Matthew S. Cox's Blog, page 31

Divergent Fate #18

A sense of cold pierced the haze in Risa’s mind. Subtle at first, it grew toward paralytic, seeping into her body from whatever hard, uncomfortable surface upon which she now sat. The blur of her surroundings lessened. Intense light reduced anything out of arm’s reach to an ethereal shimmer of moving colors, as if she had awakened inside an impressionist painting. Arms crossed over her chest as she looked down; the image of bare flesh upon a squat pedestal of mirrored steel filled her eyes. Legs, mottled with blue spots and black streaks where they were not the color of paper. The floor was only six inches away.

A voice shrieked in the back of her mind. “Shit! Cold. Get me off this.” All that managed to slip out of her mouth was a faint “Mmmrh” as one arm reached for a Pavo-shaped blob.

A hand braced the underside of her chin, lifting her head until a dark-skinned man in a white jumpsuit formed out of the surreal world. A spot of red, a small caduceus, marred the painful brightness of the garment on his left breast. To its side, a silver strip contained letters. Their meaning and pronunciation felt far out of reach of the state of her mind, though she knew it must be a name.

“I gave you something for the pain.”

Risa closed her eyes as his breath puffed at her hair. Coffee, bacon, eggs… She felt at once hungry and ready to vomit. He tried to put something in her mouth. Out of instinct, she wanted to recoil, but could not summon the ability to resist. The taste of plastic crossed her tongue, then sweet air. The rest of what the man said degenerated into a wave of reassuring wordless sound, and she relaxed. An elastic strap passed over her head as she caught sight of Pavo at the far end of the room, gathering up the sheet she had been wrapped in.

The man backed away, leaving her there with a half-face mask over her mouth and nose, purified air flowing into her lungs. When a clear barrier rose out of the ground and sealed to the ceiling, her brain decided it would shrug off the grip of whatever drug was in her system. I’m in a medical tank. Fear of being caged dueled with the relief that came with the hope her vulnerability would soon be at an end. She wanted to stand, she pawed at the clear barrier, but her muscles disobeyed.

Viscous green liquid welled up around her, merciful in its warmth. Risa surrendered her body to it, floating fetal as the substance engulfed her. She closed her eyes; having no choice but to trust her circumstance. The sound of the outside world ceased to be; the only thing she heard was the rasp of her breathing.

Reality faded in and out. Her eyes opened. A slender black cord wound past her vision, gliding around her body. Japanese kanji repeated in a pattern around it, the English translation “Nippon Shōgyō Kumiai / Japanese Trade Consortium” floated beneath, compliments of her cybernetic eyes. She tracked its path around her body to a point where it burrowed into her exposed right thigh. Both of her legs were split open from hip to ankle, skin and muscle peeled back to the bone. Burned looking wires stranded out of the tissue, collecting in a mass that resembled a pile of smashed spiders. Somehow she didn’t feel a thing; it was as if she watched it happening to someone else.

Before she could scream, unconsciousness returned. The blip of sleep passed in an instant. Risa blinked and found her legs closed; the ghastly sight replaced by the uneasy sensation of something slithering along through the muscles of her arms and legs.

Her body had straightened. Pain had indeed gone away, replaced by flaccidity. Risa put a hand on the tank wall, staring at Pavo. He un-leaned from the wall by the door, twisting sideways to pass the medic without bumping him, and placed his gloved hand on the outside of the tank opposite hers. Serpents writhed inside her, the creak of her bones amplified in the non-breathable gel.

Pavo leaned to his right, closer to a console. “Hey. Good to see you awake. Doc says you had some cheap neuralware. He was amazed it worked at all. You almost burned out your CNS. I got good news, and I got some bad news. Which one do you want first?”

She pulled her hand away from the glass long enough to give him a thumbs-up.

“Good news then.” Pavo grinned, a cat that got the canary. “We managed to get a hold of some NSK wiring. The MDF had a dead assassin in the evidence room that decided to spontaneously vanish.” He winked.

Risa shivered, thinking of the motion beneath her skin. The medtech’s feverish endeavor at a console worked to connect a dead person’s neuralware to her nervous system. At least the NSK used top of the line stuff. She had a feeling she knew what the bad news would be, giving Pavo a look of dread mixed with gratitude.

“Bad news is, doc here doesn’t work for free. This is a dangerous favor, both with the cost of the parts, the amount of work you needed, and the little issue of two governments having a bounty on your head. We both owe him some favors… Unless you got a million five sitting around.”

She gave him a flat look.

“Yeah. Figured. Anyway, he knows you’re not Cat-6. Crazy people get caught. I also told him you don’t do assassinations.”

Risa held her hands out to the sides, wobbling her palms, then made finger horns at her temples.

“Okay, exception if the target’s an evil fuck.”

She nodded, then tapped her left wrist with one finger.

Pavo gave her an amused smile, staring at her until she smacked the glass with both hands.

“You’ve been in there for about fourteen hours.”

Risa continued glaring, then pointed at her mouth.

“Can’t eat yet.”

She folded her arms, tapping a foot in mid-gel. After a long glare she traced a smile over her lips.

“Oh, you’re wondering why I have this look on my face.” Pavo laughed then, and turned to face the doc.

Risa’s implant rang with an inbound call. Pavo’s face appeared amid the ring of dots, his virtual self wearing the same giant shit-eating grin he had in the real world.

“Just found it odd you vid me when I’m carrying you and your lips are an inch from my ear. When you can’t talk, you start doing the whole hand signal thing.”

“Very funny. I’m high as hell right now. Shit is moving inside me and I think I can taste the flow of time. You have no idea how fucking weird this feels. I should be unconscious for this I bet.”

Pavo said something to the medic. “Naah, he needs you awake to test the NIU connections. You just got like a six stage upgrade over that cheap ass wiring you had before.”

The tangled mass, her old neuralware, decayed at a visible rate into the slime; eaten by nanobots.

“So, what does he want me to do?”

Pavo shrugged. “Steal some shit probably. Doc’s got some vices, needs cash. Either way it’s gotta wait. Garrison’s already fuming at the ass about us being so late. We got a job to do once you can walk again. Nothing quite as noble as rescuing three dozen slave miners though.”

“You gonna share the details or just stare at my tits?”

He made it a point to ogle her for a moment. “Gotta play nursemaid to a deck jockey. MLF needs a bankroll.”

“Oh, all that buildup, I was expecting something hard.” She winked.

“Hang on.” He turned to look at the doc for a moment, nodding his way through a very one-sided conversation. “Time to go nap-nap, hon. Wiring’s all done up, now he’s gonna rebuild the muscle mass and nerve tissue you cooked off. Says you really don’t want to be awake for that.”

“See you soon.” She inhaled deep and started to look down, but jerked her head up and pressed both palms on the glass. “Pavo?”

She caught him a second before he hung up; one eyebrow climbed. “Yeah?”

“You’ll stay with me, right?”

He seemed amused. “Sure.”

Divergent Fate #17

Tattered sheets fluttered in recirculated air that brought the taste of silt. Rag-clad people clung to the edges of a subterranean street, a living, breathing, begging plaque on the Martian rock. Solar pumps fourteen feet above lent an amber heat to the narrow passage, at atmosphere of chaos semblant to an Indian street market. Voices surrounded her, too indistinct for meaning; the sounds, like hummingbirds, hovered outside her ears, afraid to come in.

Narcoderm slowed the world to a blur; unlike the neuralware, Risa did not exist apart from the haze. She clung to the cheap motel sheet that covered her from breast to thigh, gathered in a bundle that trailed from Pavo’s arms. The black bag slung over his right shoulder brushed her foot in time with his stride. She could not remember him packing it, but knew her armor and weapons were safe and close.

Curious urchins emerged from the crowd, the little ones the only people showing any visible reaction to a man in a long, black coat carrying a woman in a sheet.

Perhaps, unlike their parents, they were not wise enough to fear what such a man may do to those who noticed him.

She glanced at the trailing cloth draped over her shin, met the stares of several children, and let her head rest against Pavo’s shoulder. He shifted left as a small two-person car parted the crowd. A toothless older woman’s yell broke through her fog. The elder raised a fistful of squat hydroponic carrots, shaking them at the driver. Risa averted her eyes; the harsh artificial light formed a painful gleam upon the waxy leaves and the rear window. A young man of dark complexion; an obvious recent immigrant, ceased his shouted sales pitch as they neared. He backed away, eager to avoid Pavo’s gaze.

In the back of Risa’s mind, desire formed. A spark leapt a synapse, picked up on a thread of platinum that carried it to the tiny computer on her brainstem. It wound through her Neural Interface Unit, which routed to the appropriate piece of cyberware. Three tenths of a second after she wanted, five transparent blue dots appeared in the upper right of her field of view. Four dim, one bright, they cycled as the word ‘calling’ appeared below them.

The dots moved from a horizontal line to a spinning circle, and expanded to a frame around Pavo’s face. His eyebrow cocked up.

“Your lips are six inches from my ear, but you’re calling me?” To the outside world, his expression remained stony.

She let gravity hold her tight to his chest, feet bobbing with his gait. “This is private. Do you find it strange that no one looks at us? I’m practically naked. Not even the pickpockets are checking you out.”

“This deep in Elysium, one feels safer not knowing why the fallen angel is carried from the wreckage.”

In her mind, she laughed. The NIU reproduced the sound over the implanted comm link. “I’m hardly an angel.”

Outside stoic, virtual Pavo softened, gazing down. “You’re as much a victim of this war as anyone. You were an angel once, until they plucked your wings.”

Darkness fell over them as he turned down a side street away from the solar pumps. Out from the shadows, the eyes of a pimp and his thralls gleamed. The girls scowled at her, as if her presence put Pavo off limits to them.

Her hand slipped from the sheet, squeezing into a fist around his coat. “I don’t like feeling this vulnerable.”

“You could’ve gotten dressed. I got a friend at EMC, not sure he can put your wings back on… but he can get your legs working again.”

Virtual Risa grumbled. The broken figure in his arms did not move, offering a somber mask of mourning. “Getting into that suit requires cooperation from muscles I’m no longer on speaking terms with. Plus, it’s still wet inside.” She lifted her head to stare at the source of a voice discussing stealing her from Pavo. When the man saw her violet eyes, terrified recognition set in and he fled. “Why did they name this hellhole Elysium again? Seems like a bad joke.”

Pavo smiled in the real world, laughed in his head. “The spot of Mars was named that before Humans ever set foot on it.”

He reached the end of the narrow beggar-filled tunnel, and shouldered his way through a thick crowd to the plastisteel curb of a major thoroughfare. At the sight of a PubTran booth riddled with bullet holes and laser scoring, he sighed.

“Hey, man,” yelled a snowy-skinned man in dusty brown shreds. He leaned over the roof of a small six-wheeler bearing a taxi placard. “Those automatic bitches don’t come around this part of town. You need to get somewhere”―he tapped his car twice―“let Weezl ferret you there. I work cheap; and unlike those other bastards, I won’t stuff a gun up your nose in the back end of nowhere.”

Pavo eyed the pair of pistols on the cabbie’s belt, and the relative lack of bullet holes in his car. “You come up with that pitch all by yourself?”

Weezl wiped at his face with nervous hands while emitting a sound halfway between chuckle and being offended. “So, uhh… Where you need ta be?”

“Elysium Med Center, utility entrance.”

“50 creds.”

“PubTran would cost ten,” she said, over the call.

“Deal.” Pavo carried her to the rising side door of the microvan, speaking via comm link. “Yeah, and they haven’t worked properly in thirty years. Great on Earth where they maintain the network, up here… not so much. Half the time hackers reroute you into ambushes.”

He slid her onto the rear bench seat, careful to keep the sheet in place, and climbed in alongside. Weezl hopped in up front as Pavo pulled the side door closed. For a moment, the men locked eyes via the rear-view.

“You look like MDF,” said Weezl.

“You’re perceptive, kid. Relax, I’m off duty.”

Weezl lifted an eyebrow. “You bought?”

 

Risa’s head bobbed up, two dots of violet light peered from beneath a wall of ebon. “Some questions are healthier than others.”

“Holy shit…” Weezl’s gaze shot forward, and he rammed the center-mounted joystick forward.

His cab’s attempt at sudden acceleration nudged them against the seatback. The four rear wheels moaned in protest as their electric motors pushed them ahead at a touch over thirty miles per hour. Thumps clattered across the roof as pedestrians flooding what was supposed to be a road pounded on the car. So few vehicles navigated the streets of Elysium, at least in this part of the city, that the citizens regarded them little different from large walkways.

She curled on the seat, tugging at the sheet more for something to do with her hands than for modesty. The windows were thick with grime; even a determined pervert would have trouble seeing anything worth touching himself over. The heads-up display faded away as their cybernetic vid call dropped. Risa slipped closer to sleep, unsure of if it was the rhythmic side to side of the cab or Pavo’s shoulder responsible for it.

A rush of clean air chased away the stagnant dimness inside the taxi. The door was open, Pavo stood by the driver’s window, swiping his NetMini over a reader. She gathered the sheet and scooted to the door. Pain raced through her muscles as she extended a leg to the cold metal ground. She wobbled in place for several seconds before the numbing chill in her bare feet brought her nerves to full protest. Her hands would not release her grip on the cloth to grab the car; she fell to her knees, shaking.

All the screaming happened in her mind; burning wirepaths slid through her flesh, as if the neuralware cooked her from the inside out. It was off, though the nerves remembered. The flash of pain subsided, and with the return of her sense came the realization that she was once again in Pavo’s arms. In this alcove behind Elysium Medical Center, the scent of trash traded places with food depending on how the wind shifted. Cargo trucks unloaded supplies by several large garbage crushers; and a stout woman in black security armor challenged Pavo with a stare.

“Hang on, a few more minutes, okay?”

She bit her lip hard enough to send a trickle of blood over porcelain-white skin. Then, she swallowed. “You sure this guy won’t just call your bosses when he sees my face?”

Pavo’s raspy chuckle had begun to strike her as cute. “Yeah, we go way back.”

 

Divergent Fate #16

Risa lay weightless amid the warmth of recirculated water, unfocused gaze locked upon the grimy ceiling. Walls, once metallic grey, offered a mottled patina of rust, mold, and dirt. Black spots swelled to prominence as condensation gathered dirt in droplets. Some hit the bathwater, gossamer fingers of cold across her thigh, her cheek, her calf.

The single LED bulb, half concealed behind a cracked dome of frosted plastic, sputtered in fitful bursts threatening to die at any moment. Risa took air in shallow breaths, due in some part to the pain associated with it, as well as the cloying stink of the trashy hotel room. Mold, metallic dust, dirt, industrial chemicals, and the sweet stench of week-old sex battled for prominence in her nose.

A patch of face was the only skin above the waterline. Her hair billowed; India ink in the water around a porcelain sylph. The ploink of a cold droplet caused her to look to the left. The ballistic suit hung draped over a metal bar to dry. The bar was for a shower curtain, not that this shithole had either a shower or a curtain to hang on it. The room was barely large enough to hold the bathtub. Risa smiled, because laughing would have hurt too much. Soaking was nice; much more relaxing than the autoshower tubes. The best part of this place was that the general was not here.

Score one for cheap hotels.

Even more surprising than the comfort she found in such a place, the heating element in the tub actually worked. The water had kept its comfortable warmth far too long for her to soak in it, but sitting up would require effort. She cringed as she reached up to wipe a grime-laced droplet from her face. It felt as though someone had replaced her bones with stiff wires designed to keep a mannequin in whatever pose its owner put it in. The same sensation kept both of her legs immobile.

Risa let her eyes close, trusting her habit of motionless sleep to keep her from drowning. Even if she did slide under, the Toxfilter installed in her windpipe would jolt her awake. Seconds of beautiful blackness embraced her consciousness, until a heavy pounding knock shattered it.

The ceiling was pink, the tub gone―replaced with a small comforgel pad and a bevy of stuffed animals. A large man, faceless, looming, rushed through the lone door. His heavy voice vibrated the air but formed only sounds of alarm, no words. Cold washed over her as the figure yanked away the blankets; a tiny body, clad only in underwear, carried into the air by a painful grip on both arms.

She felt no fear of this man-creature, but shared his panic. She sobbed as the banging became squealing; white-hot vibroblades battled with cold plastisteel. A hallway passed, and the man dropped her on her feet, pushing her down and into a ventilation shaft. One clear word came out of his warbling din: Run.

The banging ceased as he slammed the grating closed.

Sloshing forward, Risa lurched upright. She grasped at the sides of the tub and stifled the urge to cry out. Her toes curled, legs twisting in a autonomic reaction to a full-body cramp. When the rush of fire left her limbs, her hands moved to her face, wiping at steam and sweat. One hand went over her head, pulling water out of her hair, lingering on the base of her neck as she shuddered.

Scratching.

The sound echoed through the tiny prison-cell bathroom, as if from all directions. Shifting to her knees, she forced her stiff legs to obey and crawled to the edge. With the realization that her amplified hearing made an inaudible noise sound like rats in the walls, she froze. The nature of the scratching picked its way through the double dose of Narcoderm fogging her mind. Signals reached the part of her brain that identified it as someone picking the lock just as the doorknob turned. Risa swiped one Hotaru-6 from the closed lid of the toilet, and slumped over the side of the tub while aiming the laser at the front door in a two-handed grip.

“Whoa!” yelled a man-shaped silhouette of blur.

She tried to keep the shaking thing aimed at him; her attempt to ask who he was collided with her demand for him to leave―and came out as an incoherent moan.

“Damn, Risa what the hell happened to you?”

Her arms hung limp, the pistol dangled on one finger. “Pavo?”

He kicked the door shut, tromping past the bed to a small table. “Yeah, I got worried when you didn’t answer the door; was bangin’ on it for ten minutes. Figured I’d slip in before I woke up half the lowlifes in this pod.”

Something landed on the table with a thud.

Risa let the weapon clatter to the piteous excuse for a threadbare bathmat, and hauled herself to her feet. Shuddering, she held on to the wall as she stood, dripping.

Pavo filled the bathroom door, folding his arms. He snatched her right arm and turned it over to look at the one inch flesh-toned patch on her wrist. Flesh toned, that is, for Earth dwellers. On Risa, it looked closer to orange.

“It’s just painkiller. I’m not a junkie. Yeah I know I must look like shit. I overused the neurals, might’ve cooked a nerve or two.” She reached up and held on to his shoulders. “Well, Mr. Aram, you have me at a disadvantage.” A silly grin spread across her unpainted lips. “We can fuck if you want.”

“You’re high. You look like someone kicked your ass, and you’re soaking wet.” He pulled the lone towel from the bar on the bathroom wall and wrapped it around her before carrying her over to the chair by the table. He sat on the foot of the bed, elbows on his knees. “Garrison said you’d be here. I brought you some food.”

“So that’s what that smell is.” Risa picked through a plastic bag, removing a clear carton containing a burger and fries. She popped it open, and helped herself to the largest sliver of potato-shaped OmniSoy in the pile. “Thanks.” It slid like an ember down her throat, causing her to push a hand through the damp towel into her gut. “Warm.”

Risa attacked the food, not tasting much other than vaguely meat-flavored heat. Off to the side, Pavo rummaged around the empty dresser, under the bed, and through the one closet. By the time half the food was gone, he stopped searching and scratched at his shaved head.

“Do you own any clothes? Did you get robbed in your sleep?”

“Just the stealth suit.” Chomp.

He blinked. “No underwear?”

She shrugged. “That armor doesn’t breathe. They get sweaty and…” She shivered. “I just stopped bothering.”

“You know, you could live in an apartment instead of the tunnels.” He frowned at the formless black mass hanging over the tub. “So what do you wear when you’re not planting bombs or rescuing enslaved miners?”

“The stealth suit. Half the planet wants me dead, I never take it off.”

“Says Lady Godiva.”

“Who?” She wobbled a glance in his direction.

“Failed history?”

“Dropped out of school when I was eight.”

He gawked. “Your parents let you―”

Risa’s glare stalled his words. “Some UCF Marines gave my father a dozen incendiary rockets for his birthday. Guess they didn’t know he had a kid in the apartment.”

Pavo stared down, watching water drip from her toes. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were so young when it happened. He was a hero.”

“Yeah.” She flopped back in the chair, arms dead in her lap. “A real hero.”

He stood, silent for a moment, until the wave of sadness lifted from her. “I know a guy that should be able to help.”

With the food gone, she padded to the bed and fell on her front. “I just need some rest.”

“You’ve been hiding out here for three days already,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He put a hand on the back of her left thigh, squeezing the muscle.

Her eyes clamped closed with a moan. Noises of discomfort grew louder as he massaged his way to her ankle. “This would be almost romantic if it didn’t hurt so much.”

Pavo let go, her foot slapped into the comforgel pad. “This isn’t gonna get better on its own. Get your suit on. I’m taking you to the doc.”

“I just washed it an hour ago, it’s still wet inside.”

He gathered her, towel and all, in his arms and flipped her upright. Hands cradled to her chest, she gave him a look mixed between a plea for help and displeasure at being manhandled.

“Would you rather go out like this?”

Divergent Fate #15

Safe in the shadow of a six ton ore-mover, Risa crouched between two great tread-trucks. Inches away from the atmospheric retention field, she stared through the blue haze at her escape plan. The squat shuttle had the pose of an overstuffed pigeon on its landing pad, resting amid clouds of Cryomil fog. Its shape was similar to a passenger craft; however, the widened bottom gave it a distended appearance. The canopy windows, tiny, beady eyes, lurked at the level of a four-story building atop long sloping sides.

She stared at it, wondering how she would last long enough to get inside, given the toxic atmosphere in the way. The same invisible bars that kept the miners prisoner here also jailed her. Thinking about being trapped here brought a ghostly shadow of pain across her back. The holed e-suit might give her enough time, but it was stashed across the compound.

Sometimes, the answers we seek are right on top of us.

Raziel’s voice flooded her senses and wracked her body with a feeling halfway between ecstasy and agony. Risa clutched her fingers between the plates on the giant tread to keep from falling. Every muscle in her body drew taut from the sensation of his presence. She gasped, and then gazed at her whitening knuckles before looking up at the belly of the great machine. A gleam of red light upon the dirty metal changed green. Distant men shouting stole any time she may have wanted to spend thanking him, and she crawled toward the glow.

The panel accepted the code of four sevens, granting access to a maintenance space full of wire bundles and bulky components. She crawled up into eerie orange light, pulling the hatch closed behind her. The space felt cramped, even to someone used to living in vent shafts, but it was sealed. She reached between her knees to the primary control interface panel, using a single Nano claw to circumvent the lock.

From a pouch on her weapon harness, she removed a double-ended M3 interface wire and took the plastic protectors off the asterisk-shaped prongs. One end went into a socket just behind her left ear, sliding into place with a soft click that echoed through her skull. When she connected the other lead to the panel, her consciousness fell out of reality and she found herself seated in a virtual driver’s seat, as if looking out through the windshield of a cargo transporter.

This immense box on tracks had no such cabin; they ran on full automation. Risa looked over the controls, shimmering in otherworldly amber light. Five or six minutes here was barely a second in real time. She accessed the status control and changed the value from empty/waiting to full/queued. Several cyberspace minutes later, the control sticks moved of their own accord and the entire dashboard came to life.

That’s it. That’s it. She touched nothing else, watching as the automatic ore handling software moved the empty transport cart onto the track of plastisteel plates. Soon, she was whirring along at a blistering four miles per hour. One panel flashed from green to yellow as it left the safe atmosphere behind, evidence that the vehicle control software was generic, borrowed from things people were meant to be in control of. Cheap, just what I’d expect from a corporation using slave labor.

Glistening silver roadway, split every fifteen meters by a visible seam, passed in agonizing slowness. The shuttle’s nose opened, two behemoth doors split to either side and folded down into a ramp as the cart neared. The front treads hit the incline, knocking Risa’s head against the wall and causing her digital world to melt into a surrealist landscape of melting stone and warped display dials.

Logout.

A kaleidoscope tunnel of color rushed over her from behind, leaving her once more in the dim orange light of fuse indicators. She held on to the walls as the cart jostled about, cringing as far away from the sparking main power conduit as possible.

When the room ceased moving and the heavy vibration of closing cargo doors rumbled through her bones, she disconnected the wire and put it away. She allowed forty seconds of silence once the noise ceased, and went for the hatch. Her eyes changed the darkness around her to the monochromatic green of nightvision. Parked in the transport shuttle, the drive trucks had partially retracted, leaving only two feet of clearance to the ground and no room between carts to stand.

She slithered on her stomach, navigating the grit-covered ground, frantic to reach an exit point before the doors opened for the next carrier and her lungs bled. Instinct called her to the rear, the fastest path to stand, however the schematic map her cybernetic eyes created in thin air showed a crew hatch deeper inside.

Three carts later, about thirty meters of belly crawling, she changed course and went to the right. Her cheek pressed tight against metal as she squirmed her way loose from under the ore-carrier and slid onto her feet between it and the outer hull. A few paces to her left and she hooked one arm and one leg through a ladder and climbed. Her right hand braced against the wall for help ascending. After six meters, she passed the top of the cargo boxes and swung herself onto the ladder. Moving faster, she cleared the next twenty some feet to a hexagonal hatch in the ceiling.

It had no code panel, but opening it required a feat of strength at the limit of her abilities. With both boots planted on the ladder and both hands on the door, she pushed upward with her entire body, coming close to falling off as it gave way and flipped over with a clank.

From here, a short crawl through a mechanic’s conduit led her to another hatch and then into the crew area. She emerged in a room with lockers and four autoshowers, and followed the leftward door toward the cockpit.

A woman in a black and grey jumpsuit froze in shock, halfway out of the flight deck door. The sound of the first hatch popping open had been louder than Risa thought. The other woman had a pistol leveled off at her and narrowed her eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

Risa lapsed into a deliberate stalk. “I need to borrow this bird.” Raziel said no other guns work.

“Stop. I… I will shoot.” The pilot tapped at a shiny grey arm-band, composite plastic armor with an embedded NetMini. The lack of function alarmed her.

“You can’t shoot me. The angel won’t allow it.” Risa closed.

Giving up on the comm, the woman backed through the door, pistol shaking. “I mean it, stop. Angel? Are you cat-six?”

“I assure you, I am perfectly sane.” Her voice came silken, almost sultry. “Put the gun down and I’ll let you live. I’m here to save people, not kill anyone.”

A man in a similar jumpsuit moved in behind the pilot, yanking her to the side. He leapt through the doorway holding a pale metal boarding axe. When Risa did not slow down, he roared into a charge.

Time slowed to Risa’s mind. She lurched to the left as the axe blade came down, spinning with her back to the wall. Nano claws slid through her fingertips amid spritzes of blood. The man’s head turned, his face warped as the realization his target had become a blur reached his brain. She slipped behind him, claws held millimeters from the side of his neck. A single droplet of blood ran down a pale finger and over the back of her hand.

“Drop the axe.”

He froze; sweat melted out of his face.

Click.

Risa smiled without looking at the woman. “I told you, the angel won’t let you shoot me. I do not seek to harm you. If I close my hand, you die. Drop the damn axe.”

A trace of blood joined the sweat on his neck from a nick.

“What the hell, the gun isn’t firing,” stammered the female pilot.

The boarding axe clattered to the ground. Risa walked him at claw-point back to the cockpit. The other pilot backed into her seat, still clinging to the pistol that refused to work. A flick of Risa’s arm cut it into several pieces; the faintest tick of the synthetic diamond on metal audible over the sound of the male pilot’s breathing. Severed ammunition, blue dust and projectile fragments, crumbled onto the woman’s lap.

“Sit.”

They did. When they saw open warfare inside the compound, they slouched in defeat.

Risa stood behind them, claws hovering. “BMC is not going to help you. Do exactly as I say and you will not be harmed. Put the nose through the field and open the doors.”

Hesitant hands powered up the shuttle’s drive system. A moment later, a crowd of armed miners emerged from among drop buildings, moving towards the landing pad.

“Do it. Nudge this turkey forward.” Risa smiled at the approaching workers as the azure haze crept up and over the shuttle windscreen.

Raziel had not led her astray.

Division Zero Release Date

I’ve just received word from the publisher (www.curiosityquills.com) that the release date for Division Zero is May 19 2014.

Will have more info (and perhaps a cover reveal) as time and circumstance allow.

Divergent Fate #14

BMC put the armory drop-building at the deepest part of the installation, in the crook of the vee-shaped canyon ridge against which the installation was built. The only structure farther in appeared to be the executive living quarters and office area. Lawrence and Sergei, two of the miners who had combat training, followed Risa through the lengthening shadows.

Thirty feet from the pod, she squinted at the open ground between them and the restricted area. Atop a portable staircase, a lone security man leaned against the angled wall behind him. Success or failure depended on him not triggering an alert. Sergei’s proximity caused her eyes to narrow a millimeter at a time over the course of several too-close breaths as she studied the guard. Risa faced him, ready to snap at him for encroaching on her personal space, but smiled instead.

“Sergei,” she whispered, and then mimicked gulping something down while pointing at the open area.

He patted her on the shoulder, and grunted once before standing up to his full height. The former soldier, not quite spetznaz, stumbled ahead in a convincing drunken sway. “Goluboglazka ona byla,” he slurred, an attempt to sing.

The BMC guard readied a rifle. “You there, stop. Get back to your designated work area.”

“litchiko angela,” sang Sergei, leaning to the right three paces before falling into a leftward sway that brought him closer to the ridge.

“Are you deaf?” The guard’s face reddened at being ignored. Armored boots clanked on the metal grid stairs, then skiffed through the loose Martian topsoil as he approached. “Where did you get an intoxicant? You know that is contraband.”

The faux-drunk Russian paused by the crimson rock, fiddling with his pants, “Moya Anya, moya Anya.”

“Hands on the wall, don’t move.” The security man stopped a few paces away from him. “You’re lucky you’re in good health, still useful. You know, I can just kill you for being in this area.”

Sergei swooned about, on the verge of falling over as he made cupping motions over his chest. “Litchiko angela. A titki, titki,” he sang, his face impressed by an idealized memory.

Edging closer, the security man seemed confident in the lack of danger to lower his rifle and ready a stun prod. “Last chance, mine-meat. Down on your knees.”

Moving as if about to urinate on the wall, Sergei ignored him. “Moya Anya, kogda ya skazal yeiy chto vozvraschayus domoi, ona mne”―the drunkenness left him―“Posmotri nazad.”

The guard could not help but notice the scrolling translation of the drunken reverie on the bottom of his visor. Specifically, the last phrase… “Look behind you.” He gasped and whirled about to find Risa standing an arms’ length away, gaze down and canted to the side, posture of a broken marionette. Nano claws slipped without a sound through his throat, leaving cuts so fine they would have been invisible if not for the flow of red. His scream came as a spray of bubbles and mist. Sergei grabbed his helmet in both hands and broke his neck, flinging the body to the ground by the head.

“Cute song,” she said, grabbing the rifle. “Here.”

“Won’t work. We don’t have chips.” He tapped his palm.

“Trust me.” She hefted it to him with a wink, and jogged to the porch.

To the right of the door, she opened a small security panel and squinted at an expanding holo-terminal with “Hi, Risa” already typed. She grinned as the text erased itself and more appeared. “One moment, I’ll get the door for you.” Sergei shuffled up behind her, frowning at the red lights around the ammo counter. Lawrence dragged the dead man along, hiding him under the armory pod.

A sound of movement came from inside. Risa closed her eyes, listening. Two people argued. They were watching the porch on a terminal wondering who Risa was, but their comms were not working. Faint electronic flutter made her look at the terminal. “Take only what is in here, all other weapons will be offline. 3… 2… 1…”

Beep.

Slivers of heat shot through her limbs as she triggered her combat neuralware. Too soon, but I have to. The pneumatic hiss of the opening door changed to a deep roaring rush as time seemed to slow. Through the door, she flew into the room with claws extending. One man at a desk, standing. Risa pounced; five Nano claws through the helmet. Ribbons of composite plastic armor skittered to the floor as the corpse thudded off his console. He alone moved normally in a world of slow motion. Risa leapt off the desk, bladed fingers outstretched. Shit, he’s got boosters. His pistol fired; her body twitched. Two hands worth of transparent claws fell just shy of his face. She landed, advancing and attacking again. He caught her wrist, trying to flip her around.

She threw herself into the motion rather than fight it. Kicking her legs for added momentum, she flipped over his arm and hit the ground hard on her shoulder. Her free hand took his knee. The man howled and slipped over sideways. Shin and boot remained standing where it had been. Gun in her face, she caught the hand, pivoted. The shot nipped some hair; muzzle flash warmed her cheek. Flash protectors in her eyes prevented her brain from receiving the surge of bright light. She pulled on the gun arm to launch herself into his chest, riding his fall to the ground as her right hand came down. Her claws found his heart; she twisted, he gurgled.

Threat neutralized.

Her boosters turned off to spare her nerves; the pain came from her stomach, tingling waves of fire ran through her body. Too much, too soon. Risa cradled her gut and rolled off the corpse, curling into a shivering ball. Behind a desk, she had a few precious seconds to suffer before the miners could see, a few precious seconds she did not need to keep the illusion. She picked the slug out of the thick rubbery material, only a minor abrasion remained on the outside. With any luck, the hit did not rupture anything vital.

By the time Sergei and Lawrence peered over the desk, she appeared as calm as if fixing her hair. With no trace of her breath-stealing abdominal pain visible upon her face, she went toward the reason they were here. Rows of weapons lockers gleamed in silver and red, lit by the code panels on each door. She smiled, keying in four sevens.

It chirped open. They all opened. Twenty-four lockers went from red to green and popped open. The men gawked at their find. Each one held four combat rifles and ammo. Risa helped herself to a few stimpaks from the medical cabinet. She pulled the rubbery material away from her neck and administered two of the autoinjectors in turn. While the men set about loading the rifles into a quartet of large duffel bags, she relaxed and let the cool presence of healing nanobots spread from her throat over her back and belly. The pain was much less by the time the clamor of them lifting the bags opened her eyes.

“BMC soldiers will be unable to fire. Don’t bother scavenging more weapons. Go, arm the others and get to the ore loader.”

“Where you go?” asked Sergei.

Lawrence blinked. “You ain’t comin’?”

“I need to go sweet talk a shuttle.” She wiped blood off her fingers, examining her nails. “I just hope I can teach myself to fly one in six minutes.”

——————————

Sergei’s Song:

Goluboglazka ona byla, litchiko angela. A titki, titki.

Moya Anya

Kogda ya skazal yeiy chto vozvraschayus domoi, ona mne…Posmotri Nazad

 

Blue eyed she was, with the face of an angel, and big boobs.

My Anya

When I told her I’m coming home, she said…Look behind you

(Thanks to Lisa for translation assistance)