The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  “Gro, gro, gro.” The sound came from behind us, along one of the meandering passages that spread out from the courtyard.

  Shit. Reinforcements, I linked. It sounded deeper than the others, as if this particular frog monster sang base rather than baritone.

  Ain’t no rest for the wicked, Hoss.

  I spun, kinetic disruptors in each hand. We had a strong handle on the few Phothu-nacyi left, but I toggled the Adept anyway.

  Poetry and deadly grace poured through my veins, sweet and certain.

  Dammit, Guthrie. Delacruz swore through the link. Just had to go and open your hillbilly mouth, didn’t you? ‘This is SO much easier…’

  A titan of an amphibian aberration shamble-hopped toward us on all fours. The smell of it came first, a musky bestial smell that almost overpowered the rotten-fish ichor that covered its flesh. Rolls of sea green flab hung around the waddling horror. Like the first we had seen of this kind, its mouth writhed with a beard of loathsome tendrils, like the feelers of catfish.

  It tasted at the air.

  I guess I did. Wyatt’s link felt rueful. Sorry.

  There’s more than one of them. I saw a second approach along the same passage as the first. This other male, if that were actually the case, crept behind the first, groaking in a deep, rumbling gurgle.

  With no warning, the first behemoth leapt eight meters in a single bound. The moment it landed, its acidic tongue whipped out and wrapped around Delacruz.

  Who lay hidden beneath the Wraith.

  They could smell her.

  [Shit!] she cried out, taken completely by surprise. [Oh, what the fuck?!]

  Her tactical gear began to smoke around her torso where the toad’s tongue touched it.

  Sofia! Wyatt stepped forward, the Tangler already whining. I need you to pull your top off!

  The fuck you say, Guthrie!

  Wyatt fired three quick shots, even as the creature whipped Delacruz toward its mouth. Sofia screamed, a cry of startled fury.

  The second large Phothu-nacyi hopped into the clearing behind Wyatt.

  Your six, Artisan. I paused. I’ll take this one; assist the Gatekeeper.

  He didn’t respond.

  WHUF! WHUF!

  The second juggernaut stalked behind him. It didn’t so much as flicker one grotesque eye away from him as it approached.

  The scent of it, rancid fish, all but overwhelmed me.

  It tasted at the air, opened that great maw, and smacked its mouth.

  From this close, I grew personally acquainted with its fetid breath and the dripping, drooling strands of its vile mucous.

  Slowly, as if awareness dawned within its mind, the gargantuan toad turned toward me.

  Shit. Apparently, my parfum de ribbit had worn away.

  “Hey.” I disengaged the Wraith and felt pressure ease at the base of my skull. As I faded back to visibility, the Phothu-nacyi reared back in surprise.

  I fired two quick bursts, one from each pistol. The first, tight and fast, carried the heft of a speeding truck. It struck the lumbering toadstrocity in the side of the head and kicked its froggy noggin sideways, spraying the wall with blood.

  Though certain that single shot killed the bastard, I had to be sure. My second burst maintained roughly the same speed, yet I focused it to the size of a softball. That pulse screamed into the thing’s neck.

  The creature toppled over.

  “Groak?”

  I spun and saw one of the smaller Phothu-nacyi hop toward me.

  Four more of them came from behind it, one of them tasting the air. Each of them seemed quite interested in my potential as a host for its young.

  “Always more of you, aren’t there?” I whipped my pistols toward the group, fanned open the focus on the left one, and fired.

  A burst of force slammed into two of the frog-kin and hurled them back.

  The shot didn’t kill them, which, as it happened, was perfectly fine.

  I didn’t want their young getting all friendly.

  [Asshole goatfucker!] Sofia sweetly crooned in my Crown. [Piece of shit, dickless frog—]

  “GHro!” One of the Phothu-nacyi leapt to the side, away from my bursts. It raised one webbed hand high, and I saw within it a small phial, something delicate and crystalline.

  It hurled the ampoule at me.

  A fetid stench overwhelmed me as something crashed against my chest.

  “Wyatt!?” I whipped off my stinking jacket to wipe at the ambergris-and-and dead-fish smelling mixture. I had some success, but the mess had already begun to spread and harden upon my chest.

  Busy! Frantic fury poured through that link. More of them, Hoss. Other side of the courtyard.

  Wyatt, seriously!

  The Phothu-nacyi that had hurled the substance on me hopped closer, dull eagerness shining in its eyes. It opened its mouth, and strings of putrid saliva stretched between its teeth.

  Situation handled, Michael. Bursts from Anya’s automatic weapon filled the courtyard.

  The lurching toad that had trapped me fell back from the shot as blood and gore exploded out the back of its head.

  Anya slipped behind the gurgling thing. She gave me a quick nod.

  I don’t know if that’s any better. As the golden goo spread down my torso and up my neck, the creature’s corpse began to writhe. It had fallen upon its back, so its spawn struggled…

  Yet I had no doubts they would work themselves free, and here I stood, practically paralyzed. The chemical ooze now covered most of my chest and arms.

  I’d dropped one of my disruptors, but I couldn’t even raise the one I still gripped.

  Artisan, I need a spike. Anya sent the link with a small patch of locations and instructions.

  Gotcha, Preceptor.

  From halfway across the courtyard, he fired. The WHUF! echoed off the buildings. Then a silvery stasis field sprouted like a mushroom where the Phothu-nacyi had fallen.

  We will get you free, Michael. Anya sidled closer and gazed at the mucous-colored growth. Can you breathe?

  For now. It still spread, slowly creeping toward my face. I probably have a minute or two.

  Understood.

  Anya attacked Phothu-nacyi like a wrathful force of nature.

  Just as in Rome, the Preceptor tended to maim the creatures when she could. She aimed for their legs or executed blinding spin kicks. With cold, logical grace, she incapacitated each target before moving to the next.

  Rachel had a different strategy altogether.

  At first I believed she’d simply engaged the traditional offensive tactics of the Caduceus. The Stinger, after all, could just as easily be employed to spread viral mecha into the bloodstream of a foe. The implement had a range of approximately ten meters, and the nanomachines typically took less than a minute to engage their defensive variables.

  However, I noticed that after Rachel shot the gurgling things, they didn’t begin to scream or hop around the courtyard before being eaten alive by viral mecha.

  Instead, the aberrants she shot wobbled drunkenly for a moment and fell to the ground, twitching.

  Their spawn wriggled for a moment when they fell, then went still. After a moment, they oozed out of their parent, limp and slimy.

  It disgusted me. But, a lady who rewrote viral mecha dialogues from half a world away could easily configure them to knock out aberrant toad monsters.

  WHUF! A spike tore into the stone at my feet and shone light green for just an instant. I smelled ozone.

  Hey, Hoss. Wyatt bounded over to me, tapping at the crescent on his hip.

  One of the Phothu-nacyi, which he’d apparently just shot in the chest, fell over and shrieked as the spike began to roast it alive.

  Delacruz? I linked him as the goo on my arms and chest began to soften.

  She’s fine, he linked, just as the fried toad vanished in a fine example of offensive porting. Pissed but fine.

  Pissed?

  The courtyard is almost clear. Anya stepped toward one
of the Phothu-nacyi, and punched the thing squarely in the face.

  As it stumbled, Rachel shot it in the back with her Stinger.

  More keep coming, Alpha, my Caduceus linked. If we remain here, they’ll just swarm us in waves.

  Mike, Delacruz linked. If you can spare me for just a couple of minutes, I’ll head this way. A token appeared on my visual for a moment and then faded. That’s the closest we can get to functional southeast. If you’re interested in chasing down Amir in his fucking Dirge of fucking Salt or whatever, I can initiate conduits forward.

  I nodded as I considered it. Whether we find Amir or not, the Variance should be within that locale. Good play, Gatekeeper.

  I do show the Variance in that direction, Anya linked. Less than a kilometer, if our paths were straight.

  Anya, we need a token on that locale.

  Understood, Michael. As she linked, a burning blue reticule appeared upon my visual.

  So I’m off to create apertures. I felt Sofia’s engaging smile. I’ll be back in a few.

  Understood, Gatekeeper.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of chain-porting our way through the city. I’d pulled a similar ploy while we were in the Broodwell of Dhire Lith, and it had worked wonderfully.

  Of course, at the time, I believed I’d invented the idea.

  My Gatekeeper could easily move great leaps in a single bound by shooting her crossbow from an open aperture to create the next. She could move all available Assets through the city relatively quickly without engaging the battle-toads along the way.

  Instead, I’d adopted a moratorium on splitting the team. No wonder she was pissed.

  So, we’re holding? Wyatt linked. I heard the Tangler’s whine kick upward in pitch.

  Just for a few.

  Copy that, Alpha. In that case, I’ll close the doors. He wandered over to the meandering thoroughfare he’d walked down, and I heard a WHUF! as he laid a spike. Immediately after, the WHOMP of a silvery stasis field sounded, that path blocked. No reason to deal with Frogger while we wait.

  Good idea. I wiped clumps of frog-mucous off me as it softened.

  On the far side of the courtyard, Anya and Rachel finished off the last of the Phothu-nacyi with a loud symphony of automatic fire.

  Rachel was right; Froggy would eventually overtake us if we’d continued. Along one of those meandering corridors of stone, more toad-strocities hopped and groooaked this way. They weren’t particularly rabid nor did they all rush to take us at once. Yet legions of them inhabited this city.

  WHUF! WHOMP!

  That direction, Wyatt. I pointed down the path where the creatures shambled toward us.

  We had this. I felt relatively certain of it. As long as they couldn’t get at us, all we had to do was wait. Delacruz would reach the cultists quickly.

  I took the opportunity to think about what Amir had said. We needed a plan, and we needed it quickly. The problem was I had no idea how much of what he’d said could be trusted.

  My first thought was, he lied in every word.

  A child cannot comprehend the work of a man, I heard him whisper in my memory.

  His certainty that M’elphodor would rise infuriated me.

  While my cadre secured the area and my Gatekeeper blazed a trail, I paced around the gore-soaked courtyard. As I thought, I began to piece together the barest hint of a crazy plan.

  I just needed the stones to pull it off.

  The Dirge of Brine and Salt

  Delacruz took far longer than I’d expected.

  In the end, that didn’t matter much at all. Wyatt closed off every possible entry into our little courtyard.

  “Can’t do anything about the sky though.” He glanced up uneasily. “Er, cave. Whatever.”

  “I don’t think these toads can fly.” Rachel sat on the edge of the fountain as far from froggy grotesqueness as possible. She scowled at the wrist interface to her Stinger.

  “Ever hear of a rain of frogs?” Wyatt skewed up his face. “That stuff happens. My grandpa saw one.”

  “If frogs fall from the sky, then the mission resolves itself, I suppose.” Rachel frowned.

  “Coming up with new ways to slaughter the Phothu-nacyi?” I grinned at her as I strolled by. “I noticed the ones you shot weren’t survived by any offspring.”

  “Something I’ve been working on,” she explained. “Some of the barbs I shot earlier weren’t intended as an attack; those needles carried diagnostic mecha.”

  “Diagnostic mecha don’t need a Crown interface, right?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Exactly. They’re helpful if a median human has been infected or physically damaged.”

  “So you used it to, what, give yourself a biology lesson about Kermit?” Wyatt sat down next to her.

  “After a fashion.” She smiled.

  “I saw them after you shot them,” I said. “The spawn didn’t awaken. They just sluiced out onto the ground in a runny mess.” It’d been pretty disgusting, but I imagined a Caduceus ran into worse things on an average day.

  “I don’t know if we will ever encounter them again after today,” she explained. “But if we do, my Stinger can put them down with no worry of creating an infection hazard.”

  “That’s impressive, Caduceus.” Wyatt let out a low whistle. “How in the hell did you manage it?”

  “It’s not that much extra mecha dialogue to have them travel to specific locations within the body before triggering their defensive variables. Instead of devouring them alive, I attacked their nervous and endocrine systems.”

  “But…” He shook his head. “I mean, I saw when you shot them. That shit was instant. Our injectors don’t work that fast.”

  “True,” Rachel nodded and peered more irritably at her interface. “Our VM dialogues take it easy on existing nerve pathways, because they don’t want us to collapse into seizures. I overrode those protocols.”

  “You…” Wyatt sat back, arms folded. “But I don’t see how—?”

  “Guthrie, I’d explain it, but it’s too much biology and chemistry.” She reached out with one finger and bopped him on the nose. “You should just sit there and be cute in your short shorts.”

  Wyatt’s expression was something I’d treasure for the rest of my life.

  Alpha, Delacruz linked to me alone. I have a report.

  Go ahead, Delacruz.

  Okay, so things were slightly more difficult than I thought, she explained. I didn’t take into account the fact that still, every time I get near one of froggy’s little waterholes, it’d throw aberrant vectors all up in the Temporal Corona.

  I could really learn to hate spatial vectors, I groused.

  These things are bizarre. Just like the ones we saw in Rome, they’re gateways to somewhere else.

  That made perfect sense. Earlier I’d wondered how the Phothu-nacyi had avoided the detection of humanity for millions of years. It made more sense if they had the capability to hide within an alternate topia.

  So secretly, I had kinda hoped I’d be able to carry us directly to the foot of the Dirge.

  I have to admit, I’d hoped that too. I furrowed my brow.

  I can still get us there. I can even take us as a group, I just can’t do it in one leap. We’re going to have to make several stops along the way, but we don’t have to stay in any one place for longer than a few minutes.

  Okay. I could work with that. So you’re saying you can jaunt us forward to a different location where we need to hold for a few minutes. Then, you can carry us forward to the next one?

  That’s it exactly. She felt a touch relieved over the link. It would be helpful if I could promise you exactly how many jaunts we’re going to have to take here, but that’s tough too. It’s all in the numbers, and I’ll be figuring on the fly.

  A guess?

  Somewhere between three and five leaps to reach the front door.

  What about going back to the Corvus? I folded my arms and leaned back against the courtyard wall. Could w
e make our leaps back to the realmship, and use that as an in-between haven somehow?

  I can easily get the cadre to the Corvus. She nodded, and I felt her certainty. But getting from the Corvus to here is a bit trickier. I’m certain you remember how my apertures shifted in Ar’Ghosa? Didn’t stay still?

  Right. I did, all too well. The things had made me vomit on an innocent asshole’s shirt.

  With the aberrant vectors, we’d have to deal with unstable apertures like that for every leap. I felt her shake her head. My official recommendation is take the leaps.

  You’re the expert. I raised both hands. Do this the way you see fit.

  It really will be easier, she linked. Would you like me to patch this plan to the rest of the cadre?

  Please. Then let me know when the first aperture is ready, and we’ll head out. I paused. Good work.

  Michael, Anya linked to me alone. You have indicated that when we had a moment of spare time, we might discuss the patch you sent regarding 3302 and new intel?

  Right. I nodded. Let me see if I can raise Stone first.

  I didn’t actually roll my eyes as I initiated the link. He might have felt that, after all. I needed to reign in my feelings for the man, especially as Alpha.

  Wyatt insisted I had no reason to feel the way I did about Facility Liaisons, and perhaps he was correct. Demetrius Suave Superspy Stone had never been unpleasant or difficult to deal with.

  Quite the opposite.

  The fucker was perfect. He’d probably cleared out the entire Mediterranean area of every amphora and Irrat by himself. While he’d been at it, he’d taken down the Sadhana Corporation, just for fun, and seduced half the region.

  Jerk.

  Stone?

  Hello, Michael! His link felt like free-form beat poetry in my mind. I take it the cadre is alive and well?

  For the moment. I nodded. We have a bit of time on our hands, and I thought we might use it to discuss the information I patched.

  Good idea, he linked solemnly. Is this need to know? I noticed only you and I are on the link.

  I thought I would make certain you had a moment before I linked us together.