ANTIVENOM

by M. Lorrox

  Gabriel sighs. Of all the things I don’t know, one thing I do know is that YOU are not my death. “Only if you surrender first!”

  Hector moves to the other side, realizes he still doesn’t have a shot, but notices another stack of gear he can hide behind that’ll give him a clear shot at his enemy. I’ll give ’em something to think about, and I’ll run for it... “If I surrendered, who would infect the world with the zombie virus? You? Would you be humanity’s Abaddon?” Without putting a ton of effort into being quiet, but instead focusing on being fast, Hector stands, feels the pain from the stabilizing muscles that were shot through in his chest, and sprints for the other set of gear.

  Me? Abaddon? Never! He’s moving—there’s no time! Gabriel spins around and aims the rifle. -Brrrittt! Brrrittt! Brrrittt!-

  Hector is airborne, diving for his new shooting position, and he hopes Gabriel’s bullets miss him.

  All nine of them do.

  -BBBOOOOOMM!-

  The helicopter explodes from the rounds Gabriel put straight into its fuel tank. Hector watches in horror as debris that was once the virions and protein caked coffee cup lids are thrown everywhere inside the helipad. The horror he feels transforms into fury, and in an outburst of energy, he stands, lifts his gun, and unloads at Gabriel.

  Gabriel leaps back, away from the onslaught of lead, then is sent back with more force as two massive .50 caliber bullets slam into his thigh and abdomen. With only the use of one arm, Gabriel aims the rifle and fires. -Brrrittt!-

  Two of Gabriel’s three bullets hit their target; one rips straight through Hector’s upper chest on the left side, and the other blasts in through his face and out through his cerebellum. Hector crashes with a -thud- and his big gun falls with a metallic -clang!-

  Gabriel lies on the ground, bleeding from three holes: one in the shoulder, the thigh, and the side of the stomach. I know this is not my time... Blood swells into the ACU top, and Gabriel rips the cloth open, clearing access to the wound near the stomach. Probing, a finger finds the bloody hole, and Gabriel reaches inside. Pulses of agonizing pain radiate from the wound and the intrusion. The pain temporarily subsides when Gabriel holds the big bullet up for inspection. Hollow point. Damn.

  Inside a body, a hollow-pointed bullet blooms into a flower of flesh-shredding death, and on this flower, one petal is missing. Gabriel’s fingers reach back in to search for the rogue metal. Involuntary twitches and spasms make the task harder while probing the wound, then finally Gabriel’s fingers find something hard and sharp. When the last fragment is out, Gabriel grips the pieces of the bullet in a fist, then sets them on the ground to the side and rests. The one my shoulder will have to wait, but the one in my leg has to come out before I try walking... I’ll probably have to cut it out...but...in a minute. Breathe and heal—breathe and heal.

  Gabriel looks across the helipad at Hector. His blood can replace mine, then I’ll use that bead from Leo.

  Charlie flies toward Mary, his sword slicing through the air on its way to her neck. Mary slaps the sword aside with her long tentacle-arm, and with its sharpened tip, she grazes across Charlie’s bicep. Trailing the diamond-shaped titanium tip’s path is a razor-thin cut through his shirt and skin. He lands on the other side of July, his sword deflected to the right. A pair of hospital beds flank him, and before him, standing in front of the wide windows facing the valley, is a still-smiling Mary.

  “By the way, I hope you appreciate that I’ve not shot you with the turrets in this room.” From the corners of the room, gun barrels alongside cameras aim at Charlie.

  He recovers his sword and holds it ready for his next strike. “And why not?”

  She recoils her metal whip-arm and holds it to her side as well. “I want to teach you a lesson, and if possible, have you join me.”

  Charlie chuckles and pretends to look away, but he spins, jumps forward, and attacks from Mary’s left side—the one farther from her cybernetic limb.

  She spins and easily blocks the strike, but to do so, she turns her side to Charlie.

  He reaches a foot behind her right leg, drops his torso, stands, and slams his weight into her. She can’t step with her right leg to catch herself, and she falls back. Charlie has an instant of satisfaction before he realizes the error in his strategy. With a normal opponent, the technique would throw them back faster than they could react and reach him with a stiff weapon, but the weapon Mary blocked with is both flexible and under her control.

  As she flies back, she rips the tip of her tentacle-arm upward, and it slices from his hip to his shoulder. She crashes on the ground as Charlie drops to a knee and clutches his freshest wound. The Army Combat Uniform top he wears is nothing but shreds now—from shrapnel from the helicopter exploding beside him, July’s foot-claws tearing across his gut, and now Mary’s strike.

  She collects herself and stands. The end of her tentacle rests on the ground, drawing a line from her body to a trail of blood that leads to Charlie. “You can’t beat me.”

  He grits his teeth and stands, and as he does, one of the extra submachine gun magazines he collected falls from his pocket. I still have the gun on my back...

  “Imagine yourself living among nature, without pollution, without hiding from the sun, with the ability to remake your world. Think of it: instead of 7 billion people fighting over resources, it’d be inhabited by 700,000 or even a million if we converted VIP humans. Immortal life, free of greed. An end to war, the beginning of—”

  She doesn’t want to kill me. Charlie leaps forward again, both his hands on the handle of his sword, which he raises over his head. It’s a risky move because his centerline is open and vulnerable, but he hopes she won’t end him.

  Either by instinct, choice, or luck, she throws her tentacle-arm up to block the strike instead of burying its length through his heart.

  Charlie smashes his blade into the cybernetic device and hopes he can overpower it.

  The nylon, artificial muscle strands inside the whip-arm are more than ten times stronger than regular muscle fibers, but there’s fewer of them in the tapering whip. Also, where Charlie strikes is far from where it attaches to Mary’s upper arm, giving his strike greater leverage. Her block doesn’t hold against the pressure of Charlie’s strike—one that has all his muscle, weight, and momentum behind it.

  As Charlie collapses the blocking tentacle closer to Mary’s body, he raises his wrists—extending the tip of his blade down and closer to her face.

  In a blur of a movement, she braces the whip-arm with her flesh-and-bone arm, placing her hand directly below the site where both pieces of metal meet—her modern titanium and Charlie’s ancient steel.

  Mary shoves upward against the strike while ducking her head down.

  Her strength is immense, and Charlie flies over her and crashes his back against the ceiling. Mary rolls forward and twists. As gravity grips Charlie and pulls him to the tile below, she smiles at him.

  -Sploof!-

  The impact reopens his healing wounds and sends a shock into his bones. As his body rattles, he squeezes his hand and holds his sword tight.

  Mary looks at her left hand—Charlie’s blade cut into her palm, and a line of blood trails down her wrist. She drops the hand and slaps the side of Charlie’s boot with the tip of her tentacle. “You’re what? Four or five hundred years old? I’m over ten times that old. I’m stronger, smarter, and fucking better armed.” She leans into another strike and broadside-slams the tentacle into his leg.

  “Aahhh!” The impact slides his massive frame a foot and a half across the floor, leaving a smear of blood on the white tile.

  “If the idea of being your own man for once and being in charge of your own destiny doesn’t convince you, maybe you’d like to continue serving your wife? I hear she’s prime minister now. I wanted that anus of a man, Robert, to assume the position so I could crush him and the Order later, b
ut Sarra as prime minister opens new options.”

  Charlie notices the blood on his sword—Mary’s blood—and he grins for a moment before he hides his pleasure and rolls over to face her. “If I can’t win, why don’t you even the odds a little? Otherwise, why shouldn’t I just let you kill me?”

  Then Sarra will never join me. She twitches her head, glancing at July and back so fast that Charlie doesn’t notice her eyes move. Perhaps I need to break your spirit like a beast. “I’m listening.”

  He stands and motions to her arm. “You said you’ve got a humanoid hand attachment? Something like what Eddy might be able to get someday?”

  She smiles. “We could give Eddy two new arms, yes.”

  “If I have no chance at beating you like this—” He traces the tentacle with his eyes. “—why don’t you use that robot hand to fight me with? Pick up a sword and fight like a vampire, not a goddamned...whatever the fuck you fancy yourself as. I know you can use a rapier...” I know how to fight that...

  “Would that make you happy, Arashi? I’m not going to lie, I want your sword at my side, either in your hand or in mine… If I beat you, will you yield?”

  Charlie wears his best smug-as-a-sonofabitch grin. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  Sure you will, but if you don’t, I’ll just kill you. “Stay back.” She motions, and as Charlie steps—his blade still pointed at her—she circles toward her bed. When they’ve switched sides, Mary stands beside her bed and faces Charlie. She moves her pillow out of the way, and behind it, in the crook of the raised bed’s back, is a shiny, metallic right arm. Actuator levers gleam in the green and blue light coming from the windows and reflect the red emergency lights from the other side of the room. A hand with five normal-sized fingers sits on a stacked set of hinges, sockets, and gears that make the wrist.

  Charlie waits.

  She reaches her left arm to where the long, tentacle-like device attaches to her right upper-arm. “Just so you’re aware, I’m maintaining my computer link and am only disengaging the whip-attachment. That means I’ll put a bullet in you if you try and attack while I switch arms.”

  Charlie frowns. “If I don’t have honor, what do I have? It’s a deal—I won’t attack you, and you won’t shoot me.”

  She pulls one side of her lips inward and grumbles. She sets the tentacle’s tip on the bed. While her left hand cradles where the device attaches to her body, she sends the signal to disconnect, and a half dozen titanium clips disengage. With her hand, she spins the device and pulls it off. She sets it on the bed. “I regret to inform you that I don’t have a rapier, so if you want a slightly more-fair fight, it’ll have to be fist to fist.”

  Charlie swallows and adjusts his stance. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  Mary grins as she picks up the cybernetic arm. “This being ten times stronger than my original arm and made from titanium shouldn’t be a deal breaker, should it? I’ll try to not crush your bones for at least the first minute.” She looks down to align the arm’s attachment spindle into the receiver attached to her body, and through the view from a corner camera, she sees Charlie turning away from her and jumping.

  She tilts her head up to look at him, out of habit. Her arm is still not attached, and because Charlie isn’t leaping toward her, she doesn’t feel threatened and doesn’t send the command to fire.

  He scoops up July and barrels for the door.

  Mary snorts and looks back down at her upper arm. She clicks in the humanoid hand attachment, tests her fingers’ movements, then rotates through video feeds of the hallway cameras as she jogs toward the door. This game is turning out to be more fun than I thought.

  At Lorenzo Bernardi’s villa, Steve knocks on the doors to the bedroom next to his, the room Li Chen was given. A muffled, “Yo!” comes from the other side.

  Steve opens the doors and steps in. The room has a similar layout to his own, and although it’s different in decoration, color, and style, it matches in extravagance. “Li Chen?” Steve scans the walls that are shrouded in large, green-velveted curtains and gold picture frames.

  “Out here dude, on the veranda.”

  Steve walks toward the far wall, where a grand glass door is ajar. Sitting outside is Li Chen, a lit joint in one hand and his phone displaying the picture of the ring’s old markings in the other. Wait, that’s his phone. Steve points. “What happened to the other phone?”

  “Emailed the pics to myself and ditched it. It was a model eight; barf.” He kills the screen and sets the phone on the table beside him.

  No way we’ll be able to hack his account and delete them, and now they’re on his phone too. Shit... Unless I took his phone and deleted them from there, but maybe he could recover them from online?

  Li Chen notices Steve staring off into the distance, to the ocean where moon-tipped waves crash and rumble onto smooth sand. “I’ll tell you what, Stevie, this is the life I’ve been waiting for.”

  A cool breeze chimes in with hints of rosemary from the garden and some sea spray. Steve nods. “It is nice.” He notices a ceiling overhead, and he looks up. Could be a balcony up there. Might be people listening in... He itches the bandages on his healed-over but gross-looking scalp. “Hey, Li Chen, I wanted to ask you something.”

  He takes a drag of the joint and raises his eyebrows with a nod, then he blows the smoke out toward the sea. He passes the joint to Steve.

  “Do you trust his guy?” Steve takes a drag.

  Li Chen shakes his head. “Not really, but he paid up before. And you saw the goons he’s got here; they’re just normals…not V like us. I bet he needs some fresh, strong blood.” He motions for the joint.

  Steve considers taking another drag, but he does have a job to do, after all. He hands it over. “It’s just weird. I mean, we’re in his frickin’ mansion here, and he’s delaying our deal. What if he tries something when we’re asleep?”

  Li Chen laughs and takes another hit. “Dude, the guy’s loaded. I heard this is his smallest place. I don’t think he wants the hassle of screwing us over.”

  “I guess that makes sense... Never been around somebody with so much money.”

  “Live it up, man. Play your cards right, I bet you can stick around and work for him.” He tilts his head and motions with the joint while raising it to his lips. “I’ll be playin’ mine.”

  Good to know. “I guess I should think about it. I mean, a couple days ago I was looking forward to some cash from the hotel gig and week of pizza and video games.”

  Li Chen extends the last bit of the joint over to Steve. “We could have it all, man.”

  Steve takes it and sucks the cherry all the way to his lips. It burns them, but they’ll heal, and he gets the last of the weed. He spits the charred paper then licks his burned lip. “I’m gonna take a walk.”

  Li Chen lifts his hips up and reaches into his pocket, then pulls out two more joints. “He had a fucking platter of these in the hall, did you see ’em?”

  “Yeah.”

  Li Chen puts one in his mouth and lights it, then extends it to Steve. “For your consideration.”

  Steve takes it. “Thanks. See ya in the morning, I guess.” He turns to walk back inside.

  Li Chen waves him bye with the other joint between his fingers, then he lights it.

  Inside the house, Steve collects some saliva and brings it up between pursed lips, then he extinguishes the joint. Save you for later. Gotta scope this place out more first. He notices Li Chen’s bag tossed on the bed with a pair of earbuds spilling out from a pocket. Don’t mind if I do. He grabs them, puts them on, and with his phone, he fires up “I Wonder” by Naomi Pilgrim. Maybe I’ll raise less suspicion if I’m chillin’.

  He bops his head as he walks the halls, heads downstairs, and decides he should probably see what snacks the kitchen has.

  A beige van pulls into the parking lot of the ho
tel where the High Council announced it was having an emergency strategy meeting—the one Sadie used to draw out and trap Deina.

  The van circles the hotel until the driver finds the wall of windows alongside the banquets area. Beyond them, the driver sees a large group of people. He backs into a parking spot and raises a pair of binoculars. He sees people of all sorts of ethnicities, and on one side of the room, there’s a table with a bunch of people sitting and talking. Gotta be them. Fucking bloodsuckers.

  He lowers the binoculars and posts a status update:

  The vampires declared war on us, and people everywhere must answer their call. I, Kirk Frederick II, am part of the People’s Resistance Army. My codename is Blue Sabre, and I died today fighting for our future. #KILLVAEIR

  He sets his phone in a cup holder, then flips a switch on a box at his side. Wires run from one side of the box to a car battery and a homemade, push-button detonator. Wires out of the other side run to a series of blasting caps stuck into containers of ammonium nitrate, liquid nitromethane, Tovex explosives, and diesel fuel.

  The man smiles and takes a deep, long breath. This is for you, Blackjack.

  Steve texts Qilin:

  Found trunk but it’s heavy, can’t carry myself. It’s on first floor, in a little garage attached to the house.

  I don’t think I can recover the images Li Chen stole, he forwarded them to his email. When you coming?

  He waits and feels his heart racing. He remembers the joint and is tempted to light it, but he decides to hold out. His phone vibrates with a response.

  Already here, on top of hill. You arrived in the black SUV, right? Where’s the keys?

  Steve thinks back on his exploration of the villa—blocking the part where he heard sex noises from Lorenzo and his guests on the top floor—and tries to recall if he spotted keys anywhere. Fuck... Wait, yeah! It was a fob with flip-out key, and John set it down in the coatroom.