Terminal (Visceral Book 4)

by Adam Thielen

  Pain flooded the vampire’s body. Such was the shock of it that she whimpered, choking up stomach acid as she stumbled back. The man followed her into the room. Tsenka recovered and kicked forward at his knee. She managed to push it back, and the man stuttered a step with an annoyed look on his face. Tsenka lifted her leg into a forward roundhouse, slamming her foot into his neck.

  At this, he grunted and stumbled to the side, but managed to raise his arm, looping it up and around Cho’s calf. Tsenka launched a volley of fists. The man’s skin and body were unnaturally rigid, and he ignored her assault, punching her again in the body with his free hand, this time driving his fist into the center of her chest.

  Cho screamed as she felt something snap. Her mind went feral, and her fingernails extended into sharp claws. She slashed at the man’s face, but his skin did not break. He swung at her face, but Tsenka ducked. Still held by one leg, she jumped into the air and kicked him in the chest, pushing herself free of his grip and landing on her back.

  She lifted her feet and bent her knees. The man leaned over her and she kicked at his shins. He leaped into the air and pulled up his legs, attempting to stomp on the nocturnal as he descended upon her. Cho rolled out of the way, coming face-to-smushed-face with Bruce.

  The man leapt onto Cho, who wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him off-balance. He fell onto his hands, placing one on the ground and one around Tsenka’s neck. As he began to squeeze, Cho grabbed his wrist and threw one leg around the back of his neck, using the other to cinch up a choke hold of her own. She flexed her legs and for the first time, the man’s calm exterior cracked.

  Tsenka felt her back lift from the ground as her attacker stood up with her legs still around his neck. She expected a typical slam to the ground but instead, the man spun in a circle. With terrifying strength, he moved to the wall with Cho and completed the spin. Tsenka’s body traveled through layers of drywall and split two studs in half before bouncing off a second wall and landing amid the debris in the hallway.

  Blood ran down her face as the nocturnal pushed up to her feet, her bulletproof skin torn in several places. Her implant had already deadened the pain, and her HUD nagged her that she had suffered several fractures and cuts. The attacker followed her through the new door as Cho limped backward toward the rear entrance to the apartments, hoping to turn and run once her left leg started working right.

  The man stalked toward her. “I watched feed of you in Beijing when I was a boy. This is a great pleasure. I thought your skin would be stronger.”

  “Who are you with?” Tsenka choked out, moving to match his advance.

  “We are the people, Tsenka Cho,” he began. “And you should have never come here.”

  Tsenka calmed herself and focused. The man ran at her, punching forward as he closed in. Cho ducked and hit him once with each fist in the kidneys, then leaned back as he threw an overhand punch. He was not just strong, but also fast, and Cho barely stayed out of the way of the blows.

  However, she was tired. The daylight and meager intake of blood had taken their toll, and her injuries weren’t healing fast enough. Her claws still out, Tsenka moved close to the attacker, reaching forward to grab his throat. He pushed her back, and her claws glided across his skin ineffectively as she stumbled.

  Before she could recover her balance, the man leapt forward with a front kick to Cho’s chest. The force of the blow pushed her torso back faster than her legs could follow. Her feet left the ground and her body knocked the exit door off its rails and onto the gravel next to her. She landed in the middle of a small alley. Blood flowed from her lacerations and mouth onto sand and dirt while short gusts of wind kicked up dust around her. She lay still, her eyes heavy but still open.

  The alley itself was only a couple meters wide, with a foamcrete barrier on the other side. The stone man sniffed the air as he stepped into the doorway. He stopped and stared in front of him. Leaning against the foamcrete was a small woman with a short thin tube hanging out of her mouth. The tip glowed dimly as she puffed, and smoke oozed out of her nostrils. Daria Cretu looked the man up and down and paused at his scarred face, seemingly unimpressed.

  She trapped the cig between her index and middle fingers, pulled it from her mouth, and lowered her hand to her waist. “Listen up, butterface. This is blatant kill stealing. There are rules, you fecking slob, and I seen her first.”

  “Get lost, girl,” the man demanded.

  “Burnin’ man sez what?” she squealed in response.

  His brow lowered. “What?”

  Daria flicked her smoke-stick at the man’s feet. He watched as the tip grew bright before landing before him. Sparks and flames powered by a volatile accelerant flared up from the bottom of the doorframe and spread up its sides, engulfing him.

  His immediate reaction was to leap forward at Cretu, but she spun around, revealing a short-barrel shotgun anchored to a metal plate on her back via an old door hinge. The centrifugal force of her movement forced the barrel up and outward, and when the top of the butt clapped against the plate, small bearings erupted from the muzzle in a wide spread, though the majority nested against the airborne man’s skin and clothing.

  The shot halted his forward momentum and reversed it, sending him back through the flames and into the hallway. Cretu completed her spin, followed with a grin, then leaned over Tsenka Cho.

  “You’re just a hot mess, aren’tcha?”

  Tsenka’s lips moved, but the utterance was incomprehensible.

  “Shh,” responded Cretu. “Mama’s gotcha, but you gotta cooperate, cause we gotta get.”

  Daria lifted Cho upright by the hands, then slipped her arms under the nocturnal’s pits and hoisted her with a grunt. Cho’s legs wobbled then stabilized as Daria walked her to the rental bike.

  Cretu sat in front of Cho and powered on the bike with a light touch to the vehicle’s control panel.

  “How?” The word fell out of Cho’s mouth.

  “Hang on,” ordered Daria.

  As Cho wrapped her arms around the girl, the man stepped through the flaming doorway again and, with parts of his clothing still on fire, charged at the bike. Daria gunned it, zooming away at high velocity. Tsenka’s clasped hands almost lost their grip on each other.

  At the end of the alley, Daria turned left, then stopped. Sleek official-looking vehicles blocked the path, and as the bike drew their attention, uniformed men standing outside of their cars scrambled into them while shouting at each other.

  “Oh, girl, they brought the heat,” remarked Cretu. She engaged the front brake while revving the engine. The back tire lost traction and began to spin. Cretu tilted the bike, causing it to rotate around the front wheel, and continued burning rubber until a cloud of smoke filled the street, then released the brake, shooting like a bullet away from the officers.

  Daria sped down the road full throttle. The bike was relatively quiet but the wind whipping past flooded their ears with noise. She pivoted her head to the side. “Think this thing will make it out of town?” she shouted.

  Tsenka had started to recover from her beating, becoming more acutely aware of her situation. “No,” she replied. “The GPS will shut it down.”

  Daria veered into a busy street, cutting off two automated cars, then rode the middle line toward the center of town. “Let’s get your monocopter an’ bolt,” she suggested.

  The automated cars all pulled to the side of the road simultaneously to make way for a sedan and SUV barreling after the bike. Red and blue lights alternated inside the vehicles’ grilles.

  “No,” said Cho. “We can’t leave.” She thought about Taq being in danger, her inability to defend herself, and the security forces chasing them. Her grip around Daria tightened. “We have to lose them.”

  “That’s a big ask, missy,” said Cretu. “I can’t do it alone.” As the bike headed into busy traffic, several cars had failed to pull over as their occupants were manually driving. Daria slowed, swerving around a car trying to tur
n through an intersection. “Can’t believe I’m going to say this. You need blood, ya damn bloodsucker, my blood.”

  “Can you keep this thing upright?” asked Cho.

  “Gee, don’t rip my neck off and I’ll be fine.”

  “Just don’t freak out,” said Tsenka, lifting herself off the seat a few inches to get a better angle. She pressed her fangs against the self-proclaimed slayer’s skin just below the jawline. Daria let out a short moan that sounded less like pain than pleasure as blood spurted from small punctures into Cho’s mouth. The vampire placed one hand on Daria’s shoulder and another around the other side of her neck. Cho’s victim moaned a second time as she siphoned blood as fast as she could swallow.

  Afraid Cretu might lose consciousness, Cho limited her intake. She pressed her tongue to the wound, her saliva sealing it in a matter of moments. Tsenka lowered her butt into the bike seat again, wrapping her arms around Cretu and waiting for the blood rush.

  Tsenka felt something tug at her consciousness, pulling it away from the present moment and strewing it across years past. Memories flowed into Cho’s mind as her body absorbed the blood. She recalled intense pain, restraint, and humiliation. She saw unfeeling men and women studying her suffering. To her relief, the memories quickly faded and the chase came back into focus.

  Daria weaved between two sedans that swerved erratically, then turned right and zipped under a bridge. Shadows flowed over the two women. The slayer looked up. “Oh, snap.”

  Tsenka buried her face in Cretu’s nape, shivering as blood quickly went to work mending her body. Gone were the days when her blood pressure would force plasma to seep through the pores of her artificial skin. Her nanites had become advanced enough to manage delivery of blood cells and fluids to the right places at the right rate.

  Daria continued staring up as an armed monocopter tracked their movement. “Vampire girl, make yourself useful and grab my subbies. I gotta worry ’bout dat choppa.” She slowed the bike and turned it around to face the oncoming armada, consisting now of three SUVs and four sedans, all jet black with gleaming finishes and tinted windows.

  Men propped themselves out of the passenger windows of the sedans and out of windows on both sides of the SUVs. All wielded guns, and as Cho’s implant magnified her sight, the HUD identified them as gunpowder-based and listed their common ammunition types.

  One thing was clear—that much firepower aimed in their direction was dangerous, and with Daria in front of her, Cho became concerned that her rescuer would soon consume an unhealthy amount of lead. She placed her palm against Daria’s back, and Cretu flattened herself against the bike frame.

  Tsenka pulled submachine guns from large holsters on each side of the bike. Signal from her palms paired the guns’ aim-assists with her neural interface. She lifted the weapons toward the oncoming vehicles, then lowered them slightly as her HUD informed her that the tires on the vehicles were a basic rubber compound.

  Her grip now strong, she squeezed the triggers, unleashing a barrage of automatic fire. The two lead cars lurched outward at the guardrails, then as they tried to correct, Tsenka shot out the inside tires. The cars rammed into each other, with the SUV’s greater momentum winning the contest. It knocked the sedan onto its side, where it proceeded to roll over while skidding toward the safety railing.

  A second SUV rammed into the rolling car, despite its squealing tires. The car continued to slide off the road while the sedan behind the second SUV collided into its rear. The lead SUV began to slow and pull over to the side as shredded rubber flew off its front rims.

  Men perched on car doors returned fire, and Cho raised her aim, spraying the rest of her magazines’ payloads at the opposing gunners. She hit one of her targets, who ducked inside his car, while another continued firing. Cars not auto-driven veered off the road and into ditches and scraped against rails in an attempt to flee the scene.

  “Hold on!” yelled Daria, as she tilted the bike to the left, turning sharply. The bike dove off the road and down a shallow ditch, then back up toward the oncoming traffic lanes, hopping into the air. It landed with a short squeak, then shot between two cars whose automation algorithms hadn’t yet decided how to react other than applying the brakes. As the pair of fugitives zoomed past the officers across the ditch, the men opened fire, assaulting nearby vehicles in the process, shattering windows and tearing neat holes through carbon-fiber cladding.

  A round collided with Cho’s shoulder, causing the bike to tip and swerve left of the center line as an automated car slowed, but did not veer out of the way. Tsenka fired her gun to the left while Cretu tilted the bike, dodging the bumper by a whisker and slamming the bottom of the bike’s windshield into the car’s side mirror.

  Despite the near-death experience, Daria righted the bike and floored the throttle, zipping past a dozen cars a second, putting distance between themselves and the security team. Cho stared at the blur, her vision barely able to keep up. She heard the whirring of a rotor and craned her neck around to see the monocopter still close behind them.

  The aircraft released its grasp on a rocket, which fell slowly before thrusting forward. “Shit,” yelled Cho.

  Daria glanced up at the missile screaming toward the middle of the road in front of her. She tilted to the right, sending the bike off the road. Its tires skidded against loose gravel and dirt between the sets of lanes.

  The air shook with the boom as the missile blew a hole in the road, sending chunks of asphalt and concrete in a wide cone around the impact. Smaller particles peppered the two women and their bike while larger rocks whizzed over their heads.

  “Woman, what did you do?” shrieked Cretu.

  “We need to lose that thing,” stated Cho.

  “Ey, I’m workin’ on it. Throw some lead at it.”

  Her feet hooked under Daria’s stirrups, Tsenka arched back, pointing both subs at the copter. A targeting window from Cho’s HUD traveled from point to point around the craft, looking for a weak spot. It shrank and stopped on a small dot on the underside of the craft. Cho zoomed in the view, curious as to what her neural interface thought she should be aiming at, and recognized it as a small camera used to see and target.

  She fired both guns, and her rounds ricocheted off the metal exterior. Her aim was perfect, but the shaking of the bike, relative movement of the copter, and inaccurate weaponry resulted in bullets spread over a large section. Despite the ineffective attack, the craft slowed, allowing Daria to gain separation as she fearlessly pegged the speedometer at three hundred kilometers per hour.

  Tsenka looked over Cretu’s shoulder at the bike’s secondary interface, a small screen usable by those without an implant, and wondered how the woman was controlling it so perfectly. She watched as Daria pulled her arm from one of the sleeves and touched a fingertip to the screen. She explored it as if searching for something, then stopped. The interface went blank, then flashed back to life. Daria placed her hand back into the brace and gunned the throttle. The bike hit three hundred, then three ten, then three twenty, breaking out of its governed speed cap.

  The copter continued to fall back, and Daria began looking for a place to break line of sight with the aircraft. Just then, Cho spotted a thin line on the road, but it didn’t register until it was too late.

  “Stop!” she yelled.

  Daria locked up the rear wheel and applied a gentler brake to the front, but the vehicle screeched across the trap. Sparks shot from the wire and the thick oval-shaped spokes of the wheels.

  “Sheet sheet sheet!” yelled Cretu.

  The bike’s screen went blank, and Daria let off the brakes, hoping the momentum could get them off the road. Just inside the business district, getting lost among the pedestrians and buildings was a feasible proposition.

  But that fantasy evaporated as more cars raced toward them from the front. It would not take long, Tsenka figured, before the first group would catch up from the rear. She turned her head and saw the copter approach. Her vision magnifie
d, spotting its small machine gun start to take aim.

  She flung her right leg off the seat and spun, still grabbing Daria around the waist, and yanked her from the bike as a stream of lead cut a swath down the road, tearing the vehicle apart. Tsenka was not getting her deposit back.

  The gun repositioned as the copter stabilized itself into a holding pattern, but before it could fire, the front of the craft jerked upward, attempting to disengage as a thin rocket whistled across the sky. The projectile exploded against the hull of the monocopter, and a mixture of steam and smoke billowed from a gaping hole in its exterior. The craft dove toward the ground then slowed with the use of small thrusters located around the edge of its disc-shaped body before crash-landing on top of an abandoned Mattress Mart.

  “Well, this got weird,” assessed Daria.

  “We can’t both escape. Make a run for those buildings,” said Cho, pointing. “I can distract them.”

  “The goddess scolded me last time. I must trust her.”

  “You mean Desre?” asked Cho.

  Before she could answer, the new set of cars, more of a deep silver than a black, surrounded them. Men stepped out and took position, aiming their rifles toward the first group of security officers fast approaching, though it was clear the first group had the numbers advantage.

  Team black pulled its SUVs into position, creating cover for their men, who hopped out and pointed their guns back at the interloping group. The door of a small sedan at the back of team silver opened and a woman in tan-colored business attire stepped out. It was Anne Courtemanche. Cho caught a glimpse of Taq before the door swung shut.

  In Courtemanche’s hand was an ancient-looking revolver. She turned and nodded at Cho before continuing to the front of the pack, placing herself precariously in front of several armed and seemingly hostile men.

  “Who authorized this?” she yelled at them, her gun arm slack at her side.