Stormblood

by Jeremy Szal

  23

  Deadlocked

  Floating. Spinning. Echoes rattling off metal. Light knifing down as I stirred back to consciousness. Muffled yells, cheers, screams.

  I wasn’t strapped to a cradle this time. I peeled my eyes open to see I was locked inside a gravfix, floating in a tube-shaped statis of artificial gravity that throbbed around me with a droning hum. My arms were held out to the sides, legs dangling uselessly below me.

  Not the worst way I’ve woken up, but it was pretty high on the list.

  I was somehow bobbing, as if being swayed by an invisible ocean current, but held tightly in place. Sweat had frozen on my chest and shoulders, held by the gravfix as if already dry and crusted. I wrestled my head downwards to see the stormtech raging across my body like an oil spill. Blue ribboning from my neck down to the soles of my feet. The bare concrete cell I was in should have been cloaked in shadows, but the blooming stormtech painted it with shifting blue. Watching it play over my body, I felt like a robot, manipulated by it the whole time.

  ‘Well, you’ve been busy.’ Lasky wore his usual unpleasant grin. Perched on a stool, the Jackal looked at me like a hawk spotting a rat in a field. Smoke streamed from the burner glowing between his gloved fingers. ‘What shall we do with you?’

  What would they do? Lock me back inside my suit with a Rubix until my brain turned to mush? Vivisect me and feed me to dogs like Artyom had said they’d planned? A hundred grisly images surfaced and I used my training to kick them back down and plaster a layer of calm over myself. The stormtech wasn’t helping, trying to break through my senses with an edge of panic. ‘Is he dead?’ I croaked.

  Lasky looked puzzled until he realised I meant Luciano. ‘Yes, of course. He betrayed the House. He had to pay for that.’

  It’s one thing to face an enemy soldier down the barrel of a rifle. It’s another thing entirely to be in the clutches of a murderous cult with a grotesque sense of self-righteousness. ‘And I thought the Shenoi Collective was crazy,’ I grunted, trying to ignore the feeling of ice growing down my spine. ‘You guys are a bundle of insane.’

  Lasky smiled, his eye twitching furiously. He raised his arm, broken wrist held in a gelcast. ‘Just give me an excuse.’

  ‘You let him provoke you that easily?’ The Jackal snorted out a jetstream of blue smoke. ‘Retard.’

  Lasky turned his glare away from me to train it on the Jackal. ‘Don’t call me a—’

  ‘A retard.’ The Jackal stood and slowly thrust his face into Lasky. Holding his gaze until Lasky dropped it, seeming to shrink under the Jackal’s cold, silent menace. The Jackal cocked his head. ‘Go on. Say it. “I’m a retard.”’

  Lasky said nothing. The Jackal slapped him hard across the face. Lasky stumbled back, mouth gaping open in shock and the Jackal slapped him again, harder. ‘Say it,’ the Jackal repeated, almost whispering.

  Lasky wilted under the Jackal’s gaze like flowers under a flametorch. I began to see who really was in charge around here. ‘I’m a retard,’ he croaked out.

  ‘That’s right,’ the Jackal said. ‘A stupid, snivelling, pig-headed retard who left a Reaper alone with the nightware briefcase. What next, were you going to hold the exit open for him? He should have stomped on your fat, worthless head and done all us all a favour. Now, watch. This is how you treat a prisoner.’

  Lasky cowed for the moment, the Jackal reached into the gravfix. Almost casually, he pressed a dirty thumb into my right eyeball. Trapped by the gravfix I could only scream as he pushed harder and harder. The nail cut in deep, as capillaries popped and the tissue stretched. I thrashed and kicked furiously against the stubborn gravity, the stormtech whipped into a panicked fury along my spine. He took the burner from between his teeth and pressed it inches from my left eye as he spoke. ‘You’ve cost me a lot of money. That, I could let go,’ he said over my agonised screams. He dug deeper and electric pain shivered through my nerves, the lit end of the burner crackling so close I could feel my eyelashes scorching. ‘But you went after me. You made a fool of me. No one ever, ever makes a fool of me. So I intend to make quite an example of you.’

  He stabbed down harder, punctuating the last words before releasing me and withdrawing the bluesmoke. I gasped. I could barely see. No way to tell how much damage had been done. Waves of agony crashed over me, so hard I wanted to puke. I went limp, trying to get my breathing and body under control. Had to gather my strength.

  Lasky and Hideko’s malice had been random, thoughtless. The Jackal used cruelty like a surgical blade. Prodding the bruises and broken bones, going for the weak points to hit hardest. His eyes inspected me and I was reminded again of an intelligent animal that hunted for sport – but there was something deeper inside them. Like everything he did was for a reason only he could understand.

  The Jackal’s palmerlog rang. His gaze still pinned on me, he answered. His brow creased as he listened. ‘It’s for you,’ the Jackal snapped.

  The palmerlog crackled into loudspeaker mode. ‘For someone who’s new to Compass,’ the speaker said, ‘you’ve done an incredible amount of damage.’

  The voice was young. Female. Calm and mirror-smooth, chamfered of emotion. I guessed I was finally speaking to whoever was in charge. What had Artyom called her? ‘Flattery doesn’t work with me,’ I responded, ‘but I’ll take the compliment anyway.’

  ‘You could have walked away,’ she sighed, as if I’d asked for any of this. ‘This was never any of your business.’

  I tipped my head back to laugh. ‘Walk away while skinnies and Reapers drop dead like flies around me? While your men stalk me around Compass? You involved me.’

  ‘Believe that, if it makes you feel any better.’ I could almost hear the shrug in her voice. Jae? Was that what he had called her? I had to risk it.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Jae, let’s meet up and talk. You can tell me all about your little cult. We’ll even have coffee, if you promise not to spike my drink.’

  I didn’t even need a reaction from her. The wide-eyed look on Lasky’s face was enough. The Jackal gave a silent, mirthless scoff. I could hear that I’d made her reassess me and felt a moment of triumph.

  ‘Very clever, Vakov. Very clever. You know, that blubbering Bulkava was right. You really do look like your brother.’

  The smile melted back from my face. ‘Wait—’ But she was gone. The door crunched open and Hideko and Simmons filed in. They exchanged nods with Lasky and the Jackal, loosely steepling their fingers before bringing the tips to their own foreheads, muttering something inaudible. Had to be their cult’s greeting.

  Hideko looked at Lasky’s fresh bruises. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked the Jackal.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said calmly. He glanced blankly at Lasky, daring him to respond. Lasky didn’t rise to the bait and looked away. That slap wasn’t a fit of rage. It was to remind Lasky, without saying it aloud, who really had control around here, who was really watching, daring you to speak out about him. Using manipulation and fear to control which people saw him the way he wanted to be seen, until he had power over them.

  Guess how I knew what it was like to live with someone like that.

  Hideko frowned, but turned and tapped something on the control panel. The gravfix abruptly shut out. I fell to the concrete floor, hard. Before I could react, my head was slammed into the ground and my arms twisted behind me, shackles snapped tight around my wrists. Hideko hauled me to my feet by my hair with an arm locked around my neck. A secondary door, disturbingly fleshy, opened like a ribcage spread open for surgey. I was pushed through and into dim, throat-like corridors stinking of mould and unwashed bodies. I heard screaming in the distance, an echo of what I was feeling. Jae picked Aras up after Grim and I questioned him. I had no doubt her men had twisted everything possible out of the little alien, and then killed him.

  What would Jae do to Artyom? Did she know about Grim
and Kowalski as well? Were they already dead? I had to get out of here. Contact Harmony. Somehow. Now I knew who they were, they weren’t about to let me go.

  The smarting pain in my eye returned. The walls seemed to be sliding together, crushing me between them. Nausea rushed over me in a sickening wave and only fear kept me from puking. The Jackal must have almost taken my eye out. I blinked hard, my bare feet scraping concrete as I was marched into smoky darkness. ‘I bet you’re thinking about how to escape.’ The Jackal’s voice sounded hollow and thick in the murky tunnel. ‘Even now, you’re probably testing those cuffs. Gauging how long it’ll take you to break out of them. Lining up which one of us is the weakest, which ones you should take out first before making a break for it. You’re thinking of ripping out my throat with your teeth at this very moment. Am I on the right track?’

  I didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t get my head smashed against the wall.

  ‘Of course you are. I know how you Reapers think. I’ve seen it before. No shame in it. It’s in your nature. In your blood.’ I could swear there was a shred of admiration in the Jackal’s voice. ‘You don’t blame a wolf for hunting its prey down, ripping the screaming creature into little pieces while it’s still alive, and feasting. That’s what you Reapers are. Hunters. Predators.’ He clapped me hard between my shoulder blades and my muscles tightened with instinctive fury as I imagined breaking every bone in his body. But I’d given him the reaction he wanted. At that moment I hated my body for caving into him so easily, showing what he wanted to see. ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to give you the chance to do exactly what you’re made for, Reaper.’

  I heard a staccato cheer echo through the stone. The stormtech sparked down my arms, my hairs standing up like bristles, realisation and dread taking root in my gut.

  The Jackal noticed. ‘Yes. You’re a creature of the battlefields. You’ve got a living weapon inside you, after all. Such a waste of your talents to leave them behind, running away and forgetting who you are. Just as well you’ve got us to dump you exactly where you belong.’ He clapped me hard on the back again. The little bastard enjoyed playing with his food. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fair. You want your freedom? To earn it, you’ll have to do what you do best. You’ll have it fight for it.’

  We were in the Pits.

  Another fleshy door cracked open to reveal a filthy overlook concealed by one-way chainglass, splattered with flecks of blood. People had tried to kill each other in the waiting room. I was suddenly shoved to my knees, Lasky wrapping his arms around me from behind to lock me in place, Hideko holding my jaw upwards. I growled and bucked against the net of arms. I’d been without armour and the reassuring brush of its bristles and tendrils for hours now, the dread heightening my body’s irritation. I felt horribly exposed, hating the feeling of being touched, violated, by these people.

  I saw what the Jackal was holding and a glacier shattered inside my chest, pouring a fury of frozen water through my body.

  He loomed over me like an enemy warship in orbit. ‘You’ve probably forgotten what’s it’s like to fight tooth and claw for your life. All that rehab, suppressors; they tamed you. Well, we’re going to fix that, right here and now.’

  He was holding a hypodermic glowing with swirling stormtech. I could smell it: sweet and syrupy and cloying. My mouth watered for it, even as a wildfire of fear spread through me. An animal growl tore out of my throat as I struggled furiously against their hold on me. My muscles flexing, legs quivering, my body kicked into hypergear, unable to think about anything except getting away from the stormtech.

  I froze solid once the Jackal poised the hypodermic over my eye.

  ‘Let me explain something to you, Reaper.’ In my vision, the thin needle was a pylon of glistening steel, as if already protruding out of my eye-socket. ‘This stormtech is going in you, one way or another. It can go in your chest. Or it can go into your eyes. Totally up to you. Me, I’d be happy to make a little experiment of it. I mean, have you ever seen what happens when you shoot stormtech into a Reaper’s eyes? Keep struggling like you are, and we’ll send you to fight blind.’ The sharp, nanometal edge of the hypo seemed to gleam. The stormtech jerked hard in me, and I barely managed to ground myself in place. One muscle twitch could be all the excuse he needed. ‘Or we send you down there with a fighting chance of making it out alive. Your choice, Reaper. Your choice. What’s it going to be?’

  My eye was still on fire from the Jackal’s thumb. I imagined the unspeakable agony of the metal rod stabbing down into both my eyes, stormtech flooding down into my brain like acid. Whatever damage it did, my own body would ensure it wasn’t enough to kill me. I’d survive long enough to feel every second.

  Had to play along.

  I allowed myself to ease into the flowing channel of my body’s urges, fighting back the instinct to struggle. I nodded towards the hypodermic. ‘Say it.’ The Jackal’s eyes dissected me. Watching everything. ‘Go on. Say you want it.’

  ‘I want it,’ I growled between gritted teeth.

  ‘Louder,’ the Jackal said.

  ‘I want it!’ I choked out.

  ‘Louder!’ the Jackal roared in my face.

  ‘I want it!’ I roared back.

  ‘Yeah, you do.’ A stabbing motion and a blinding pain. I looked down to see him jerking it out of my chest. ‘People bet a lot on these fights,’ the Jackal said as my shackles were removed and I was hauled up and thrown onto the platform. Panting so hard it felt like I had a breach in my lungs, clawing and sucking all the oxygen away. My head bent down, I watched tidal waves of furious blue charging up my breastbone. Couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The world twisted in nightmare kaleidoscopes, faces smeared along the colours. His voice stretched, rushed towards me like a head-on collision. ‘The fights get boring pretty quickly. But seeing a Reaper high on stormtech fight? Well, we’ve all got money on you. My bet is four rounds at least. Try to stay alive that long.’

  The platform jerked as it lowered me into sweltering darkness, then tilted, rolling me onto the gritty sand of the arena. Between matted strands of my hair, I watched someone being cleared away, leaving a gory furrow in the dirt. I gulped for air, the world swaying around me as I stood on shaky legs. How much had he shot into me? I’d cracked myself open to the stormtech so recently that there was nothing to hold back this fresh surge. I felt it roil through me, hardening like cement around my bones. Already building my body back up.

  I blinked up at the audience high above me. A mix of aliens and humans, locals and travellers, casual onlookers and arena veterans, all waving their digi-cards high in the air as one bloodthirsty crowd. When they saw me and the bands of stormtech, they roared their approval. They’d be frantically upping their bets, pounding their shibs and ordering their Rubixs to calculate the odds. Trying to predict how long I’d last.

  I had only one way out of here alive.

  I couldn’t fight the stormtech.

  I embraced it. Closed my eyes and felt the heat from the high-intensity floodlamps sear my skin. Drank in the enhanced noise, the smell of blood, the cheers. Pulled the fresh, livid stormtech closer to me, fed it all my fear and worry. Soaked up its strength, just as I had when our troop-transport swooped closer to the muddy frontlines of the battlefield.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was ready.

  24

  Blood Hounds

  A sea of white noise. Two hundred, three hundred pairs of eyes staring down at down at me, drones equipped with cams jostling for the best angle. They didn’t care where I was from or why I was there. They just wanted to see me in action. I rolled my burning shoulders, the stormtech ripping up my throat and preparing me to fight for my life.

  I was spotlit in the middle of a ruin. The arena was designed to resemble the bombed-out remnants of some dockyard or hangar bay. A hellscape of chairs, crates, platforms, terminals, workstations, and smashed objects
were lodged in the walls and floor at haphazard angles, thin paper barricades walled up around me. Concrete and metallic chunks that had been smashed and strewn across the sandy floor were, on closer inspection, only some flexible, semi-hard material. These lunatics had turned this place into the re-enactment of a warzone.

  My attention moved to my opponent. A huge man with a cinderblock head who was bulging with knotted muscles. His grin withered at the sight of my stormtech but was instantly restored as he lunged forward, punching me square in the gut. I flailed backwards, the world tilting, as he followed up with a devastating blow, just under my ribcage. At the damage, my body seemed to jumpstart into action. Cranking through me like internal machinery turning fully operational. The stormtech coalesced throughout my body, tightening hard against me and flooding to where I’d been struck, the pain being stamped out as the blue curled there in frantic knots. My muscles burned and teeth gritted. I stooped low, my head down as I grabbed his waist, butting him square in the solar plexus, the breath punching out of his lungs. The crowd roared their approval. I couldn’t afford to take too much damage – I had no idea what the consequences to my body would be. Had to finish this fast.

  Cinderblock grunted, hurling a wooden chair at me. I ducked, and it exploded into splinters on the opposite wall. He used the distraction to lunge, his rock-like fist pounding furiously into my ribs. My skull throbbed as I soaked up the pain, runnels of sweat pouring down my body. I waited for my opening, grabbing him and smashing my fists into his ribs. Every blow was a feedback loop to my stormtech, increasing my strength. Blue pooled into my right arm, charging strength into those muscles. I delivered two more brutal strikes to his lungs, pain shivering up my arms, his body rippling with tension. I reared back, smashing him across the jaw, following up with an elbow into his throat. Panting hard, I swooped in – but he caught my arm mid-strike. I tensed. He’d noticed the stormtech flowing into the parts of my body I was using to attack. And he’d realised he could use them to predict my movements.