by J. N. Chaney
I blinked at their bodies only once, amazed and slightly disturbed at just how lethal this woman was, and then stood up.
“You used me as bait,” I said, my pistol and open hand outstretched. “Bait!”
“Yeah,” she said, looking toward the front door. “Maybe we should change your moniker to Bull’s Eye.”
“Or maybe Lefty.”
“Lefty?”
“Lefty Die By His Partner.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. Eh, I had better puns. But I had to admit, it wasn’t bad.
“I see what you did there, sir,” Lars piped in. “It was quite ingenious.”
“See there?” I asked Rachel. “The AI likes it.”
“Whatever,” she said. “We gotta move.”
I reached inside my pocket, pulled out a hundred-credit chip, and flipped it toward the bar. It clattered around upturned stools and broken glass. The bartender poked his head up for a quick glance.
“That’s for our drinks,” I said.
“And sorry about…” Rachel gestured to the entire room. “Well, all this.”
“Come on,” I said to Rachel, “another hundred creds says there are more thugs where they came from.” I ran toward the door and heard Rachel follow behind me.
“What do you think they were after?” she asked as we stepped into the darkening street. The city’s odor hit me harder than last time, probably because my senses were heightened from the firefight.
“You, clearly,” I said, scanning both directions.
“Me?”
“You wanted to be the boss, right? Well, welcome to the joys and privileges of leadership.”
“You’re saying someone wants to beat us—”
“TO THE MYST WE WANT,” I blurted out, just in case someone was listening.
Rachel winked. “Right.”
Oragga wasn’t the only person in the quadrant who wanted artifacts. Oubrick’s takeover in Sellion City had proven that. And I’d bet creds on him not being the last competition we’d encounter. The way I saw it—the way my gut saw it—someone was on our tail and wanted to know what we knew. And as it stood at present, Rachel was the hot ticket to their jackpot now that we’d met with Falco.
“Think he got a bullet to the head?” I asked, thumbing over my shoulder.
“Who?”
“Falco.”
Rachel laughed. “Gods, I hope so.”
“Mr. Reed, Miss Fontaine, please be advised that I’m detecting several life signatures closing on your position from the west,” Lars said.
“Copy that, buddy,” I replied. “I want the Horizon fired up and ready to fly when we get there.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Come on,” I said, tapping Rachel on the arm and pointing toward the east. “Let’s go.”
We ran down the street until we hit a main artery with traffic zipping left and right. Low-end hover cars jostled against one another in an un-orchestrated display of sparks and bangs as each vehicle competed for a position on the street. Apparently this far down, the rules of the road meant a free-for-all.
“Now I know why that cab driver wanted so much money,” I said to Rachel.
“He should have asked for more,” she replied.
I nodded. “No kidding.”
This was more like a space derby than an evening commute from the office. As with most cities I’d visited, vehicles this far down were the ones that couldn’t fly. Cheaper, less expensive to maintain, and the standard mark of the lowest working class.
Just then, a new metal-on-metal bang rang out. I turned around to see four more enforcers beating down the street behind us, guns firing—of course—only at me.
“Here we go again,” I said to Rachel. But she was already off and running—directly into traffic. “Damn, woman! You really are insane.” A few bullets ricocheted off the grimy pavement, spraying my boots with sparks. “And apparently I’m just as insane.” I waited for a gap between hover cars and then stepped into traffic.
Bullet’s struck vehicles with loud thuds and twangs as I moved deeper into the chaos. Strangely enough, no one seemed to pay Rachel or me any mind. They drove on, not attempting to avoid us in the least. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed.
We ducked under hover scooters, dodged cargo sleds, and narrowly missed being sandwiched between two cars whose drivers were apparently pissed that the other existed. Still, the assailants on our six were more pissed that we existed. Well, at least that I existed—I assumed they still wanted Rachel.
We moved as fast as we could, stepping through gaps and timing our movements with the vehicles’ odd patterns. Our feet splashed through puddles of liquid, the consistency of which I had no desire to know about, and my boot crushed more than one amphibious creature that lived in the potholes.
By the time we reached the far side of the street, the gunfire had abated. “How we looking, Lars?” I asked over comms.
“To continue with your idiomatic expressions, not good, sir,” he replied. “There are two more groups that appear to be closing on your position from the north and the south, respectively.”
“Two more?” Rachel asked, looking at me for some sort of confirmation.
I shrugged. “That’s what the man said.”
“Sir, might I remind you that I am neither male nor female.”
“We can discuss your gender transition issues later, Lars,” I said. “Right now”—I watched the vehicles whizz past us— “we need to catch a ride.”
“Seriously?” Rachel asked.
“Very seriously.”
I removed my pistol and drew it on the next car heading toward us. Based on the fact that no one had tried to avoid us when we’d passed in front of them moments before, I knew it was going to take a strong display of force to get one of these desensitized drivers to stop. I opened fire, emptying my magazine on the driver’s windshield.
“What are you doing?” Rachel yelled, trying to pull my arm down.
“It’s composite,” I replied over the bark of gunfire. “Practically indestructible.”
The vehicle slammed on its brakes, its reverse pulse thrusters beating hard against the pavement. It slipped out of traffic and careened to a stop a few meters from us.
“Indestructible, eh?” Rachel asked, pointing the the large spider-like cracks that splintered out along the windshield.
“I never said it was Flint Rated.”
Rachel rolled her eyes at me.
The driver flung the door up and charged out of his hover car in a fit. But as soon as he saw Rachel and her twin pistols, he put his arms up and backed away.
“Take whatever you want, lady,” the man said. “You’re crazy!”
She continued to train her weapons on the man as he backed around the rear of the car. I took the opportunity to pass beside her and slip into the driver’s seat.
“Hey,” she yelled.
“Get in!” I said, pointing to the passenger-side door.
“I was gonna drive.”
Suddenly, bullets pinged off the hover car’s hood and struck the building beside us.
“Get in the damn car!” I ordered Rachel.
She complied and pulled the passenger door up. The automatic doors hadn’t even shut yet as I hammered the throttle trigger on the steering yolk. The vehicle shot forward, pressing Rachel and I back into our seats. But that lasted only a second.
The car sputtered and bucked. Then it shot forward again. And then it slowed. A red indicator on the center console indicated some drive core failure.
“Come on, Tina,” I said, patting the dashboard. “Don’t do me like this!”
“Tina?” Rachel asked.
“I name every car Tina,” I said, still pounding the center console.
“You have problems, man,” she said.
Just then, the car leaped forward, its drive core back online. “See?” I said, gesturing to the console. “Tina.”
Rachel rolled her eyes.
The sound of bullets pinging off our rear end and cracking our back windshield was joined by honking horns as I pulled into traffic. I jockeyed for position and then said, “Give me a route, Lars.”
“In three hundred meters, turn right,” Lars instructed as if he were sitting in a comfy crash couch and sipping tea on the Horizon.
“Copy that,” I said, seeing the gap between buildings fast approaching.
“You planning on slowing down?” Rachel asked.
“Why?” I asked.
Rachel reached for the handle along the door. “Godsdammit, Flint!”
I threw the car into a hard-right turn, slipping through the air at a ninety-degree angle. The pulse panels reared up in full deflection, straining against the momentum we’d generated.
But Tina wasn’t going to make it. At least not as smoothly as I’d hoped she would.
The power dimmed for a split second, which was long enough to keep us from negotiating the turn without incident. As we rounded the corner, my driver’s side door slammed into the oncoming building, which sent Rachel falling into my lap.
“Get off me, lady,” I said, getting the car back on track. “This is hardly the time.”
“You wish,” she said, sitting upright.
The side street was considerably clearer than the main thoroughfare. Only a few cars remained ahead of us, most traveling at half our speed. I overtook the first two and dodged an oncoming cargo hauler. Horns blared as we zipped buy, but there were no gunshots.
“Nice work, Hammer” Rachel said. “At least that bought us a little time.”
“A little?” I glanced at Rachel, who was busy replacing her pistols under her hiked-up dress. “They’re on foot back there.”
“For now.” I pulled my eyes away and looked back at the road. “Aw, shiiit!”
Rachel looked up with me to see two armored hover trucks blocking the end of the street. I pulled back on the yolk and jammed the throttle all the way down.
“What are you doing?” Rachel yelled. “You’re not gonna make it!”
“The hells I’m not!”
Tina pitched backward as the pulse panels adjusted our angle of attack. Hover cars like this weren’t designed to get more than two or three meters above the ground. But I didn’t need to get over the armored vehicles… just over their hoods.
“Fliiint?” Rachel yelled, grabbing my arm.
“Hold on!”
The headlights filled our cabin with bright light as the nose of our car struck both the vehicles’ hoods. The force whipped our heads forward before throwing us back in our seats. Our car careened up the truck faces like a launch ramp. The drive core whined as the pulse panels deflected the energy…
But not enough of it.
Tina’s belly ground along the armored trucks in an ear-splitting tear. It lasted only a second, however, before we’d cleared the roofs, sailing through the air in free flight, and headed directly for the building face beyond.
“Flint!” Rachel screamed.
I yanked the steering yolk hard right, bottoming out the servos. The panels flipped to the left and I crushed the throttle. Then we rolled, our belly heading toward the oncoming building, as the drive core sent a wave of energy toward it. The car was attempting to keep us from slamming against the building, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. We were going far too fast.
Tina hit the structure with such force that I thought my vertebrae had fuzed together. Sparks shot past the windows as did chunks of the wall. And pieces of the car. Suddenly, Tina lost power and started to tumble out of the air.
“Flint!” Rachel yelled, grabbing my shoulder with one hand and the door’s handle with the other. Her hair went weightless, suspended in the fleeting moment of zero-gravity.
Just then, the power came back online and the vehicle tried to right itself. We landed in the street, bouncing off one bottom edge and rolling to the other before Tina leveled out.
“Hells, yeah!” I cried, pounding the yolk with my fist. I squeezed the throttle and we shot forward again. Bullets struck our tail and skittered off the pavement outside, but we were putting distance between us and our pursuers.
A wave of energy surged through the car and distorted my vision. Moving from back to front, everything looked hazy for a split second. As soon as it passed, every light in the cabin went out and Tina lost all power. The vehicle dropped like a rock.
Rachel and I rocked violently as the car slammed into the pavement. “EMP!” I yelled. “Get out!”
There would be no recovering from the electromagnetic pulse for a vehicle this old. It was as good as dead, as was every unshielded device on the block. But our comms would be fine.
I pushed the door out and up, suddenly aware of just how much it weighed without the mechanical servo assist. Gunfire erupted from the direction of the armored trucks. I could already see the vehicles attempting to turn our way in the narrow street. Assailants poured from the back bays and headed our way.
“Who are these guys?” Rachel asked, already running down the street.
“I think they watched your latest sex holo,” I added. “Probably want your autograph.”
“Very funny,” she said without laughing.
“We’ve got to find cover, fast,” I said. As if to drive my point home, a large-caliber railgun round exploded in the pavement about five meters in front of us. My ears rang as my body flipped sideways, skidding along the street. I rolled to a stop and pushed myself up, driven by adrenaline.
“Rachel!” I yelled, blinking my eyes into focus.
“Here,” she replied over comms, weaker than I’d hoped for. Or maybe it was just because of the bell tone resounding in my ears. I saw her raise a hand, struggling to stand up.
“We gotta get off the street!”
“Roger that,” she said, stumbling in my direction. I pushed myself up as more bullet fire pelted the pavement around me.
“Something tells me they don’t want you alive anymore, Rachel.”
“Really?” she asked. I could see blood coming from a small cut above her temple. “What gave you that idea?”
I smiled despite the pain coming from my hip and shoulder. “Something about that last care package. ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ I think the card read.” We darted toward a side alley. It wasn’t much, but it got us out of their line of fire.
“What do you think changed their minds?” Rachel asked.
“My guess? If they can’t capture you, then killing you is the next best thing,” I said, jogging toward the far side of the alley. It looked like it banked to the right up ahead. We rounded the corner only to find a tall fence blocking our way.
“Lars, buddy?” I asked, turning away from the wired wall.
“How may I be of service, sir?”
“We need another way out of here.”
There was a moment’s hesitation before Lars replied, “The door to your left has been unlocked for your convenience.” I heard a small click as an internal mechanism moved.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said, moving toward the door. “A little easier than Oragga’s towers, isn’t it?”
“I feel that is an unfair comparison, sir. The security here could hardly be termed secure. Breaching this building’s firewall is, as you say, like taking edible compounds high in sucrose from a newly birthed human offspring.”
Rachel and I pounded down a dank hallway with flickering yellow lights. “Not exactly how that expression goes, Lars, but I get what you mean.”
“Very well, sir. Please proceed straight for thirty-seven meters, and then turn right.”
“Copy that,” I said.
Our footfalls echoed down the tiled corridor. Several people poked heads out from behind doors marked with numbers. Apparently, this was some sort of apartment building. No sooner did they see us pass by, however, than they shut the doors. Sounds of deadbolts clicked behind us. In all the housing projects I’d ever walked through, that meant these tenants were used to—
“No
w, where are both of you going in such a hurry?” a man called out from the far end of the hall. He stood at a T-intersection, slapping a baton into a palm.
“Out of the way, pal,” I yelled as we continued to run toward him.
“You’re in our house now, bitch,” the hoodlum said just as four more of his friends stepped into view. They wielded knives, brass knuckles… and one of them even had a whip. A whip? Really?
“We’ll get out if you just stand aside,” I said, still charging toward them, waving them aside with my pistol. Most of the time, the sight of my weapon made people move. But not these guys. Idiots.
“Not gonna happen, I’m afraid,” said the leader.
“You have to shoot first, Flint,” Rachel said in my ear.
“Not happening,” I replied.
“What was that?” said the lead hoodlum with the baton.
“Look out!” I was now only a few strides away. But the baton went up and knives were poised to slice. These guys weren’t moving. So I lowered my shoulder, dodged the leader’s first baton swing, and slammed into his gut. His head slammed against my back as I drove him into the far wall. I heard something crunch in his abdomen as the air left his chest cavity.
Then something bit into my flesh along my thigh. A knife, I supposed. But the assailant’s attack ceased the moment Rachel broke the man’s arm with a front kick. I backed away from the wall, allowing the gang’s leader to crumple to the ground. Then I looked down and saw a blade protruding from my leg. I grabbed the handle and wrenched it out, cursing as I did. But both the blade and my pistol were knocked from my hands as someone on my other side slammed into me.
It was the man with the brass knuckles. Now weaponless, the hoodlum swung at my head. I leaned away from the deadly arc, then retaliated with a knee to his groin. The man doubled over, groaning in pain, before I landed an elbow in the back of his neck. He’d be stunned—and may never produce children—but he’d live.