Cyber Viking Box Set

by Marcus Sloss

  “No mercy!” Nancy shouted over the roar of the battle.

  She sighted a horenix human firing into fleeing humans and opened up.

  My feet crunched over the roofs shingles as I sprinted for the edge. With wings angled just right as I dove down for the window.

  Thrust in front of me was my enhanced sword I used as a lance. My flight from the roof was silent as I closed on my enemy.

  My impact crashed the defender’s shielding and my blade dove into my victim’s guts. The two of us tumbled in a tangled heap from my sudden impact.

  The storeroom floor was a littered mess and I slipped on a dog toy when I recovered. That damn thing squeaked as it went flying and I went flailing back down. Energy fire ripped through the spot I should be and into the first defenders’ face. Poor guy died instantly as did his horenix.

  I tried to roll out of the fire but my shields were holding. I flipped myself onto my stomach and burst my wings forwards.

  With my sword extended I popped the enemies shielding.

  A close-range round sizzled into my wing causing me to grunt in pain.

  I sliced down with the sword, severing the hand holding the weapon.

  When I recovered my foe fled and not on foot. The body was abandoned alive. The woman was screaming hysterically about her missing hand.

  I chased the insect creature with a trailing round of fire that walked into the bone colored vile leech. The six legged critter shriveled when my rounds blasted it with a direct hit.

  I surveyed the room rapidly. There were a dozen dead humans, no horenix in sight, and this poor woman. I flared my wings and realized I might not be able to fly.

  “Pirate Six requesting medevac,” I said over the command net and pinged my location.

  “Nurse Niner in route,” the call returned.

  I snapped my fingers. “God!?” The woman said, seeing me. I tilted my head and then saw myself in a mirror for sunglasses.

  “This is a fake body. I’m here to help, I need to take you to a place better than heaven. We have a wonderful assortment of things to do below ground,” I said and she started crying harder.

  “I want to go to the sky and be in heaven, not underground in hell.”

  Shit! I should just stop talking. I neared her and she flinched. Fuck this.

  My cross hook nailed her jaw. She went down like a sack of potatoes.

  I flung the woman over my shoulder and realized the front door was barricaded. Front doors were for pussies anyways.

  With a running jump, I hopped out of the building.

  A shot pinged off my shield and I saw Nancy with widening eyes. She immediately ducked behind cover to hide in shame.

  This was actually my fault, I should have broadcast I was coming out. My disgruntled sigh was aimed at my slipping in my old age.

  “Pirate Six in the open, one wounded,” I said calmly.

  “Nurse Niner landing now. Warning hostiles one block south,” Niner said. The aircraft thudded onto the road beside me.

  A single door opened and a woman with a raccoon tail sauntered out. She had a nurse uniform out with her tits popped up just right. Her whiskers bouncing over her rosy human cheeks as she sniffed the air. Yup, super getting a raccoon babe body for a wifey. My eyes went from her bust to the human I shifted.

  “Missing hand. Unconscious. Is there anything else that I need to know?” the nurse asked in a calm tone.

  “Lacking virum and possibly delusional. Maybe, on the last bit,” I said handing off the patient. “Thanks.”

  “Good luck Pirate Six.”

  The door closed with a hissing thunk and the white ship soared away. The rising aircraft brought a stream of blue orbs crashing into its shields. I immediately knew those were close and went hunting for the bad guys that were firing on the ship as it fled.

  I tore across the pavement and skidded to a halt on a corner my face inches from brick.

  My head angled for a quick peek around. Five, not three horenix controlled humans were in a mild panic. They were at the back of the buildings on a service road.

  I saw them pointing to a dumpster while talking in hushed tones. There was minor arguing and then bobbing heads in agreement.

  Suddenly the five bodies crumpled to the back road. The five insects crawled into the dumpster thinking they were being sly. Ha! I saw the whole damn thing.

  “Becky!” A woman cried from the pile of the dead. Oh, that was clever. They left a live body as a decoy. “Becky!”

  I trotted out and the woman shrieked at my sight. I really needed a human body right about now.

  Nancy came running in from the other side of the service street with her weapon pointed aggressively.

  “They died? How did you save her?” Nancy asked with confusion.

  “I just found her crying like this. I’ve no idea,” I said nonchalantly while walking for the dumpster that my weapon was aimed at. I had to be ready in case the little shits fled. As much as I wanted to tease the horenix that they fooled no one I stayed on script. “Hey, I smell pizza, do you smell pizza?”

  The woman looking for Becky was just as confused as Nancy.

  “I swear I smell pizza,” I said nearing the dumpster. I readied to flip the lid open.

  “Eric, there is no fucking pizza and if there -”

  My thumb whipping the lid open caused her to pause. The startled horenix were under some trash scurrying for cover when they realized they were found.

  I unloaded blue orbs into the dumpster with too much power. The metallic frame melted under my fire.

  One of the little shits tried to scurry away and Nancy blasted the remaining survivor.

  “That was him… the -”

  Into tears, the woman went. Her body shaking sobs. I moaned with displeasure at the fact she was breaking down.

  “Pirate Six, requesting medevac for sedation,” I said and the woman suddenly stopped crying.

  “Why would you sedate me, I have to find Becky,” the woman said with clenched fists of anger.

  “Pirate Six, belay medic request,” I said. I turned to the woman. “I am Eric Yang, former Captain in the US Army. You get to help be a soldier for Becky or get sedated. Take a pick.”

  She dried her eyes quickly and stood rigid. “Soldier, Hope is my name,” Hope said, going for a weapon and an energy backpack from the dead.

  I keyed up the command net and said, “I need a Hope swapped from red to blue on my location, over.”

  “Confirm the horenix occupied human is now friendly,” an unrecognizable voice said over the radio.

  “Close, horenix disengaged, human returned to control. Requesting a new target, over,” I said and a yellow ping on my Gpad had us less than three hundred feet from a roadblock filled with defenders.

  “What does Becky look like?” Nancy asked and the woman kept staring at me.

  “What is he?” Hope said.

  “A clone, sort of. Both of our real bodies are in storage, we don’t want to die,” Nancy said.

  While technically I had all the time in the world to talk this out, I wanted to help win this fight.

  When I left the back road for a four-lane main street the girls didn’t follow me. My eyes darted up to see the top of a three story building. I wasn’t sure if I could fly well with a hole in my wings so I scrapped that plan.

  The sound of gunfire lured me in from up ahead. My weapon whipped up and was at the ready. I approached a corner with only a rapid glance.

  Shit. There was gunfire racing into and out of a store with mannequins trashed out front. The orb ridden fake bodies were among the broken glass and I grunted in frustration at not being able to know what the inside of that store held.

  Rapid movement caught my eye as a TG99 came hard-charging this direction.

  I spun knowing what to expect. My race to get to the backside of the building was slowed by Nancy and Hope. With no time to explain, I leaped over them with a flap to help the jump.

  The moment I rotated around
to behind the store there was a crackling sound so loud my ears rang.

  A second later the back of the store suddenly had a hole in it the size of a truck. Three humans with horenix came out coughing. The dust cloud of debris masking them beside a silhouette. They had no idea they were stumbling into my little trap.

  I decided to take a risk. My sights lined up for mortal gut shots. The wounds would take time to kill, but kill nonetheless. My weapon discharged three nicely placed crackling orbs into each target. The bodies stuttered before they fell. Three skittering little horenix bypassed me.

  I spun to line up a shot when Nancy screamed in anger.

  She bagged two quickly with stray rounds walking into a building across from her. Hope hollered in rage firing until she fried the third.

  I left the girls who were stomping on the horenix bodies to inspect my mortally wounded targets. Two of the three were alive. Hmm… I wondered if this was the horenix being assholes to let the victims die slowly, or if they saved a poison or something when they didn’t kill their victims.

  I dialed into the command net, “Go for Brillian.”

  Uh, guess when you’re the boss you get the General. “I have two mortally wounded that -”

  “Medevac in route, we know about near death wounding, Brillian out.”

  Friendly troops stormed through the clothing store to reach me and the girls in the back road. Weapons were brandished until faces recognized friendlies and everyone went to the semi-ready. I saw Rexona and oddly no Omonair.

  “Where is Omonair?” I asked.

  “In the tunnels, should I join him? He said for me to be safe, so I am up top,” Rexona asked. I shrugged both at her question and why she was asking me. “Only you can override him, my king.”

  “Uh… get over here and feed these wounded survivors virum,” I said and an airship hovered over us. Lifts floated down to retrieve the victims since the ship couldn’t land on this small road. I was no longer useful here so I went for Nancy and Hope with Rexona following. “Ready to keep looking?”

  “Yes,” Hope said, giving the demonix a long look. “She looks like a gargoyle with big tits.”

  “Those are standard,” Nancy said, before turning to me. “The girl we’re looking for is eighteen, just got accepted to college, and is a spitting image of Hope.”

  I frowned, Hope was in her mid-forties, and looked like she got put up wet. Even the virum couldn’t fix her case of the uglies. But family resemblance could be shockingly close. Her daughter was probably a prime candidate for breeding so maybe she was alive or spared.

  “The fighting will stop and you’ll get a chance to see if your daughter lived. Oh, notification came in. There is fighting in a skyscraper. That one,” I said pointing to a massive condo building. “It is coming down in three minutes. We need to run.”

  A glance over my shoulder showed FP02s lining up to bring the building down. Their hesitation was only so idiots like me could get clear.

  With the medevac gone I had the breaching unit following me so we could get space. I ran away from the skyscraper and for a school. Schools were always a hideout for bad guys in Saudi Arabia. I fucking hated killing people in schools.

  Still, I did not hesitate. I charged forward, the leader of our pack. The trip across the road was followed by hopping over a short fence. We reached a door and I kicked it with all my might. It only budged about two inches. There was an easy fix for this problem.

  “Melt the door and whatever is supporting it,” I ordered.

  The combined fire from our energy weapons converted the covering into slag.

  The nanosecond after there was an opening, a hand stuck out with a pistol; I tilted my head realizing it was an old 9mm ruger.

  My shield flared with metallic pinging as the rounds squished into the energy. The sound of real gunfire cracked the air with its pops. I walked casually into the bullets unafraid.

  “Are you human?” I asked defiantly.

  “Fuck you, filthy cocksucker,” the voice said and I recognized the slight static of the translator.

  Not human then.

  My weapon trained to the sound of the voice and I fired a three round burst. Anguished screams were joined by cries of fright.

  I stormed the entry to find my target dead in a pool of blood. My shot had wounded the horenix. I blasted the little shit in the school entryway and looked up.

  What I saw startled me.

  There were hundreds and hundreds of infected in here cowering in the hallway giving me a wide path to walk down. Why? Where were the weapons and shields? What the hell was this?

  Now, I knew I was in a synthetic body. That didn’t mean the hairs on the back of my neck were not tingling. I hesitantly stepped forward looking for the surprising ambush element. If anyone died it should be me and I didn't find any sudden traps. This meant I was going to have to execute a whole lot of docile horenix and things were going to get very dark. Ugh. Oh well, I will deal with the trauma later.

  “You get this offer only once. Leave your host and dash for safety in the water. I won’t even shoot at you. The rest of you will be lined up and executed. Take your pick. Sure death, or chance of freedom,” I shouted.

  “Wait! My friends, please wait before leaving. Human hear me out, I plead of you. Did they not send our offer?” A young boy said in a high-pitched voice as he stepped out of the huddled masses.

  “Uh… so, this may come as a shock to you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, flowing down the hallway. “Follow me, tiny demon.”

  “I resent that,” the boy retorted.

  I shrugged uncaringly. The side rooms were filled. What the fuck was going on? The windows were blotted and locked. The desks piled into corners to make space. The stench in here was atrocious.

  Did the horenix shit? Well, did a host shit that was controlled by horenix? The god awful answer was a resounding yes.

  My boots echoed down the hall until I saw a cafeteria.

  That is when I lost my fucking mind.

  Three hundred human children were segregated behind a series of tipped tables. They had no hosts.

  Without hesitation I flapped over to those children with rapid wing beats that tore muscles. I landed by a trio of adult horenix holding weapons that were immediately dropped at the sight of a giant angel soaring their way.

  “What the fu… the fridge is going on here!?” I demanded. I saw the three guards were human. Okay, I was a bright guy at times. This one had me absolutely confused. “Who is in charge?”

  My demand was met by the little boy who snaked through the crowded cafeteria.

  “I am Olin, a horenix that doesn’t trap the mind. We share, and when able even leave the body. Our goal is simple, long term stability. A horenix can tame a mind, drive it crazy, and try to keep a balance in between. If we get a crazy mind, it makes us aggressive, and therefore warlike,” Olin said as if I should know this. None of this was on their profile description. “But I should be talking to your leader about this. Are you broadcasting?”

  “Yes, I am broadcasting. What is that?” I said pretending someone was talking in my ear. “King Eric wants to know what the heck is going on still, yup. I am asking, chill. This guy is so needy sometimes. Shit, I forgot to mute my mic. Please continue.”

  Nancy bit her lip to contain her touches of laughter that desperately wanted to escape.

  The boy’s eyes lit up in understanding when he saw her face. “We established a sanctuary in this school when our kind arrived. We normally have fractional differences among our species, not too different from others. I was a leader from the first days. We decided no children under five would be synced to, which was not favored by the aggressive aspect of our race. Well my hard efforts were partially successful and that is the result,” Olin said pointing to the sea of stinky children around me. “Since we had no big weapons, or need for expansion, we hunkered down here in the school and lived happily. Our natural life span is only a few months of your
time. This has been bliss for us. We even stopped reproducing when the city was out of suitable cohabitants.”

  “Okay, you live a different lifestyle that is more in tune with your host. I get that. Why does everyone stink like shit?” I asked and cursed myself for cursing in front of kids. “I’d make the worst teacher.”

  “You’d be great,” Nancy said encouragingly. “Less soldier in the attitude and it’ll come naturally.”

  “They smell because our ways were deemed harmful to the general horenix population. We’re only a few hundred out of tens of thousands. So they tucked us away into this building. The water runs, but nothing flushes anymore. We are allowed to use the outside every day in the morning and night. Don’t go rolling in the school fields, you were warned,” Olin said and I grimaced. Yuck. “When your army arrived we told the others we would occupy animals in place of humans if we were given sanctuary. We do not desire war, and merely want to live. Well, they asked for four freedom volunteers and -”

  “Wait, why the heck? The Xgates are down, your lives are so short. Why not just enjoy them for a bit and pass on?” I asked, cutting him off.

  “In order to stop a cycle someone has to give up something. That is us,” Olin said and I frowned.

  “Prove it, hop off the boy and into my hand,” I said.

  Olin detached from his host, clacked across the floor, and scurried up my leg until he went into my hand. Well, fuck me... I was not expecting that.

  “Hi mister my name is Mark,” Mark said with a pleasant smile.

  “How old are you Mark?” I asked.

  “Nine, and please don’t hurt my friend. He protected my sister, Karen, when the mean ones refused to feed them,” Mark said defensively pointing to a dirty girl no older than four.

  “Alright, Mark I need to talk to Olin please turn around.”

  Olin hoped from my hand to the kid in a huge leap. Nancy shrieked, then dug her toes into the floor ashamed. Damn, they can jump. Okay, that was a little spooky.

  “Sorry, he prefers a quick latch. Human youth are very understanding. I told Si-nac we would surrender first and would happily join a preserve as long as we were allowed to live in peace,” the boy said with a raised hand as he turned. “I can’t guarantee that all fellows or our children will be as well behaved as we are now. We need animals with vocal cords and that is what our offer was.”