by James Maxey
She was thrown backward by the impact. The sword hadn’t penetrated her armor, but it still felt like getting kicked in the stomach. She bounced on the leaves, rolling down a slope, landing on her back. She stared up the slope and saw Judgment’s dark form illuminated against the red flames behind him.
The cacophony of tiny explosions faded. She rose on trembling legs, her skull vibrating from the dozen alarms going off in her helmet all at once, warning her of the smoke, the flame, the dangerous proximity of trees overhead if she took flight, and, extra-helpfully, putting a bright red warning circle around the armored angel who loomed over her, since this apparently wasn’t something it trusted she’d notice on her own.
“Fuck this,” she said, tired of the distraction. “Power off.”
A small command box appeared in the middle her helmet display asking if she was sure she wanted her armor to power off.
“Yes,” she said.
All the reality augmentations in her display vanished, leaving her with only her own eyes to track her opponent. The last echoes of the alarms faded from her ears, leaving the roar of flames the only sound she heard.
She placed her gauntleted fist against her palm and cracked her knuckles.
“I’ve got bad news,” she said. “You’ve been worshipping a false God.”
“I’ll… I’ll tear your blasphemous… tongue from… your mouth,” Judgment said. Winded. He was panting. But of course he was panting. Even with his armor supplying all the real muscle work of chopping through a forest, if this was one of the thirteen prisoners, she wasn’t facing a young man. Most had gone into death row in their twenties, but due to appeals, had faced execution in their thirties. Then, some had spent over a decade in a goo tube, and another six years had passed since they’d been freed. Whoever was inside the armor was probably at least fifty, and maybe close to sixty. With any luck, Judgment might keel over from a heart attack.
She hoped not. That wouldn’t be very satisfying.
“You sound a little winded, Judgment,” she said. “The servant of a real God would probably be feeling pretty mighty right about now. Maybe you’d have better luck switching sides.”
“Shut up!” he yelled, sounding more like a frustrated child than an avenging angel. If this was one of the thirteen, in addition to being old, he probably wasn’t terribly emotionally stable. You didn’t wind up on death row by being a calm-natured soul with healthy mental tools for dealing with people who displeased you.
She held up her left hand, her forefinger and pinky extended, her middle fingers folded beneath her thumb, and said, in a cheerful voice, “Hail Satan!”
Judgment howled, raising his sword overhead, leaping into the air to fly down the slope toward her. She charged to meet him, aiming low, driving her shoulders into his knees, flipping him heels over head, so that he hit the forest floor blade first and drove his sword into the ground all the way to the hilt. The damp soil exploded in a blast of steam, spattering Judgment’s faceplate with boiling mud. She suspected his armor would protect him from the blast, but it still had to make his heart race a little.
Time to make it race a lot. She grabbed him by the boot, set her jaw, turned her face to the sky, and WHOOSH! She accelerated to the speed of sound, climbing straight for the stars. Again, her powers protected her from the ill effects of sudden acceleration. As long as she held Judgment, he wouldn’t feel the effects of his sudden speed either. Three miles up, she let go as she came to a stop. His wings caught the wind, whipping him chaotically from side to side, with what had to be several g-forces tugging his internal organs in different directions. His black armor quickly vanished into the darkness above.
She was about to turn her helmet back on to use its radar when at last she spotted a large black form tumbling to her left. It turned out to be one of the wings from the armor. Folding her arms to her side, she moved toward at, drawing closer until she was suddenly stopped by a second shadow at the corner of her vision. She turned and saw Judgment tumbling toward earth, utterly limp. An athlete in peak condition might have survived the g-forces. Odds were good that the old man inside the armor had died the second she’d let him go.
Not that she was feeling so hot herself. The acceleration hadn’t hurt her, but since she’d been dumb enough to turn her helmet off, the atmospheric control system built into her suit hadn’t kicked in to compensate for the sudden change of air pressure between sea level and three miles up. With each heartbeat, she felt like tiny knives were slicing through her muscles as tiny bubble of nitrogen formed in her tissues. Worse, during the heat of battle, adrenaline had kept her from feeling more than a dull pain from the blow she’d taken to the gut. Now, she felt certain that once again she’d broken ribs. If she survived this, it was back to the drawing board on her armor. She liked the flexibility and comfort of her flight suit, but if she had to wear a plate steel vest to keep from taking another gut punch she’d do it.
“Oh god,” she moaned, pulling her helmet back off to let the night air cool her. She wiped her lips. She stared at the dark streak on the back of her gauntlet. Even in the darkness, she could see the red tint.
“Passing out is always an option,” she reminded herself. She shook her head. Not yet. She had to get back to the island and save her mother. First, she had to be certain that Judgment was finished. She steeled herself against a wave of nausea and pulled her helmet back on, powering it up.
“Silence all alarms,” she said, before it had a chance to tell her she was racing toward a collision course with the ground. “Magnify.”
She slowed, letting the distance grow between her and Judgment. She was a half mile above the ground now, he a matter of yards. She blinked. When she opened her eyes, there was a crater in the forest beneath her and trees falling away from the center of the shockwave. She pulled up, searching for any sign of her attacker. Her helmet locked onto the angel’s head. Then on his torso. Then on his arms. None were within ten yards of each other.
She dropped to the edge of the crater, falling to her hands and knees. Her legs had gone well past rubbery, far into wet noodle territory.
Just how hurt was she? She put her helmet back on and pulled up the biometrics display. She studied her vital signs and found them to be not completely terrible. Her blood pressure, while low, looked to be stabilizing. Her heartrate was still in the zone she aimed for in her morning runs. Her oxygen levels were low but climbing.
“I might survive this win after all,” she whispered. “Okay, suit. Hit me with pain killers and something to keep me awake.” She felt the prick of needles pressing into her forearms as the suit’s first aid mode sprang to life. She had no time to wait until she felt better, though. Without bothering to stand or even look up, she rose into the night, slowly at first, like a child’s balloon, until the drugs took hold and she zoomed toward the horizon.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Do Your Worst
The sound of distant shouting told Chimpion that the telepath had already put in place the promised distraction. She pinpointed the commotion as coming from the command room for the space machine. The telepath had obviously seized control of one or more techs. The remaining techs sounded like they were trying to wrest their possessed team members away from the controls.
Finally, the cry she’d been waiting for: “App! Hurry!”
Now that she knew that App was going to be distracted by events elsewhere in the compound, it was time to make her move. Mrs. Knowbokov had her private suites on the penthouse floor of the Knowbokov Foundation Tower. Chimpion ran on all fours at top speed to reach the elevator banks in the main lobby. Mrs. Knowbokov had a private car there, under the watch of two armed guards. Even without the guards, the elevator bank required a biometric scan to activate and had a dozen different defense mechanisms should someone attempt to breach the elevator shaft by force.
Luckily, the shouts from the command room had carried all the way to the lobby. The two guards had their guns drawn, looking in the direct
ion of the commotion as Chimpion ran toward them.
“What’s going on?” one of the guards shouted.
“Another dervish attack!” Chimpion answered. “We’ve intel that one’s in the penthouse. I’ve got to get up there!”
One of the guards pressed the com button next to the elevator. “Omega station, situation red. Repeat, situation red!”
“What’s happening?”
“Chimpion says a dervish is in the penthouse with Mrs. Knowbokov.”
“Hold on…” said the voice on the com. “Motion sensors are clear. Nothing on infrared. No one’s up here but the boss and her guards.”
“The dervish is cloaked by some sort of temporal device,” said Chimpion, breathlessly. “He’s hiding between the ticks of a clock, out of phase with ordinary time. You won’t see him until it’s too late! I’m going up.”
“There’s a confirmed incursion in the jump room,” said the guard before her. “As of now, the elevator’s on lockdown.”
“I’m the only one who stands a chance against these dervishes,” Chimpion. “Let me up or she’ll die!”
The guard looked indecisive. Chimpion felt precious seconds draining away due to his inability to take charge.
Fortunately, the voice on the com proved more willing to take a risk. “I’m overriding the lockdown. Get her up here. You saw how she took apart those dervishes in New Jersey.”
“It’s your ass on the line,” the guard said, placing his palm on a pad next to the door. The mirror-finished door slid open and Chimpion leapt inside. The doors slid shut and she felt the shift in momentum as the car whizzed up the shaft. She rolled her eyes, feeling almost embarrassed by how easily humans could be fooled. How, exactly, had they become the most ecologically successful primates?
The doors slid open. She bolted out, looking toward the nearest guard. “Where is she?”
“In her office,” he said, pointing toward impressive double doors at the end of a long hall.
“Hold your position,” said Chimpion. “Watch the lights! They’ll flicker if the temporal cloak passes near. Open fire if that happens, even if you don’t see anything. By the time you see them, you’ll be dead!”
She raced down the hall without turning back, so that the guards couldn’t see the amusement in her eyes. Honestly, she’d dealt with lemurs who were less gullible.
“The doors are locked!” the guards shouted after her.
“I figured as much!” she called back, dropping into a roll as she neared the door, springing up feet first to kick at the seam where the heavy oak doors met. The wood splintered and the doors flew open. She rolled into the room, rising up on her legs, her sonic sword drawn.
Mrs. Knowbokov sat behind her desk. She had a gun in her hand, a pearl-handled revolver that looked quite old. She had it aimed directly at Chimpion, perhaps anticipating the dervish attack Chimpion had warned against.
Mrs. Knowbokov pulled the trigger. Chimpion dodged from the bullet’s path with lightning reflexes. Mr. Knowbokov fired again and Chimpion deflected the bullet with her sonic blade. Before the gun could be fired a third time, she flicked a throwing knife into her hand from her wrist holster. When Mrs. Knowbokov pulled the trigger, the bullet was blocked in its chamber by the expertly thrown blade. Fire shot from every seam on the handgun. The pistol fell as Mrs. Knowbokov cried out, clasping her burnt fingers to her chest.
“You’ve come to kill me,” Mrs. Knowbokov said, her voice trembling, though not with fear. The exploding gun had left her in a good deal of pain.
“I have,” said Chimpion. “I’m curious how you knew.”
“I received a call from an old friend,” said Mrs. Knowbokov. “He said you killed your teammates on Mars. He said you tried to kill my daughter.”
“Now you and Sarah shall die as well,” said Chimpion. “The destruction of Jerusalem will be avenged.”
“What can such a thing matter to you?” Mrs. Knowbokov asked.
“I can’t pretend that it does,” said Chimpion. “All that matters to me is that Pangea’s budget woes will be wiped away by my work. As an added bonus, if all goes according to plan, there will soon be a war that significantly thins the human herd. My kind will be grateful for the additional breathing room. The whole planet, for that matter, will be better off. Humans are the world’s worst invasive species.”
“I hardly think that’s a logical argument from a Pangean,” Mrs. Knowbokov said. “Elevated chimpanzees are a sort of pollutant, a mutation loosed upon the world by Rex Monday’s mad tinkering.”
“Really?” asked Chimpion. “You’re about to die and you want to debate ecology?”
“You brought it up,” said Mrs. Knowbokov, her eyes flickering away from Chimpion’s face.
Chimpion spun around, unleashing a pair of throwing knives in the direction of the running feet she heard behind her. The two armed guards coming to Mrs. Knowbokov’s rescue dropped in mid-stride, the knives buried deep in their necks. She turned back. “If you want to discuss something before I kill you, let’s talk about Rail Blade. You said I tried to kill her.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I didn’t try,” said Chimpion. “I… ah.”
Mrs. Knowbokov grew stone-faced.
“I should have known. The iron figure I killed… it was a decoy?” asked Chimpion.
Mrs. Knowbokov’s face seemed paralyzed. Chimpion could read every human tell, but Mrs. Knowbokov had no reaction at all to her words.
“Stay quiet if you wish,” said Chimpion. “It doesn’t matter. My telepathic ally has stolen the answer from your thoughts already.”
“I think not,” said Mrs. Knowbokov. “If a telepath could have entered my mind, controlled me as the dervishes were controlled, why bother sending you? I could have been commanded to jump to my death. I lived with a telepath for years. I know more about hiding my thoughts than anyone in the world. My secrets are safe.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Chimpion. “I don’t need a telepath to make you talk. Wouldn’t you rather die a quick, clean death than endure the agony and humiliation of torture?”
“Do your worst,” said Mrs. Knowbokov.
“Such pointless bravado,” said Chimpion.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” said Mrs. Knowbokov.
“Acid mode!” said App’s voice behind her.
Chimpion whirled around, knives at the ready, as the first splats of App’s acidic vomit landed on her left foot. She jumped away with a back flip, landing on Mrs. Knowbokov’s huge desk. She hurled a knife directly into App’s heart. The young man fell backwards, with his dying breath whispering, “Reset.” She hurled a second knife, but he cried out, “Ghost mode!” as the weapon left her fingers.
She heard a scuffle behind her and summersaulted from the desk as Katrina Knowbokov swung a big, heavy vase through the space where Chimpion’s head had just been. She still needed to find out what the woman might know about Rail Blade’s survival. She landed on the table by the window with her blowgun in hand. Half a second later, the old woman raised her hands to her collarbone, clawing at the dart stuck deep into the junction of her neck and shoulder. She pulled the dart out too late to keep her next heartbeat from flooding her brain with the sedative payload. She dropped to one knee, grabbing the edge of the desk, before slumping to the floor.
Chimpion eyed App, who looked worried. She couldn’t touch him in ghost mode, but he had no way of knowing Mrs. Knowbokov wasn’t in imminent danger of death.
“My poison has stilled her heart,” Chimpion said in a casual tone. “It’s possible CPR could save her long enough for an antidote. In ghost mode, all you can do is watch her die.”
“Clone mode!” he shouted. Suddenly, there were two of him. “Clone mode!” they both shouted. And now there were four. “Clone mode!” and suddenly, eight. “Clone mode!” Now, sixteen.
Chimpion furrowed her brow. “This is a new trick.”
“The guy with the time doubles inspired me,” said all sixteen A
pps at once. “I mean, the computers can build me a new body anytime I die. I asked Nathan if there was any practical reason they had to wait for my death. They finished programming this new command less than an hour ago. Luckily, I’d already tested it out. Right now, my first double is down in the jump room dealing with that situation. I came up here immediately at Mrs. Knowbokov’s request, once she got the phone call revealing your treachery.”
“Ah,” she said, as a light on the back of her wrist started to blink. “What perfect timing.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” said the Apps, as a pair of them split off from the pack to run to Mrs. Knowbokov. “Since now two of us can focus on keeping Mrs. K alive while the rest of us kick your ass, traitor.”
“I meant this perfect timing,” she said, raising her wrist. “My spiderbots have reached the server that stores your backups.” She pressed the flashing button. A distant, muffled boom made the floor tremble. “No more reboots, I’m afraid.”
“Fuck,” all the App’s said in unison.
Which was, for many of them, the last word they’d ever utter, as Chimpion jumped off the couch and into the crowd of Apps, swinging her sword with abandon. There was chaos as seven of the Apps were gutted before they even had time to react. Seconds later, the survivors started calling out, “Acid mode!” “Eel mode!” “Glue mode!”
She’d known that some of his most frequently used body modification programs were stored in the memory of the belt itself. With any luck, the new clone mode wasn’t one of them, since it would prove tedious if she wound up having to kill a hundred different copies of him. As she killed three more of the Apps without any one using the clone mode, she assumed that ability had been kept in the server.