He spoke in a smooth, melodic voice. "Place your weapon on the ground, please. It’s time that we had a conversation."
“We have nothing to talk about."
“Oh, but we do. It would be in your best interest to cooperate, or else you're going to need a new partner."
The Geryon's three faces turned to Vigil. One smooth and feminine, one rigid and masculine, the other twisted and bestial. All of them hissed like a den of electronic snakes, snapping with sharp, gleaming teeth. Its heavy foot pressed harder into Heretic's chest. Heretic squirmed underneath, breath labored through his helmet. Blood streamed in crimson rivulets from the stab wound, pooling around his body.
Vigil aimed his rifle at Janus. "He's not my partner. Call off your dog, or you're going to need a new face."
Janus shook his head. "I thought you'd at least place a little value on Heretic’s life. After all, you inspired her to take up this outlandish occupation in the first place. It would be a shame to let that reverence go to waste, wouldn't it?"
Her?
One of the Geryon's arms seized Heretic's helmet with a claw-tipped hand and violently yanked it off. The sweat-slicked face underneath was Raven, Minister Donte's daughter. Her teeth were clenched against the pain, but her eyes glimmered defiantly when she spat her words through bloodied lips.
"Take the shot, Vigil. Do it!"
He took it.
The room flashed when the breach-laser fired. Janus' protective shield became visible when the beam struck. A circular dome of energy surrounded the throne, protecting him from the deadly barrage. It absorbed the laser, crackling as the plasma bloomed around the shield in searing incandescent colors. At the same moment, the Geryon leaped from Heretic toward Vigil. He smoothly slid underneath, firing the railgun at the mech's exposed underbelly. The rounds punched through the creature's body, showering sparks and broken bits of metal. The beast yowled as though it felt pain, landing in an animal crouch ten yards away. Its serpentine tail whirred when it whipped through the air.
The gleaming stinger pierced his left bicep, easily puncturing through the armor and out the other side in a spray of blood. Dropping the rifle, he desperately yanked the spike out before the barbs snapped out and tore his limb apart. Pain exploded in his arm, but he ignored it as he discharged his g-spans, firing particle beams in rapid succession. The Geryon took the punishment, armor buckling as it dashed at Vigil, scrabbling on its multiple limbs like a robotic scorpion.
Raven leaped up, activating her crackling cross-sword. With a gurgling shriek, she sheared off three of the Geryon's arms with one swing before collapsing to her knees, drained of energy. Vigil pulled his neothermic handgun and fired in rapid succession, destroying the deadly tail with incendiary rounds. The mech was still lightning quick, skittering lopsidedly on its remaining limbs to avoid further damage. Its multiple faces snarled as it flanked him, the wordless gibbering worse than articulate threats. It was nearly on him before gunfire exploded from the doorway, tearing into its blindside. Ronnie and Isaac pressed their attack, shooting from a safe distance. Castle entered behind them, strafing to the side while firing a semi-auto shotgun that rocked the Geryon with every booming shot. Spitfire followed, hurling a burner bomb that latched to one of the mech's faces. It exploded in a shower of sparks, ruined head slumping forward, wreathed in flames. The remaining two shrieked in response, faces nearly human in outrage. A high-pitched whine emitted from it, the hateful wail of an electronic banshee.
Vigil's mind exploded.
He nearly screamed when a torrent of sensory images cut through his mind: faces, scents, places, sounds, sensations. It was alien, none of it familiar, none of it his. He fell to his hands and knees, desperately trying to fight the onslaught. His companions fared no better. Spitfire was on her back a few feet away, hands clutching her head, body convulsing. Raven's eyes stretched wide, her teeth clamped together as if to stifle her screams.
The pain lessened when the Geryon turned toward Ronnie and the others. Ronnie gasped, falling to the floor with her hands clutching her temples. Castle slumped as though shot, ungracefully collapsing to the floor. Even Isaac seemed hampered, staggering as if his system was overloaded. The Geryon shrieked in triumph, a fiendish grin spreading across both faces. Spikes snapped from its shoulders and fired across the room in silvery flashes. Isaac leaped in front of Ronnie, taking the brunt of the projectiles that punctured his battered armor. Castle simply shuddered when two of the spikes tore through his shoulder and thigh.
Vigil lurched to his feet, tapping his g-span panel for his digital assistant. "Proto … can you block … whatever that thing's doing?"
"It appears to be some sort of mental projection, Vigil. I can try to short the signal if I can triangulate its source."
"Do it fast. We're out of time. " He broke into a staggering run, firing haphazard shots while his mind flickered as if trying to reboot. His aim was disastrously bad, missing the Geryon and nearly hitting Isaac, who lumbered toward the mech with slow, deliberate steps.
"Fall back, Vigil. It gets worse the closer you get."
The Geryon focused directly on Isaac. The scream rose even higher in pitch, so agonizing that Vigil's legs gave out, and he slammed into the floor, overwhelmed by corporeal images, brain on fire. Blood dripped his nose, spattering inside of his helmet. Clenching his teeth, he looked up.
Isaac moved as if in a dream, drawing back a gleaming fist. It punched through one of the Geryon's faces with a metallic crunch, breaking nose and eyeballs before caving it in. The last head's scream changed into a roar, rippling the air around them. Isaac stumbled back, one hand drifting to his head.
Ronnie pushed herself up, eyes wide. "Fall back, Isaac. Your mind core will—"
Isaac's arm shot forward, slamming over the Geryon's mouth. He looked back at Ronnie, eyes flickering. "Can't be helped. To the end, remember?"
With a savage yank, he pulled the Geryon's last head from its body, snapping cables that dripped oil like blood. A last sonic cry exploded from the mech, warping the air. Isaac staggered, circuits misfiring even as he planted his cannon arm into the Geryon's shell and blew it apart in an explosive blast of shredded metal and sparking wires. The remains of the mech hit the floor in a twisted heap, convulsing as the last of its power supply died.
Isaac's body followed, blank-eyed and empty.
"Isaac!" Tears streamed down Ronnie's face as she crawled over and threw her arms around his still form.
Mocking applause filled the accompanying silence. Holding his injured arm, Vigil turned to Janus, who stood behind his protective bubble and clapped, his sneering mask more scornful than the ovation. "Such courage. Such … determination. And yet, all of that could have been avoided if you had only bothered to listen. The Geryon only responds when it perceives a threat. If you took up my offer to talk, your friend would still be alive. "
"Talk about what—some elixir for godhood?" Vigil stepped closer, staring into Janus' masked face. "Is that what you were told aberrant energy was? They should have told you the truth. They should have told you immortality is what it's always been—a lie. Aberrant fields aren't some fountains of youth. They're just another way to die."
"Oh, I know," Janus said. Raising his gloved hands, he unclasped the snug-fitting mask and slowly removed it. Behind Vigil, Ronnie gasped.
Mark Harrington, the Mayor of Neo York, gazed back at them, dark eyes whirring as the cyber enhancements processed information. His thin lips curved in a shadowy smile.
"Aberrant energy was always a lie, a carrot I dangled in front of their greedy faces. It was never about some silly plan to grasp at immortality. It was about saving the city. And I want to thank you, Vigil. Maybe we both might become myths after this."
Chapter 20: Inferno
Castle and Isaac worked at saving Raven's life, peeling away her armor to treat the stab wound as she coughed up blood. Ignoring his own injuries, Castle opened a medical kit, activating a medimech the size of a golf ball that hov
ered over the wounds and provided instructions for treatment. From the hissing sounds of her breathing, it sounded like a sucking chest wound through the lung from when she was stabbed earlier. Spitfire joined them, assisting with rolling Raven on her side for easier breathing while they injected nanogel and applied a chest seal. Ronnie desperately tried to reboot Isaac's systems, opening up a panel in the back of his head. The frantic sounds muted, fading into background noise as Vigil stared at Harrington in stunned silence, recalling why his last statement sounded so familiar. The first phone call after he visited the Limbo haze parlor. The garbled voice on the line, so self-assured and knowing.
One day, you might even become a myth yourself…
"You're Dolos."
Harrington's smile widened. "That's right, Vigil. You surely can excuse me having multiple identities, can't you? Dolos, Janus—two faces, one man. Why have someone do the job for you when you can do it yourself? Janus was notoriously paranoid about his own organization. His lieutenants never had a face-to-face interaction with him. So when I discovered who he was, it was easy to remove him and assume both his resources and position. That was when the mask became essential."
"Who was he?"
"A particularly malicious man named Richard Kent. You may remember when he took his life earlier this year. Or so it was made to appear. He was bitter and vengeful, full of spite for enemies both real and imaginary. Lived in a lonely tower in Manhaven, high above the realm he desperately tried to control through his criminal empire and Styx, his sadistic death cult. Fortunately, he had a weakness: his addiction to Immersion. Living in other people's memories because his own were so bitter and corrupted."
Vigil clenched his fists. "The memory laundering. It was the key to all of this."
"Exactly. Everyone uses the tech, from your average street brat to your eight-figure business mogul. I've been working on infiltrating the system for years before finally cracking the code. Initially, I meant to use it to blackmail my political enemies, use their own memories as leverage against them. But when I discovered Kent's secret society of corrupt elites, I knew I had to act. But I couldn't do it alone. I needed an ally. Fortunately, there was a knight in cyber armor to recruit."
Vigil stiffened. "Why me?"
"The very nature of memory harvesting makes it nearly impossible to prove as a reality. If I released the data, the accused could simply claim themselves as victims of media manipulation and v-fakes. And with enough money and lawyers, they’d succeed. But I knew that if you discovered your memories were distributed, you’d act without fail. And that’s exactly what you did."
Vigil stepped as close to the forcefield as possible. "You made sure Zoe saw my memories, knowing she’d tell me."
"Exactly. And while you went to work, I continued to identify and entice the members of Janus' cult. You can't imagine the countless hours I spent in other people's minds, strapped to a chair with filth and depravity flowing through the crevices of my brain, overflowing the dams, flooding the terrain."
He paused, and for an instant, Vigil saw the toll of the stress in his haunted stare, the lines etched around his mouth. But then the moment was gone, replaced by calm and arrogance once more.
"In time, I was able to identify not just the cult members, but anyone in the city who were tied to the syndicates, those who lied, bribed, and cheated to attain their positions and secure their grip on perceived power. You saw most of them in the gallows chamber. They are the true evil, Vigil. Without them, the syndicates have no connections to conceal their income or cover up their crimes. They are the bureaucrats and highbinders that oil the gears running the massive criminal empire that oppresses the city. Eradicate them, and the machine rusts, overheats, and eventually falls apart. That is how you save a city, Vigil. You were merely cutting down the weeds. I am pulling them out by the roots so that they can't continue to grow."
Ronnie stepped up beside Vigil, glaring at Harrington with red-rimmed eyes. "So your solution is mass murder? How does that make you any different from the syndicates?"
Harrington turned toward her, sneering. "Mass murder? Just words, Captain Banks. I purged the system of deficiencies. As a result, the city's conditions will improve. You, of all people, should appreciate the efficiency of my actions. You tried to do your job and were constantly thwarted by corruption and incompetence. How did your investigation of Styx turn out?" His cyber-enhanced eyes slid over to Isaac. "Despite all your efforts, your attempts to change the system were futile at best."
He turned to Vigil. "And how fruitful was your work until I stepped in? All of your actions, all of your righteous violence, and where has it led you? Down here to me. Did you feel the vanity of your approach when you watched the corrupted hang? Or were you envious because you didn't conceive of such a plan yourself?"
"Hate to interrupt your little monologue," Vigil said. "But those people aren't dead. We stopped your mass hanging. They’re going to be brought to justice, just like you are."
Harrington frowned ever so slightly, lifting a hand that summoned a holographic screen displaying video feed from the gallows chamber. Inside, the victims groggily rose to their feet. Some wept; others pounded on the door, which was now locked.
Harrington shrugged. "An unexpected outcome, though not unanticipated. Which is why contingency plans exist." He tapped a panel on the screen. "You see? An easy fix."
Vigil felt a stab of unease. "What did you do?"
Harrington glanced up with a thin smile. "I told you—there's nothing you can do to stop me, or else we wouldn't be having this little chat. The people in that chamber must be purged, and they will be. Hanging was a bit dramatic, but I wanted to make an impression. Still, fire is the ultimate purifier in the end, isn't it? Burning away impurities, separating the trash from the gold."
"Don't do it…"
Harrington enlarged the screen and waited; lips parted in anticipation. "It's already done."
Vigil could only watch as the people in the chamber stopped and stared as nozzles emerged from the ceiling. Before they could even register the new threat, the nozzles fired. Streams of brilliant heat, blue-violet jets of liquid flame engulfed men and women who screamed in torment when their hair burned away, their skin blistered, and their eyeballs melted, dripping down their scorching faces. The fire ate hungrily, cooking flesh so that it slid from bones in sizzling clumps, fluids bubbling before the meat turned to char. In seconds, only blackened skeletons remained, sprawled across the floor in vain positions of escape. Smoke wafted from their bodies, darkening the room as if to shroud the catastrophe.
Vigil slammed his fists against the energy shield, vision blurred from impotent fury. "You psychopath!"
Harrington never moved, staring back with unflappable calm. "Spare me your judgment, Vigil. Didn't you just kill an entire squad of Warmongers to get in here? That's the problem with society today. Killing soldiers, syndicate thugs, or even mass crowds of people—no one bats an eye. It's acceptable carnage. But I torch a group of corrupt public officials, and suddenly I'm insane? You didn't stop to think that more damage is done with legislature than with any type of gun. A gun can kill a limited number of people, but legislature destroys generations when abused. And those people you're getting all worked up over, they were the very definition of abuse. I did the city a favor by eradicating them. I did you a favor, Vigil. Maybe you just can't handle that someone beat you at your own game."
Vigil's fists clenched at his sides. "This isn't a game. And you'll never get away with this."
Harrington laughed. Rich and throaty, it bubbled from his throat and rang in the chamber. "I already did. And the best thing is, you can't do anything about it. Who's going to believe a group of law-breaking vigilantes and a disgraced cop? Your recording equipment has been scrambled ever since you walked into this room, and I already have a foolproof alibi in place, with a synthetic double attending a fundraiser at this very moment." Summoning a second screen, he gestured to what appeared to be live footage o
f himself greeting people at a high-profile social event. "Purchasing a synoid carbon copy wasn't cheap, but fortunately, Mr. Kent's fortune allowed the luxury." He glanced at his holoband. "Speaking of, I'm due to give the keynote address in thirty minutes. I'd rather do it in person, so I'm afraid I'll have to cut this short. Feel free to use the elevator in the corner after I leave. It will take you straight up to the city."
"You know I'll come after you," Vigil said.
Harrington raised an eyebrow. "And do what—murder me in cold blood? What good will that do other than satisfy some primal lust for vengeance? Do grow up, Vigil. You have no play here, and neither does Captain Banks. If she tries to turn me in, I'll use my considerable resources to destroy her career. With all the laws she just broke, it'll be child's play. She'll end up behind bars with the criminals she spent years locking up. No need to guess how that will turn out for her."
"You wouldn't dare."
Harrington frowned, emotion on display for the first time. "You have no idea what I'd dare. With my actions, I've weakened the syndicates to the breaking point. They'll be scrambling to recover after their brokers, lawyers, and legitimate partners were turned to ash. Mopping up the remains should be easy for you and the RCE. And without opposition from political vampires, my initiatives will pass unhindered, and real change will begin. With less crime terrorizing the populace, the Vigilant movement will fade away. More Youth Havens will be built, more opportunities for employment and economic growth will arise. Freed from the chokehold of nonstop violence, the city will have an opportunity to thrive. In time, your efforts may not even be needed anymore. Isn't that what everyone wants?"
Without waiting for an answer, he returned to the mechanized chair and sat, elbows propped on the armrests. "I feel for you, Vigil. I really do. But you're too shortsighted, content to fight an endless war that ultimately will amount to nothing. Some of us have to look at the big picture, and I've only just begun. When you think things over, you'll see things my way. In time, we may even work together. Until then, you might want to keep your head down. I have a feeling that vigilantes won't be popular with the public for much longer."
Vigil: Inferno Season (The Cyber Knight Chronicles Book 2) Page 28