Six whirled around, knife in hand, looking shocked and mightily pissed. She’d feared that knife, so quickly drawn and viciously sharp. Not this time.
“Sugar cunt, you startled me.” He grinned that crooked smile she hated.
The smiling face of Dr. Sharpe occupied the whole of Dante’s field of vision when the old man bent over the gurney. His hand felt cold when he placed it on Dante’s chest, over the scar he had created years earlier. Dante’s synthetic heart beat hard and fast. Perhaps it recognized its maker.
“Welcome back. Although you never really left, did you? You were in this sector the entire time.” Dr. Sharpe had never spoken to him directly before.
Dante only stared, not wanting to give the incisive man any traction. Whatever he said would be recorded, dissected, analyzed and ultimately used against him. Plus, one of the lab’s security cameras buzzed around them like a tiny metallic carrion, which meant the Grid was plugged into the room and also waited to hear what Dante had to say. They would be sorely disappointed because he had no intention of giving them anything. Not voluntarily, anyway.
Sharpe momentarily glanced over his shoulder then set his pale eyes on Dante once more. “None of the others have your potential for retention, Your Eminence,” he began, smiling.
Dante let the barb about his nickname pass. What did he care?
Sharpe’s eyes grew serious. “When you left, you took something of mine with you. I have been unable to replicate it.”
Did Sharpe mean his synthetic heart? Dante could not understand why they would be unable to replicate one when he, himself, had been fitted and refitted a few times until they found one that worked.
“Not this.” Sharpe tapped his gnarled index finger on Dante’s chest. “I created much superior versions since your departure, ones that electricity does not hinder. No, I was referring to what is here.”
Dante refused to blink when the man pressed his index finger between Dante’s eyes. “What is here is unique and to this day unmatched by those like you.”
“Those like me?” He cursed inwardly. There were others?
“There have been many more subjects like you, all of them flawed when it came to data retention. I was never able to reproduce the perfect neural foundations, the delicate balance of intelligence and agility, the perfect human vault. You are one of a kind. But now that you are back…” Sharpe patted Dante’s shoulder and straightened. “Now that you are back, we can resume our work.”
Our work. Is that what he called what had been done to Dante, to others like him? Work?
Whatever form this work would take, Dante had no intention of cooperating. Not as he used to when he did not know any better, because it was all he had ever known. He knew better now and had developed other traits and emotions they had not thought proper to instill. Such as empathy, affection. And a thirst for revenge.
He sent a single pulse at the old man’s retreating back. He did not even need to focus much, only will his consciousness into a single dart. If he killed Sharpe right away, he would cut the head off this monstrous research if nothing else.
He should have seen it coming.
As soon as he focused on the attack, a jolt of electricity shot through his spine. He had not realized they had already connected him. Blue whips of light danced on his chest and arms. A grunt of pain escaped him. Sharpe did not even turn around.
While remnants of the electricity still ripped through him, he was wheeled along a corridor he remembered well, bumping the corner as usual before, feet first, he was slammed into a pair of metallic doors. The shock rattled the wires connecting him. His old wound flared. It had not hurt, or barely, since Steel had applied the gel patch. Thinking of her helped. A little.
Harsh fluorescent light blinded him for the first few seconds. The old laboratory had been updated in subtle ways, but it was still the same old room that meant pain and humiliations and horror. When the electricity finally tapered off, Dante arched so he could see where they were taking him, even if intellectually he knew.
In the middle of the room, there it was. His old nightmare.
He could not help the instinctive response. Fighting would not help, he knew, but he still did. Instead of unstrapping him from the gurney, an assistant too young to have been there during Dante’s childhood retrieved a small item from one of the worktables and pointed it at a spot near the ceiling. Something clicked underneath his gurney. The next moment, he slowly rose, straps and shifter still connected securely but detached from the rest of the wheeled gurney to dangle two meters off the floor. He craned his neck and noticed a hook soldered into the contoured shifter. They had installed the hoist there. So they had changed a few things since his great escape.
And still he struggled. In his nape and spine, some of the connectors broke and tore. Blood trickled down the back of his legs. One of the straps at his legs tore. He kicked to destabilise the dangling shifter. Another jolt of electricity made him growl. A set of strange and conflicting sensations flooded him. Agony and numbness. Burn and icy cold.
Dante arched and writhed, fought with everything he had. A third charge made him howl. Below his feet, the gaping mouth of his nightmare looked ready to swallow him whole.
Chapter Six
Six took a step toward her. Steel leveled the gun at him. “You must have been pretty good to get that away from him.” He gestured at Leech’s silvery weapon in her hand. “You were never that good with me.”
“Shut up,” she snarled through clenched teeth.
His expression turned from menacing to jovial. She knew that expression. “We could start our own gang, me and you. What do you—?”
“I don’t have time for this shit.” Steel pressed the trigger.
The pulse hit Six square in the chest, propelling him back against the far wall, cracking tiles and breaking mortar veins with the force of the impact. He flopped to the floor, messily dead. His expression of shock was almost comical.
Steel ran out of the lavatory. The rest of Dante’s home was empty and the observatory mostly demolished. From the circular room, she saw a pair of hovercraft flying up to the bunker atop the mount, circle once, twice then disappear into a recessed landing bay. Dante. He had to be at the compound already. She’d never heard of any hovercraft, let alone two, come out of the bunker. Nothing ever came out of that place. She had to get there. But she’d waste time by running all the way up. She didn’t own a shuttle, didn’t know anyone who did.
An idea popped into her turbulent mind. Man, she needed a cigarette. She hadn’t had one since her last night in her own home. Two days ago. More? She could hardly keep her facts straight. Everything merged, dimmed.
Steel began to run. Back outside. Across the neighborhood, into the next, higher, closer to the mount, to one of the last sky metro stations. She knew those lines like the bottom of her jacket pocket. The gun dug between her shoulder blades as she bounded up the steps to the deserted station, so she squeezed it into her waistband. No working lift here. One of the more derelict stations.
She reached the landing, lungs on fire, legs made of lead. She was actually wheezing. An old placard confirmed her idea. The station had once served as a dual stop for the sky metro and the monorail. She jumped over the turnstile and followed the quay to the very end where an iron grille barred entry to the older portion and the monorail. She squeezed through between the grille and the dirty concrete wall. She had to hurry. Dante was in shit because of her. And to think she’d believed, even for a couple of hours, that he’d do something as vile as blow that place up.
“Focus, for fuck’s sake.”
Wind whistled a forlorn tune inside the darkened tunnel. She followed the rail, single this time instead of a set, and reached the end of the platform. Dante had said the actual train was still docked at its last station, and he’d told the truth. There it was, dark and still, like an old-fashioned submarine, sitting on its rail with all the doors closed. Steel pulled out the gun again and cleared the place quic
kly. No time to waste.
Inside the conductor cabin, a large vat of blue liquid sat strapped to the seat as though it were a person. Wires connected it to the control panel. A tiny joystick and a screen were the only things that seemed to have some electricity left because they each blinked. Steel tapped the screen, which came to life. A genderless voice announced countdown activation.
“What…?”
On the screen, a series of numbers, the station name, the day’s correct date, and in large black letters, a countdown. Fifteen minutes.
“Dante, man, what were you thinking?”
She could pretty much guess each stop on every line of metro in the city, and this was barely enough to reach the bunker two stations up the line. Dante must have meant to still be on the train when it blew up. Why would he do such a stupid thing? Did he want to die? But then again, he’d pretty much told her so. Well, she didn’t.
She rearranged the countdown to give herself some time, figuring out after using the little joystick that the train had enough juice for one go, and turned on the ignition. A hiss and a rumble heralded the train coming back to life. A horrid smell of rotten things made her gag. She gasped when the train lurched forward.
“Don’t die on me,” she growled as she pushed the joystick all the way down.
Slowly at first, then with more speed, the train rolled noisily on its rail, rattling out of the station and into the night air. Rain and icy pellets hit the dirty windshield. Steel slipped the gun back in her backpack in case she needed both her hands, and was glad she had when the train picked up more speed. A lot more.
“No!” He’d sworn he would not speak to them and had already broken his vow twice.
Sharpe said something Dante could not hear above the clanging of metal against metal. He rocked violently enough to knock the shifter against the tank’s edge, hoping to break it. Dots of red landed into the pinkish liquid, turned into ribbons then dissolved.
The assistant, eyes huge in her young face, lowered him farther. She stopped when Dante managed, with his one free foot, to kick hard enough to destabilise the shifter. It knocked against the tank, hard. He saw a crack, focused on that. A tiny spider web.
Sharpe tore the remote from the young woman’s hand, slapped her across the face then mashed the controls. Dante dropped into the warm, viscous fluid, right up to his chest. The crack glistened in front of him. Tempting him, teasing him. Out of desperation, he hit his head against it, over and over. If he could just break it, damage the seal, the system would turn itself off until repairs were done. When yet another dose of electricity hit him, coupled with the liquid’s highly conductive nature, Dante slumped against the remaining straps. The level rose above his chest when he was lowered farther. He panted frantically, took one last breath before…
No. No. NO! His chin, his mouth and nose, his eyes. Dante was completely submerged.
His first reaction was to take in a deep breath and get it over with. He remembered how it went. The regular ritual. His daily death.
His instincts took over. He held his breath as long as he could, his lungs burning, stars exploding in his squeezed-shut eyes. Spasms twisted his diaphragm. Nerve endings frantically fired impulses. He forced his eyes open. Everything came to him blurry and tinged a sick shade of orangey pink. Sharpe stood just outside the tank, waiting patiently as he had always done, his thumb rubbing the knuckle on his index finger as Dante knew he would. Unlike when he had been a child, as an adult man he now floated at the doctor’s eye level.
Dante could not stop his body from reacting to the lack of oxygen. A reflexive response. He sucked in a mouthful. The fluid seared his lungs. No amount of coughing and sputtering cleared his airway. In and out. Nothing but liquid. Air was gone. Darkness irised in around the edges of his vision. His extremities grew warm then numb. Pain subsided. As he had countless times in this tank of nightmares, Dante died.
A computerized voice—for a second she feared the Grid had finally managed to tap into the old relays—announced Côte-des-Neiges station. Steel gritted her teeth. One more. The train rumbled out of this station too and shot on its rail with even more speed. Wind whistled through the open door. It was going fast.
Much too fast.
What if Dante had meant to crash into the bunker? Why hadn’t she thought about that? Cursing under her breath, she rushed out of the conductor cabin and down into the narrow aisle. Above one of the doors, the emergency brake looked eons old and none too sharp. She had no choice. She was going too fast and there was no way the train would stop in time. She gripped the nearby handle and yanked on the emergency brake. The resulting screech threatened to overwhelm Steel. The brake seemed to work because instead of the gradual deceleration she’d expected, the train pitched hard, rocked left and right on its rail, rumbled and groaned and squeaked to a halt.
It took her a few seconds to get her guts back. Sweating and panting from adrenaline, Steel pried her hand from the handle and checked inside the conductor’s cabin. The train had stopped all right. A good fifty meters from the last station. Fuck.
Steel scrammed and didn’t wait to see if some security responder would come flying out of the bunker. Wind and rain made her grip tenuous when she squeezed out of the open door and grabbed onto the handle by the door. Flattened against the hull, she inched forward along the fuselage, gingerly, each slap of wind threatening to send her plummeting down the three hundred meters of air below her feet. She finally attained the rail and crawled along its spine to the station. Her hands and knees were raw by the time she reached the dock. Concrete replaced metal. She could have kissed it.
“Now,” she murmured to herself. “Where are you?”
Dante had said security responders were mostly at the exits. All she had to do was find one.
She did minutes later after she rounded the staircase and came face to fence with the bunker. The chain link didn’t reach the ground. She could fit underneath easily, and was already well on her way under when she heard footsteps. Wiggling and clawing at the wet concrete, Steel cleared the fence and jumped to her feet.
“What are you doing here?” a man demanded.
Steel froze.
“Hey, I asked you a question! And show me your hands!”
Steel slowly raised her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry, man. I-I’m lost.”
“Lost? How the fuck can you be lost up here?” A gun gleamed in his hand. He drew near enough for her to see him clearly. Middle-aged, nasty-looking. Steel knew the type well.
Thinking fast, she blurted the first thing that came to her mind. “I was supposed to meet someone, to get cigarettes.”
He squinted at her. The gun lowered just the slightest bit. “You a whore?”
Steel refrained from reaching into her waistband and answering him with a few well-placed shots. His gun was still aimed at her, and if she messed up, Dante would pay the price. She had to play this one cool. Go with it.
She just shrugged, avoiding his gaze.
“I have cigarettes.”
“How much?”
“A blowjob.”
“You’re a romantic.”
He chuckled. His laugh sounded greasy and sent chills down her spine. “You want those cigarettes or not?”
“I don’t swallow, just so we’re clear, okay?”
“Whatever. Just come here so I can see you.”
Steel approached and kept her gaze on the ground separating them. He couldn’t see into her eyes or he might grow suspicious of her boldness.
He retreated into a small recess where a metal door with a blinking card slot barred entry into the compound itself. He must have the key on him somewhere.
His upper lip curled when he had a good look at her from the reddish light of the card slot. “Can’t ask for much more on a night like this, I guess.” He kept the gun against her forehead as he indicated the ground with his chin. “You know how this works, I’m sure.”
She did.
Steel got down on her kn
ees. She knew how to do this. She’d done it often enough. To obtain, to avoid. He was already hard. Pig.
Her hands didn’t shake when she pulled his penis out of his uniform, nor did her eyes close of their own volition at what she had to do. The muzzle of the gun pressed hard against the top of her skull, but she surreptitiously reached into her waistband. Her own weapon felt cold and already familiar in her hand. She focused on that and not on the cock in her mouth or the fierce instinct to bite down.
He smelled of fuel and industrial-grade sweat, tasted of worse. She kept her eyes wide open. The zipper glistened and had rust stains on a few of its hooks. She saw that too. There was a stain on the hem of his wrinkled shirt, and his belt had seen better days. The man grunted. Steel focused harder on her task. There’d be signs—there’d be a sigh and a tensing of muscles. Couldn’t miss those heralds. Because this time, this time it wasn’t going to end the way it usually did. This time, she was the one who’d end it.
And as soon as she recognized the first tensing of muscles, Steel gradually brought her hand up along his inner thigh, and before he could react, jammed the gun in his crotch. She shot, and at such close range, it literally lifted him off the ground. Steel was thrown back several paces. He landed in a heap like a broken doll. She didn’t trust her legs yet and had to crawl on hands and knees back into the alcove where she searched the man with the tip of her gun. Leech had said not to get blood on it. Too bad.
She found the key, wanted to cry in relief, and also took his electroshock gun, just in case. There wasn’t much time. She’d given herself forty-five minutes. If she didn’t find Dante soon, she wouldn’t have enough time to hightail it out of there. She didn’t want to be anywhere near this neighborhood when Dante’s little surprise blew up. She didn’t know much about liquid explosives, but the size of the vat told her it’d make a really, really big boom.
She swiped the key into the slot. The door unlocked. Steel wanted to thank her lucky stars on bended knee. She squeezed inside, both guns in her hands. Nothing. Barely enough light to see a few paces in front of her. A long corridor, devoid of doors or any other features.
Gridlock: A Cybershock Story Page 7