The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  Asshole number one grinned and reached for a black, bracer-like band he wore on his forearm. Even from here, I saw the small glass container set into the top of the thing and the furious silver mote shining within it.

  “Nope.” I practically leapt into the room, the Adept carrying me with deadly grace.

  For the briefest moment, the young woman’s eyes went wide. “[ƟDŽ ƩΘɔ?]” She drew back from me, expecting an attack. As she still held onto her weapon, she dragged that wounded Sadhana jerk a couple of steps with her.

  “Fuck!” The obvious burst of pain in his shoulder brought the word bursting forth in an exclamation of agony.

  I spun past her, aiming my Stiletto for the ass behind her.

  He froze in place upon seeing me, as if I had just appeared from nowhere.

  “What—?” Then he found his feet and scrambled backward.

  “Hey.” I leveled the Stiletto at his face.

  The young woman turned and swung her blade to decapitate my startled opponent just as I fired. I drilled a nail-sized hole through the man’s skull. In the same instant, the young woman buried her second blade in the other man’s neck.

  He gurgled and died as my opponent’s body hit the floor.

  Then the woman’s eyes fell upon me.

  I purposefully fought to ignore the blood running down her blades as I returned her gaze and took a step back.

  Her dark eyes went hard. Her forehead showed the deep red chitin I had come to expect, with yellow light tracing across its surface. Breathing hard, she looked as if she could go another few rounds. Everything about her spoke of readiness, a warrior through to her bones. She might be dressed in leather and beads, but she seemed cunning, sharp and aware.

  I imagined she could positively wreak havoc with those sickles.

  “Hi.” I smiled, holding my hands to my sides and out. I tried not to look like someone she would want to gut. “I think we’re on the same side.”

  Damn, I was smooth with women.

  “[ğⱩⱥⱣⱪⱥ?]” She peered at me intently with her dark eyes.

  “Yeah, I can see that.” I kept my voice as calm as possible. “But I shot that guy.” I gestured to the man slumped on the floor. “You saw that right?”

  “[ⱣΈῆ. ᾲⱪğᾉᾂỹ ẕẙ ẞ.]” She turned, as if listening to something.

  “How’s this?” How had Sofia done this? “Delacruz. You know Sofia Delacruz?”

  “Dell-ahCRoose.” The woman butchered the name but smiled. “[ⱪğ ᾉᾂỹ.]”

  “Right.” I made my smile wider. “Delacruz.”

  “[ᾉẙ ⱪᾋἉἱάỵ.]” The tension faded from her posture and her eyes grew softer.

  “Good.”

  I eyed the man behind me, whose skull I had ventilated. He had fallen onto his side, with his arm slung over his head. The light in the odd device he wore still gleamed with a wrath that burned to look upon.

  I crouched and peered at the bracer mechanism. Approximately twenty centimeters long, the metal device enclosed his arm all the way around. Three bright dials cleverly adorned one side along with a fairly large button and a couple of electronics casings.

  I had an idea.

  This is stupid. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Rachel and her stern warnings against punishing my tech. But it might be useful, another part of me murmured.

  I needed to be resupplied, honestly. Being this low on Facility gadgets and allies made me nervous. Besides, if I brought this back to the Designates, perhaps they could reverse engineer Rebecca Thorne’s technology.

  Hell, badass super-agent Stone hadn’t even gotten his hands on one of these.

  The catch for the bracer tripped no alarms or countermeasures, and I removed it with ease.

  I weighed it for a moment in my hand, a little startled at the heft.

  “I don’t think I’m going to get you in a pocket.” I reached into the leg-pouch I used for dampening grenades. It could fit in there, but—

  “What if I need it? Or what if I hit some button while it’s in my pocket?”

  After pretending at being a responsible adult for a few moments, at least to myself, I made the wisest choice possible.

  I started to place it on my arm.

  “[ᾋẙ ẞẸỴῊ ῄⱴ.]” She turned toward me, alerted, I supposed, by the shifting silver glow.

  I froze in place and watched her face. Would she be angry that I took it? Did she know the torture that Sadhana used to wrest that shining speck from people like her?

  Furthermore, should I dress in the gear of her enemy right in front of her?

  If these things bothered her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she repeated “[ᾋẙ ẞẸỴῊ ῄⱴ.]”

  “Harl?” The sound, tinny and quiet, clearly came from the pocket of the fallen soldier. “You clear?”

  I found the small walkie-talkie stashed at the man’s belt. I pulled it out, as my companion looked at me curiously.

  “Clear here.” I did my best impression of a thug named ‘Harl.’

  “Good. The mongrels out here are all dead.”

  Shit.

  “Roger that.” I winced as I said it, hoping that the lingo met their protocols.

  “Head on back. The Padre needs some reinforcements at the Breach.”

  The Padre? I recollected the bald man back in The Spire. Here?

  “Understood,” I responded in my great imitation of Harl.

  I remained crouched as the wheels spun in my mind. The Padre had a device like the one on my arm as well. Had he been able to escape The Spire using it?

  “[ᾋẙ ẞẸỴῊ ῄⱴ.]” My new friend took a step toward the hallway and glanced back at me.

  “Yeah, I get it. Let’s move.” I smiled again, feeling like I might be mugging it up, but she understood facial expressions.

  If Sadhana had slaughtered the rest of her tribe, then we definitely needed to get going.

  I geared the Adept down as we stepped back into the hallway. My hairless associate gestured me forward and moved stealthily through the shadows.

  We hadn’t gone ten meters before I realized what she had heard. As it finally filtered through, she glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes hard.

  Gunfire, somewhere outside.

  I nodded at her once.

  Her eyes glinted like obsidian knives.

  2

  We found a second doorway about five meters further down the destroyed hall. The bald woman took point as if she knew exactly where to go, so I followed, Stiletto at the ready.

  Heavy fire had shredded the Sadhana bunker. Something had hit it from the outside, from what I could tell, perhaps some weapon that Delacruz hadn’t known about.

  Perhaps as soon as she and her associates had taken the location, Sadhana had gone scorched Earth.

  Delacruz? Come on now. I tried to link her every few moments but to no avail. I’m getting bored of hide and seek.

  Nothing.

  The sound of fighting grew distant for a few moments, and I worried that things might be over. Then, I heard the growling of an engine outside followed by more gunfire.

  I was really missing out on the party.

  Hey there, fucko. The link hit my Crown with all the grace of a moonshine-drunk hillbilly driving a stock-car.

  Oh, God! I laughed out loud. You’re here.

  Not in Kansas anymore, that’s for certain.

  No shit.

  Michael, I’m happy you’re active. Stone actually was happy about it, I felt that. We need an apprisal of your situation.

  Oh, I have a hell of an apprisal. If you have space for a port to memory, that is.

  Hold on. Stone paused, making certain, I assumed. Ready when you are.

  It’s fairly large and I’ll have a small one right after. I leaned one hand against the wall and gestured for my sneak-buddy to hold up for a moment. Then I sent.

  You did not exaggerate the size of the packet. Anya’s link came crisply. Delacruz’s work appears remarkably t
horough.

  Well, you now know more than I do about the situation. Here’s one regarding my experiences so far. I assembled bits of my phaneric record, omitting my brilliant theft of the Sadhana bracer, and sent them.

  You didn’t port this to memory? Stone’s link felt confused.

  You puked on a guy? Wyatt crowed.

  “[ὶΆῃῌ.]” My Irrational comrade peered at me, concerned. To her I appeared to be standing here for no reason.

  “Delacruz.” I nodded at her, trying to keep my tone soft and calm.

  She urged me forward, and I followed, still linking.

  Is this aperture still active, Michael? Stone’s question came a little eagerly. If this is your current location, then we can regroup.

  Anyone who passes through may puke everywhere.

  Wyatt paused, and I felt his frown. That aperture’s vectors seem a bit busted up. Rosie here might be able to stabilize things on our end. It’ll take a lot of tanglin’ though.

  This end is not active. I will regroup with our Gatekeeper soon. Once accomplished, the aperture should be usable, even if a bit screwy.

  I can handle screwy, as long as our favorite princess lends a hand wranglin’ the axioms.

  That’s the play then. Stone’s link implied that we all, obviously, agreed. We will make for the coordinates left in your message. You will retrieve Delacruz, and then we can regroup.

  The dang thing’s still adrift. Wyatt had already set a reticule, I assumed. We can find it though.

  Great. We came to another turn in the hallway, and the young woman took it, eyeing me warily.

  “Dell-ahCRoose.” She gestured forward, through two large blast doors that likely led outside.

  Hey, I linked as I nodded at her, does Delacruz say how she learned to speak with the natives?

  It is the symbiont. Anya responded.

  She got infected, Hoss. The organism grants some kind of telepathy bullshit.

  Our Preceptor added, The symbiont is a major part of the biosphere here. It interconnects almost every form of life.

  It’s a gross part of the biosphere. I wrinkled my nose.

  It was not always like this according to Delacruz’s records. Anya paused. The locals blame Sadhana. They claim the organism began to suffer malaise shortly after they arrived and began extracting something she has named Photic-Magnetism.

  Malaise? I thought of the symbiont’s fleshy, slime-ridden growths. Is that what she calls it?

  Delacruz speculates the topia has some kind of cancerous growth, causing fast spreading tumors and lesions.

  “[ΘÞÙçğΞ.]” The young woman gestured as she grasped the door handle. “[πξ ⱩⱣᾋ ɔήζϘ.]”

  “Got it.” I nodded, completely unwilling to get infected with a symbiont just to understand her.

  She pulled open the door.

  Gotta go folks, more later.

  Copy that, Johnny Stallion. Wyatt’s link came with a grin.

  A clearing awaited us outside, nestled within a few dozen of the wide banyan-like trees. Just as I had seen in Delacruz’s patch, the trees positively crawled with enormous, multi-legged crickets.

  Ew.

  We crept outside, the mist providing more than enough light to see by.

  Trees. Rocks. Bugs. Quiet.

  I peered around nervously. I didn’t like it. At least when we had been able to hear the fighting—

  “Well now.” The voice came from behind and above.

  I spun and triggered the Adept.

  “Don’t really expect to find Silent Gentlemen out this far, do ya?” a second voice jeered.

  A man with a cigar hanging out of one side of his mouth joined his friend on top of the bunker, and both aimed their AK-47’s squarely at us.

  “No. You don’t.” The first gentleman, a man with a thin little goatee, peered down at us. “I thought their jurisdiction was pretty limited.” He gestured at me with his weapon. “Toss the pistol, pretty boy.”

  Scowling, I did. The AK’s far outstripped my Stiletto, after all.

  “Look! Seems like he’s made friends with one of the mongrels.”

  As the two bantered, I glanced around, looking for any cover at all. Even with the Adept, I couldn’t dodge bullets.

  Fuck. I saw four other men nestled in the trees around the bunker. Now I understood why everything had gone quiet.

  The whole thing had been a fucking ambush.

  Maybe I didn’t sound much like Harl after all.

  “I’d plaster your ass right here, boy, but the Padre will want a word,” cawed Goatee with a maddening grin. “Got some questions about what you folks been up to.”

  “We need to find out what you’ve been teachin’ the natives.” The cigar-sucker added.

  “They been restless, you see.” Goatee’s voice quieted, almost too calm for his shit-eating grin.

  I gazed at the men, trying to figure out how to not get murdered to death.

  BAM!

  A fierce burst of wet warmth splattered all over me as the woman next to me exploded in a horrific concussion of clear liquid.

  “What?” I stumbled back, shielding my face retroactively. Losing my balance, I fell to the ground.

  Almost immediately, the thick goo began to evaporate into nothingness.

  The moment the woman vanished, cigar-guy cursed, “God d—!”

  She appeared next to him in a burst of eldritch fire and colorless light.

  Chaos reigned.

  Goatee whirled on her, spraying bullets wildly as she firmly planted the business end of her sickle into his friend’s back.

  “[ŴƎƝ Ɣ nj èDŽ!]” the woman screamed as she swung again, and I heard the wet impact of her weapon in the man’s body.

  “Stay on the ground!” One of the men from the trees screamed at me as he jumped to the ground. He waved his weapon as if somehow I’d managed to miss it.

  The top of the bunker rang with gunfire over the wet, visceral sound of the woman’s odd Irrationality.

  I’d completely forgotten what Stone had said about these people being temporal aberrants, but there it was. She’d just teleported to the top of the bunker and killed one of the men.

  And used that man’s body as a shield.

  “Don’t move!” screamed the man with his weapon on me, but he didn’t really have to.

  I’d already sheathed my katana and tossed my Stiletto to the grass.

  “Okay!”

  “On your back, hands beneath you!”

  “We’re cool, man.” I looked up at the merc as I rolled over. “I’m doing it.”

  I had no other choice, not really. Completely helpless, I didn’t have anything in reach, except—

  Oh.

  My heart sank a little, as I realized that it had been a while since I had done something idiotic. I closed my eyes, imagining Rachel’s inevitable anger. No matter how I considered this situation, however, I couldn’t find another choice.

  I grit my teeth.

  Don’t burst into flame, I pleaded internally. Don’t summon skeletal pterodactyls or—

  I reached for my wrist.

  I pressed the button on the bracer.

  A loud, satisfying CLICK echoed through my body, and I felt a brief flash of tearing pain, something burning in each of my bones.

  And then…

  Two-ness.

  That’s a ridiculous way to describe it. However, my first thought wasn’t much better: Two? What?

  I split. My mind was a duality, slipping between two points. My perspective shifted, as if I had stood up and looked at the ground from an angle, only…

  I looked down on myself, from another man’s eyes.

  The shock of it made me recoil in horror, and as I did, I flowed backward through a long, winding tunnel.

  Then, Michael Bishop, badass extraordinaire, gazed at the soldier with the threatening gun again. He stood there, vacant and staring, empty eyed. The lights were on, but no one was home.

  “Bring her down!” Some
one in the forest shouted, but it sounded so far away.

  “Interesting.” I gazed at the soldier again, a man with stubble and dark eyes.

  The device on my arm hummed with a low throb of energy, and I smelled the wet, fungal scent of the jungle all around me. But more, I felt him as well. Faint and distant, but there. I tried remembering what had happened, what it had felt like to be looking down on myself…

  And again found myself behind his eyes.

  From his perspective I noted one of the men running from the trees, his weapon aimed high.

  I followed the man’s gaze and smiled. On top of the bunker, an elegant but terrible dance left Goatee constantly sprinting about, dodging the savage strikes of the young bald woman. For her part, she flipped and dove, then vanished before his eyes.

  He didn’t come close to striking her, but his speed did a fine job of keeping him just out of her reach.

  “Watch that asshole!” The man yelled at me, gesturing toward poor, prostrate Michael Bishop. “I’ve got—”

  What he got was three rounds from my AK-47 in his chest.

  “Robert!” One of his friends cried out from the trees.

  I turned toward him and sprayed the fungal forest liberally with a wide burst of firepower.

  “The fu—?” Robert’s friend went down, without ever knowing what happened.

  I spun around, searching the trees for the others.

  And caught a bullet, squarely in my face.

  Excruciating pain sliced through my cheek, like a burst of fire and salt in my skin.

  I cried out.

  My ride fell, slumped to the ground, and I tumbled back into my own prone body.

  One.

  Whole again.

  “We have problems at Station Delta,” a fourth soldier reported, apparently feeling no guilt for shooting his friend in the face. “We might need more backup.”

  As he stepped close, I pressed the button again. That same satisfying CLICK came, and I felt that odd, awful split.

  I drifted between us easily, like focusing my eyes, near and far. Then, I hid behind the eyes of the thug.

  “How many hostiles?” The gruff voice on the other end of my earpiece asked.

  “Um…” I almost panicked. “Standby. Situation… fluid.”

  I fired at the top of the bunker, catching Goatee in the back with a burst.