of Colonel Darren Black to care about an innocent bystander.”

Before Risa could scream, Tamashī squirmed and chomped down on the forearm that had been across her throat. The man leapt back, dragging the schoolgirl-sized woman to tiptoe by cybernetic fangs embedded in his armor. She flailed, clamping on to spare herself a broken neck.

Pavo dove right; Risa tumbled left as the others opened fire. Orange lasers scored melt trails through the red-dirt ground, black scars wisping smoke. Risa swallowed hard. Even her new top-tier neuralware could not ‘slow’ laser weapons enough to avoid them, not the way bullets seemed to hang in the air. She would have to evade their aim; once they fired, it would be too late.

Tamashī’s muffled screaming went from annoyance to terror. Risa popped up, weapons out, just as one of the men combat-walked at the trapped girl with his rifle pointed at her head. The Japanese woman struggled to free her teeth from the inert man’s forearm, wide-eyes locked on the weapon coming for her. She whined and cowered, raising an arm over her face.

The mercenary did not seem swayed by her pathetic act.

Risa fired. Haste fueled by incoming laser blasts skewed her beam into the man’s thigh. His shot skimmed over the hacker’s shoulder as he twisted and fell backwards. Pavo’s energy pistol lit the right side of the chamber with flashes of yellow-orange light as Risa slipped around the side of a small plastisteel cargo box. Still stuck face-to-arm, Tamashī gave up on dragging the man and stretched over his chest to reach the handgun on his belt. Somewhere in the dark, a man screamed.

Nice shot, Pavo. Risa kicked on her wiring, plunging the world into slow motion. Her left hand fired at Tamashī’s attacker, her right at one of the two trying to hit her. Adrenaline pounded the beat of her heart into her skull; ballistic stealth armor was nigh worthless against lasers.

A blur caught her eye; Pavo’s sprint for the girl reduced to a plodding mess of flowing coat and distorted roaring. Shockwaves ran through the skin of his face with each strike of his boot. He lit up yellow as a streak connected his pistol to the wall through a black-egg helmet. Cracks formed, bloody steam erupted, a skull exploded.

The others scurried for cover. Risa somersaulted forward as Pavo killed the man in the open near the girl. Time returned to normal.

“Cover me,” said Pavo, calm as anything.

Tamashī lowered her gun, her target dead before she got it out of the holster. Pavo palmed the top of her head, lifted a touch, and stomped down on the arm. The armor slid free from the fangs with a squeak; the feeling of it brought tears to the girl’s eyes and a scream into her hands.

“Shouldn’t bite on armor, kid.”

Her sarcastic face evaporated to fear as a shadow moved to their left. Pavo whipped his arm up; two blasts into the dark caused a gurgle and a thud. Tamashī scrambled on all fours behind the large rover, clinging to her stolen sidearm like a child to a security blanket.

Pavo backed up to her, firing at anything close to movement.

Risa. Raziel’s voice tingled through her, absent its usual paralyzing presence. You must move now, follow the path I provide. More are coming.

A thread of amber light faded in, trailing to the far end of the room where it entered a shaft labeled ‘Dig Nine.’  Without a second thought, she sprang up and ran, swerving past Tamashī and grabbing her by the arm.

“Where the hell―” Pavo leapt behind the rover as several blasts melted into the tire. “Risa? Where are you going?”

She kept running. Tamashī gathered her balance and kept up. Pavo sighed, shook his head, and jumped through an open space to the tunnel. Perhaps due only to their attackers not expecting him to spontaneously leap into an unprotected gap, none managed to hit him before he got behind the tunnel wall.

“Risa―” Flashing yellow lights on the wall made him look up. He lurched forward just as a six-inch thick plastisteel door fell out of the ceiling to block the shaft. The impact knocked him flat, and flooded the air with dust.

The amber stream was all Risa could see for a moment until she switched to thermal. She skidded to a halt and ran back to him, gathering his arm. “Come on, Pavo.”

He groaned, coughed, and stood waving his BLO-144 to clear the air. As it became evident the men outside could not breach the door, he put his sidearm away. “Dammit, Risa. This is an incomplete passage. I don’t know how the hell you closed that door, but we’re trapped.”

“No. Raziel’s given us a way out.”

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

Tamashī took her hand from her mouth, wiping blood on her pants. “If he’s found a way out, we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

“Not you too…” Pavo sighed.

The diminutive deck jockey tilted her head. “Not me too what?”

“Come on.” Risa turned to follow the glowing line. “Have a little faith. If this doesn’t work you can call me Cat-6 as much as you want.”

*  *  *

“Well?” asked Risa, slipping into a dull brown cloth coat that went down below the knee.

Pavo adjusted his own, ensuring it concealed his gun. “Well, what.”

She stepped out of the small shop on the Inter-Mars Tram concourse, waiting for Pavo and Tamashī to follow. “A few of those passages might have been tight for you, but we got out. Do you believe me now?”

He squinted. “If I ever meet your Raziel, I’ll shake his hand.”

Tamashī smirked up at him. “No one ever meets Raziel.”

“At least not in this world,” said Risa, earning a raised eyebrow from the hacker she did not notice.

“Whoa, hey, wait.” Pavo abandoned his urge to sigh at the ceiling and lunged to grab her arm. “You can’t just walk onto the platform. There are MDF officers all over.”

She winked at him. “We have to get out of this city fast. None of these tools have a clue what I look like. They all work on ImDent signals. If Olympus went down, they couldn’t figure out how to put their ass on a toilet.”

Dragging Tamashī behind, Pavo caught up to her, whisper-shouting. “You do realize I’m still active duty MDF, right? I don’t need the network to find people. It just makes it a lot easier.”

Risa walked right past a pair of crimson-armored MDF security troops. Neither batted an eyelash at her. “Yeah, Pav… But you’ve seen my face. They only read briefings they’re not even interested in.”

She ducked through the side door of the tram, jogging four paces deep where they settled into a booth; the two women faced Pavo.

Tamashī looked over at Risa. “So, now what? What’s my cut for a near miss?”

“You’ve got blood on your lip, girl.” Pavo threw her a small microfiber towel.

Risa looked at her NetMini. “Looks like you got lucky, kid. The credit transfer went through anyway.”

She huffed. “I’m not a child.” After wiping her face, she acted like the fifteen-year-old she resembled, and half-crawled over Risa to see the screen. “Is that right? That’s a lot of zeroes.”

“You look shocked,” said Pavo. “I thought she yanked the wire before you could get it.”

“It had to be Raziel.” Tamashī slid to the seat and folded her arms.

Risa smiled.

Pavo groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose as the IMT shuttle picked up speed. Soon, the city vanished in a whoosh of blackened tunnel. Is every woman on this damn planet nuts?

Divergent Fate #20

Pavo leaned against the side of a narrow passageway a hundred and ten feet below the surface. Dim orange lights every twenty meters illuminated just enough to tell the corridor apart from solid wall. He found a wire conduit at the perfect height to hang the heel of his right boot on, and tapped the toe against the wall. Humidity made the air feel warmer than it was, and filled Risa’s throat with a taste as though she had licked metal. Sweat dripped down her back, wherever the clingy material offered pockets of separation. She plucked at the neck of her flexible armor, longing for the feel of cool air on her skin.

Worry kept it on.

Tamashī knelt between them. Head tilted forward, hands clasped over a Nishihama Wraith in her lap, her posture that of an obedient servant girl lifted from the pages of ancient Japanese history. Before her, a metal tube as big around as her head lay peeled open to expose a nest of luminous cobalt blue fiberoptic cable. The soft light tinted her features and cast an exaggerated pulsing shadow on the wall behind her. A lone wire led from behind her left ear to the sleek net deck, an eight-by-ten slab of gloss black with a line of dim red kanji glowing on the right side.

“How can you wear that coat?” Risa looked up from the demure-seeming girl.

Pavo glanced to his right, off into the dark. “I put my arms in the sleeves and―”

“You know what I mean, smartass.” She opened the seal on her ballistic stealth, waving air over her bare chest. “It’s a sauna in here. How are you not even sweating?”

“I’m not nervous.” He let his head lean back until it touched metal. “Looks so innocent now, doesn’t she? Doesn’t seem like the same person that squeezed us for another two million.”

“Everyone looks innocent when they sleep.” Even me. Risa pulled the fastener closed, up to her jaw. “Never think she was a merc from looking at her.”

A rattling metal hiss built up in the wall; the pitch changed as an object within a pipe whizzed by. Pavo’s head turned, following the sound. Risa tensed.

“Relax. Sounds like a rat-bot looking for vermin.”

She took two steps, pressing her back into the wall opposite him. “In case you hadn’t noticed… at the moment, we squeak.”

The violet glow in her eyes faded to invisible white light with a switch to active nightvision. Minute scratching sounds intruded on her augmented hearing, as if someone scraped at her skull. Drawn to the source, she ceased breathing as the legs of a black metal spider crested the top of a conduit. It lowered itself over the side, making a faint click as a tiny, magnetized clip fixed its backside to the wall on a thread.

Pavo lifted an eyebrow at Risa’s cat-ready-to-pounce stance. He grabbed his sidearm when Nano claws emerged through her fingertips. The palm-sized spider wound out line, descending toward Tamashī’s head as inch-long needles sprouted from its forelegs. Tiny eye-stalks, themselves fiberoptic prongs, swiveled at Risa as she lunged. It detached from the cord, falling. Her neuralware kicked in, accelerating her mind and body to the point the world slowed. Nano claws raked across a composite armor shell. A loud plastic click echoed as she swatted it out of midair.

The sparking, twitching microbot bounced in front of Pavo’s foot; he leapt away from the wall as it attempted to flip itself over and jump at him. It sailed in a short hop, far shy of the face it aimed for. Sputtering, half the legs on its right side blurred in a sporadic vibration; its rear left leg dragged limp. A combination of light weight and resilient armor prevented her claws from bisecting it, but it had sustained major damage.

Risa hovered by Tamashī, watching for more, while Pavo punted it down the shaft. It flopped upright and came skittering back, only managing to close two meters before it exploded amid an orange flash of laser. He kept his pistol out; aim slacked as he stared over the dimming tip at the smoldering debris.

Risa. The voice of Raziel flooded her senses; walls shimmered with amber light as her muscles tingled. You must flee. Your companion has been detected. They come.

She moaned, somewhere between agony and rapture, collapsing to her knees as she grabbed her head in both arms. Pavo stowed his weapon, rushing to her side and grasping her shoulders. Risa shuddered, unable to move for several seconds until the presence retreated.

“Now’s not a great time to flake out.” He pulled her up.

“W-we gotta go.” She stumbled toward the Japanese girl. “No time to explain. Raziel said they are coming.”

Pavo tugged her around by the arm. “You’re hallucinations are going to get you killed one of these days. It was just a damn spidercam, relax.”

She spun out of his grip, grabbing the wire behind Tamashī’s ear. “It had needles. It was trying to kill her.”

A tiny spark leapt between the implanted socket and the asterisk-shaped M3 prong. Tamashī’s meditative calm shattered in a convulsing fit. Eyes rolled back, she foamed at the mouth and thrashed.

“What the fuck did you go and do that f―” Pavo’s angry whisper stalled at the sound of a distant clank.

He whirled as flashlight beams wavered in the dusty dark. At least eight of them converged, lighting up his chest.

“Am I hallucinating that?” Risa jammed the cyberspace deck into Tamashī’s backpack before hauling the seizing body over her shoulder. “Come on!”

Pavo fired while backpedaling; his laser rendered the shadows of armored men in brief flashes. Sparks flew from the impact of several bullets around the pipes and struts, while two poorly aimed shots from a yellow laser lofted the scent of molten rock.

Adopting a sideways shuffling run, Pavo continued to shoot―more to foul their pursuers’ aim than hit anything. Risa took the first possible turn to break line of sight. Tamashī’s violent spasms eased to drooling sporadic twitches. Three paces around the corner, two armored figures jumped from a side passage.

“Pavo!” she yelled.

He turned; she threw Tamashī at him and popped claws. Pavo caught the woman one-armed, draping her over his shoulder as he took cover at the corner, and fired in earnest at the larger group coming up behind them.

Risa’s combat neuralware kicked on as she pulled her weapons from the harness. The old wiring hurt from the instant it came on; this one was exhilarating. She threw the guns forward, high. Both men aimed up, distracted by the flying objects as she dove into a somersault. Muzzle-fire flashed in the monochromatic green of her world as she leapt out of the tumble. Her hands plucked the spinning weapons out of the air and she fell into another roll as the men turned. This time, she fell out like a rug, flat on her back, firing both Kurotai Hornets from the ground while sliding.

Her multitasker chip slaved each weapon to one eye. Her brain simultaneously fired one gun at one target as two discrete actions. A dozen smoldering holes per man spat steaming blood from where emerald lasers scored. She flung her arms forward, pulling herself onto her feet by the momentum.

“Pav―” She barely had time to get her guns holstered before Tamashī collided with her.

“Hold her,” he muttered, before chucking a flash grenade into the hall and diving away from the corner.

Boomf.

The muted explosion shuddered through the air, followed by distant moaning. Risa struggled with the other woman’s weight, managing to get her over one shoulder while jogging up to a run. They sprinted through a series of rapid, random turns. A soft moan escaped Tamashī just as they entered an open chamber filled with the wreckage of various heavy machines from the old mining operation responsible for the city’s existence. The eleventh tier down was below ‘civilization’ and not too far from the abandoned tunnels.

A waist-high tire, fat and made of white rubber, provided a decent place to set the woozy cyberspace jockey. The six-wheeled crew mover it belonged to wasn’t going anywhere.

“Ugh, what the fuck happened,” said Tamashī, cradling her head in her arms. “Feels like I got run over by a Redlink shuttle.”

“You got noticed,” said Risa, at the verge of being out of breath. “If we didn’t get warning we’d have been trapped in that hallway between two squads.”

Pavo shot her a look, spitting. “I don’t know what the hell that was, Risa. I…”

She turned and walked up to him. “You think I’m cat-6 don’t you?”

The hurt in her eyes caught him off guard. “No… I… Just don’t handle weird very… you hear that?”

Risa’s face went blank, a second before six men rappelled from the ceiling and surrounded them. Near the perimeter, Tamashī screamed as one man pounced from behind, wrestling her to a kneeling pose with a pistol to the side of her head.

“Game over, Miss Black. This brat is irrelevant, we’re here for you. No games, or she dies and we take you anyway.”

“You just let him grab you?” Risa squinted.

Tamashī, despite having a gun to her head, made a disgusted face as she struggled. “What? Japanese people aren’t born knowing Kung-Fu.”

The girl whined as the man got his other arm around her neck.

“Well, Miss Black,” said a tall man in full-body armor. An egg-like shell of gloss black concealed any facial expression. “Your move.”

Division Zero Release Update

And thanks to the awesome Courtney @ Curiosity Quills, Division Zero’s release date has been moved up again to March 7th 2014!

Divergent Fate #19

Primus Mons was the second largest city controlled by the United Coalition Front on Mars; not that anyone would be able to tell from a casual glance. To the outside observer, it appeared as an enormous free-standing starport, against which grey bubble-shaped domes crowded like suckling piglets. The city itself sprawled beneath. Generations of Marsborn tunneled ever deeper underground. True citizens of Mars knew it to be the first city established by humans on the planet; created in an era before atmosphere retention systems became reliable, or before terraforming created a few pockets of habitable surface.

The first human settlement was not Elysium, the beautiful shining gem of azure force fields and sweeping arcs of silver that the UCF claimed. Likewise, it was not the city of Perspektiva, as the ACC told their citizens. Hidden beneath a false hologram of verdant greens and gleaming buildings, the crown jewel of the Allied Corporate Council was as much a lie as either government told the people of Earth.

They had even attempted to declare Neu Berlin, a more modern city with residents that verged on content, had pre-dated Perspektiva, but was top secret for military reasons. The amount of propaganda Risa had been exposed to had long ago blurred the line between fact and reality. As far as she was concerned, it was all fabrications. Her only truth was that Mars belonged to people born there.

And she was ready to die to give it to them.

Shadows lengthened over the dull-red Martian soil as the shuttle circled the unassuming cluster of buildings that composed the surface portion of Primus Mons. With the sun behind the main starport facility, two violet specks appeared on the window amid the reflection of her face. Ground crews scurried amid great clouds of dust as the shuttle’s forward motion came to a halt. All forty three passengers on the Elysium-to-Primus shuttle floated an inch or three above their seats as the craft descended in a short vertical drop onto the landing pad.

Risa left her hands in the pockets of the long, dark coat Pavo bought her. Few MDF officers, what passed for police in the UCF territory of Mars, hassled people for carrying weapons in the open. Concealing them, however, as well as her armor, could only make her less memorable in the crowd. They waited for everyone seated behind them to jostle past, avoiding the pointless scramble to race to the door in the tight aisles of bland beige carpet.

With the way clear, they followed the exodus down the boarding tube and into the great circular starport. The cavernous space on the outer ring echoed with the jingles of advert droids, street peddlers, the general din of people, and the occasional shout of a child or MDF trooper. Via wireless network connection, her cybernetic eyes created a layout of the facility in a virtual holographic panel.

“Where are we meeting her?”

Pavo took a three step turnabout, continuing to move in the same direction while surveying the area. As he faced forward, he brushed up against her. “A lounge, Arden 3.”

Primus Starport’s tourist information service had little to say about Arden 3 aside from it having food, drinks, and frequent ‘intimate evenings’ with Earth-famous entertainment. A string of mediocre-to-passable reviews ran into the thousands, putting the cuisine at a solid 2.9 out of 5. She took the shortcut through the central hub, swinging left at the artificial park and arriving once more in the outer ring three shops away.

“Good to see you’ve recovered,” said Pavo, exaggerating his effort to keep up with her stride. “At least you’re not flinging yourself into walls anymore.”

Risa smiled. “The reflex boost on this wiring is a little touchier than what I was used to. I think I’ve adjusted.”

“Don’t think this job is gonna be much of a test.” He pulled the door open for her. “Should be a milk run.”

“I wouldn’t mind a vacation,” she said, waiting for him to follow her in. “Who’s the contact?”

Pavo put an arm around her back and guided her to a table in the rear corner, several feet from an empty stage. Like most of the décor, it was black. “She’ll stand out. Goes by the name Tamashī.”

A man in his early twenties in a charcoal shirt and white pants approached the table. “Hello, welcome to Arden 3. I’m Joseph. Can I start you off with anything to drink?”

“Purified water,” said Risa.

Pavo leaned an arm over the back of the chair. “Sweet tea.”

“Why spend the extra ten credits on purified? Don’t you have a Toxfilter?”

Risa rubbed her throat. “Yeah, but I don’t want to burn it out when I can avoid it. I breathe enough poison already.”

She turned as he pointed. A small Asian woman scurried through the door, head to toe in black; leggings, sweater, boots, and scarf. The bag over her shoulder made her look like a high school student, an affect that her stature did little to dissuade. Her skin tone gave away her Earthly origin. Unremarkable on the blue ball; but up here, among Marsborn, she was dark.

“That’s the deck jockey Garrison made arrangements with? What is she, fifteen?”

A hand gesture from Pavo caught the woman’s eye. “Nineteen, maybe twenty. Old enough to have ‘ware.”

Tamashī slid the bag from her shoulder and joined them at the table, studying Risa for a moment before speaking. “I expected someone bigger.”

“So did I.”

The girl crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, wearing a wry grin. “Cosmetic work, helps with social engineering. I’m older than I look.”

Joseph returned with drinks, accepted an order for green tea, and three chicken wraps. He did not have to work very hard to push the more expensive vat-grown meat. With the waiter again out of earshot, Tamashī leaned forward.

“What’s the job?”

“Our organization has located a substantial cache of credits tucked away in a custom partition within the Redlink network. It is accessible only from an isolated terminal inside their main office here in Primus, however, we located a physical backdoor.”

The conversation paused long enough for Joseph to drop off the tea.

“Go on,” said Tamashī, cradling the cup to warm her hands.

“There is a data conduit on the eleventh tier that connects the Redlink corporate system to the starport’s network.”

Tamashī sipped the tea, then nodded. “Proprietary high speed uplink, they have AI’s that handle passenger and cargo distribution based on conditions at the starport. You’re saying that connection patches over to the island network?” She squinted. “That makes no sense. The whole point of an island network is isolation.”

“We had a guy inside set that up. Whoever has been stashing the credits in the hidden node doesn’t even know we have an opening. That’s part of the reason we need to move so fast. We escort you to the link and cover you while you go in. Eighty-twenty split.”

Tamashī frowned. “Twenty percent?”

Risa chuckled. “We’re talking over forty million credits in total. What you’re walking away with is already excessive given the amount of risk and work involved. Besides, you would be doing the true children of Mars a great service.”

Tamashī examined the backs of her hands, as if to call attention to the fact her skin tone proved she was not born on the red planet. The gesture was disregarded, and she tapped her fingers on the table while Joseph dropped off their food. “Fine… but if this turns out to be risky, I want thirty.”

“We’ll have to run that by Garrison first.” Pavo smirked at the little tan log on his plate passing itself off as a wrap. “What the… I’ll need three more of these to even notice I ate anything.”

Risa picked hers up, pointing at three green squiggles on his plate with her pinky. “Don’t forget to eat your vegetables.” She took a bite, impressed by the taste if not by the portion. “I can talk him into twenty five, but only if things go pear shaped.”

Tamashī extended a hand toward Risa. “Agreed.”

Release Date Moved

Just got the wonderful news that the release date for Division Zero has been bumped up to April 22 (from May 19).