The Age of Scorpio

by Gavin G. Smith

  Travelling through one of the conduits in the exotic gasses of Red Space, Vic had been searching all the comms traffic on the beacons they were in range of, looking for bounties going down on him and Scab. It was okay for Scab – he would make a pile of bodies of any who came after him – but Vic knew it wouldn’t be the same for him. Vic was probably one of the top bounty killers, but the guys who they would send after them were at least his match.

  ‘At least it will be over soon,’ he actually said out loud. Then he found Scab staring at him. Oh now you’re listening, Vic thought.

  So far there had been nothing. This meant that someone with an awful lot of resources to throw at this problem was running interference for them. What worried Vic the most, however, was that whoever their mysterious patron was, they had found a way to sufficiently motivate Scab into this insanity.

  And this new madness. Despite the Basilisk’s excellent life-support systems, the ship could not quite scrub the smell of burning bone and flesh out of the air. The argument had gone on for some time, but it hadn’t been much of an argument. It had mostly been Vic screaming at Scab. It was only after he had thought to do a scan of Scab that Vic realised that his partner had been listening to his favourite pre-Loss music on ancient crystal earrings. Scab preferred listening to music rather than downloading it directly into his cerebral cortex via his neunonics. He claimed it sounded better. Vic just thought it showed what a throwback Scab was.

  Finally Vic had refused to help. He told Scab that he would have to slave him. Scab had said that he could not risk the drop in performance that came with slaving; Vic had to help him willingly. Scab’s idea of willingness was to slave Vic and put him in an agony immersion of his own design just long enough for Vic to agree. Despite his hard-tech augment, Vic had shaken for hours after Scab had let him out of the immersion – the things he’d seen, experienced, the things in Scab’s mind. Scab had only ever done something like it once before. Vic realised how important this was to Scab.

  Scab removed two slits from the bone in the front of his skull and lit a cigarette, dragging deeply. The Basilisk extruded the cold storage drawer with the two biotech organisms in it. Vic had started thinking of them as alien eyes and was more and more sure they were S-tech. He watched, unease trickling through him at some base, instinctual level. Scab lifted the bioware towards his head. Scab’s P-sat was hovering just over the hole in the skull, projecting a sterile field, though Scab’s own bioware and nano-screen were probably more than enough to ward off infection. Scab took another drag on his cigarette and placed the bioware into his skull.

  Vic had to admit that things never got boring working with Scab. The universe might be infinite, though the sparsely starred sky of Known Space had always felt claustrophobic to Vic, but after seeing and doing the things he had seen and done with Scab, he was impressed that he could still feel horror and fascination as he watched the things crawl into his partner’s skull. Trickles of sweat made rivulets through Scab’s white make-up. Vic realised that his human partner was shaking. The bioware flattened itself into the two slits Scab had made in his skull. Tendrils burrowed into the grey meat. Vic was even sure he had seen sparks of bioelectric energy. He must be in agony, Vic thought. Good, stupid cunt.

  A chair extruded from the white-carpeted floor of the Basilisk’s C and C/lounge and Scab sat down just a little too hard to make it look casual. The P-sat moved to continue projecting the sterile field. Scab reached into his suit and removed his works. Another pointlessly retro vice. Vic didn’t understand why he didn’t just download the drugs he wanted from internal storage. When he had asked Scab about this once, Scab had told him that as a child he had been the leader of a street sect on Cyst, his home planet. When they had captured him and sent him to the Legion, they had done neural surgery on him to remove some of his more dangerous traits. They had cut out the heretically religious aspect of young Scab, but ritual had remained important to him.

  Not long after, Scab drifted away on a nod. Vic thought long and hard about extending a blade from one of his power-assisted limbs. Just pressing it into the grey meat. Scab’s P-sat would try and protect him of course, but good as it was, it was no match for Vic. Just a simple movement and all the madness and fear would be over.

  He didn’t do it, of course. He didn’t like the way the two eye-like organs on Scab’s head above his human eyes seemed to stare at him. He felt like the coward he knew he was. He felt like he understood the politics of fear.

  Instead of killing Scab, Vic went with his partner into Monarchist space, looking for the Citadel.

  ‘You didn’t kill me then?’ Scab asked when he awoke. Vic said nothing. ‘Good.’

  The Citadel was out of phase. That much Scab was sure of. Entrance had required a different physical state. Technology, alien or not, was just something that made things happen when he wanted them to. The fragment of the god that lived with him in his skull had shown him the way. A different-coloured space. Reality was broken down to the level of subatomic particles, nothing more than a series of interlinked fields. The ancient technology meshed with human consciousness; science became instinct, matter merely vibration, and then his modified brain translated that information into something he could understand – physics as a waking hallucination. It felt like the defences of the Citadel were shredding him piece by piece, as he flitted between existences in different spaces.

  He arrived naked, screaming, flayed and bloody on the cold black marble floor. It was like being born except he had been diminished. The powerful biotech implants notwithstanding, it had required every single intrusion trick he had known, and what knowledge of the Elite that hadn’t been cut out of him surgically and virally. He felt like he had been peeled back layer by layer to something raw, feral and inhuman.

  He lay on the cold marble, regrowing layers of skin. Tiny nanites crawled through the pores in his skin to replace his repeatedly murdered nano-screen. He kept them close this time. This high chamber of marble was like a tomb from some xeno-archaeological immersion. There were only a few distant rays of light from some unseen source, but the light illuminated the motes of dust. Scab knew that much of that dust was nanites far in advance of any in Known Space.

  He knew that the empty monolithic chamber masked the vast amounts of tech, Seeder and otherwise, that existed to support the Elite. There would be reservoirs of matter that could feed assemblers and provide solid ammunition to feed their weapons instantaneously via complex matter entanglement. Generators and controls, probably merged into the very matter of the place, to provide the defensive fields and stealth systems. Connections to the network of primordial black holes that powered Elite tech, again through complex entanglement, and presumably provided the power to keep the Citadel out of phase and in a different physical state to Real Space, assuming it was in Real Space. There would also be storehouses of forbidden S-tech, Scab imagined and half remembered.

  The Scorpion was agony. It had burrowed deep into the flesh of his left arm, wrapping itself around the bones. Only the top of its back was visible, the sting twitching in and out of his skin. He could have deadened the nerve endings easily but didn’t. All sensation was a reminder of existence. The pain would end when he was finished. It was how he would know.

  ‘Are you a shade? Someone I’ve killed?’ The voice was beautiful, deep, resonant and so very sad-sounding. Scab rolled into a defensive crouch. The crouch in the presence of the figure that stood over him made him feel like a feral animal. Scab was fine with that. Sometimes beauty was there just to be destroyed.

  The figure had a shock of the blackest hair that Scab had ever seen. Tall and so slender, he somehow looked delicate. There being no fat on him, despite his delicacy his musculature was perfectly toned. He might as well have been carved out of marble. His eyes were dark pools with stars in them. He was naked. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, Scab thought, he would have drawn his armour back under his skin.

  Scab angrily drew upon his internal drug r
esources to subdue the feeling of awe rising in him. He knew that this was a tailored psychological response designed by the AIs and scientists who over the generations of the existence of the Elite had helped mould them into the legendary gods they were. Every movement, every mannerism designed to tell you one thing: there is no hope.

  A moment of concentration and then recognition.

  ‘I’ve seen you before. We slew monsters and you were there.’

  Fallen Angel.

  ‘I want the cocoon.’

  ‘I don’t really know what that means.’

  ‘The white thing you took off the Seeder ship.’

  ‘It wasn’t a ship, but I apologise. I have misled you. When I said that I did not know what that means, I should have said I don’t care.’

  It was the tone of honest sympathy that angered Scab the most.

  ‘Is it here?’

  ‘Why would it be here?’

  ‘Because you brought it here.’

  ‘If we did, it would be because we are slaves. It will be somewhere else now.’

  Scab stared at him. Still trying to shake the feeling that he was a disgusting beast in the presence of something transcendent.

  ‘Then you won’t mind if I have a look.’

  Scab stood up and made as if to move past Fallen Angel. The Elite took Scab by the shoulder. Fallen Angel held him lightly but Scab could feel the power in the fingers. It was magnitudes above what Vic could have managed with his high-end, hard-tech augments, impressive for what was primarily soft tech. On the other hand, there had to be a price for laying a hand on Scab.

  A flat palm to Fallen Angel’s wrist to knock the arm away. That almost contacted. The Elite made the moving of his arm out of the way look languid. Fallen Angel allowed the roundhouse kick to land, taking the meaningless impact on the shoulder. With Scab’s ability and soft-machine augments, he knew that the kick had more than enough power to powder bone in someone as highly augmented as he himself was. He was reasonably sure that Fallen Angel hadn’t even felt it.

  Fallen Angel raised his knee level with his chin and then straightened his leg. The impact broke ribs. Scab spat blood in mid-air as the kick tore him off his feet and sent him flying backwards. He landed hard on the black marble. The noise of their violence seemed obscene in the otherwise quiet chamber.

  Scab rolled back into his animalistic crouch and bared his teeth. Fallen Angel watched him, his expression a mix of curiosity and confusion. Scab ran at him, launching himself into the air, knees forward. It was an easy thing for Fallen Angel to roll under the blow.

  Scab had known this. He channelled every bit of hatred, every bit of anger at being in a situation where he was so horribly outmatched, where cunning and ultraviolence would not see him through, where he wasn’t in control. The Scorpion, ancient and vile, responded.

  The sting drew a long thin line of black just under Fallen Angel’s eye. This was extraordinary in itself. More extraordinary was the ancient venom in the sting actually giving the Elite’s internal antivirals a moment of trouble.

  Scab landed, scampered across the floor like an animal, using one hand for support, and turned to face Fallen Angel again. The Elite touched his face and then held his black-covered fingertips in front of his eyes. The exotic matter looked like liquid as it was sucked back through his skin.

  Fallen Angel was starting to look angry. He glanced at the Scorpion dug into the flesh on Scab’s left arm and hissed at it, eyes blazing. Scab actually screamed as the S-tech weapon burrowed under his skin, hiding itself completely in his flesh, brass-like living metal wrapping itself around his bones. He had to force himself to ignore the fear radiating from the Scorpion.

  Fallen Angel strode towards him. Scab had to put every inch of effort into trying not to get hit. Years of experience, street fighting on Cyst, the planet that most embraced the creed of the cult of Darwin in Consortium space, every dirty trick he’d learned in the penal battalions of the Legion on countless CR worlds and what he could remember of the Elite dances. It wasn’t enough. It was a one-sided and short fight. It was like Fallen Angel was dancing with him in his sleep.

  He spoke to Scab as he committed violence on him. The Elite threw a punch to his stomach that lifted Scab off his feet. For an absurd moment Scab felt that his opponent was wearing him like a glove.

  ‘You did not infiltrate.’

  A casual axe kick fractured his skull despite it being seeded with armoured super-hardened ceramic and drove him to the marble floor again. All happening faster than the unaugmented would even be able to see.

  ‘We may as well have invited you.’

  Picked up by the back of his neck and flung against the marble wall. Air forced out of him, replenished immediately by his internal systems, more broken ribs despite the carbon lacing. Fortunately his spine remained intact, though Scab suspected that this was calculation on Fallen Angel’s part to prolong the lesson.

  ‘You saw nothing of import.’

  Lifted up off the ground by his skull. Both of Fallen Angel’s hands, with their long powerful fingers, were wrapped around it.

  ‘I can see the little god in your eyes. Remember that you did not do this; you are only a vehicle.’ Fallen Angel pushed his fingers into the alien eyes in Scab’s forehead and squeezed. Scab screamed in a way that would shame him when he thought back to it. It was a humiliation in a life largely free of them. The ancient eyes became a sticky mess on the end of Fallen Angel’s fingers.

  ‘The Consortium has tipped its hand. Now we know they know where we are. They should have sent their Elite instead of this ghost. We’ll move. You’re just here to learn what it’s like to be helpless.’

  Now, Scab thought. It was a coherent energy field weapon, a rod, more commonly known as an energy javelin. It was ancient S-tech and, like the Scorpion, completely illegal. It lived in a hidden sheath in Scab’s right arm. He killed with it only on special occasions. A momentary white and orange glow in the flesh as his neunonics sent the order, his hand swinging towards Fallen Angel. The mortal who killed a god. Maybe.

  The time between thinking the order, the movement, the glow of the energy field initiating was so small as to be difficult to measure. It was enough. Fallen Angel grabbed Scab’s arm at the wrist and squeezed, crushing the sheath. Trapping the energy javelin, which started to cut and burn its way through Scab’s flesh. More screaming as flesh smoked and the smell of burning meat filled the air.

  ‘That might have actually hurt me,’ Fallen Angel said quietly, sounding calmer now. Scab’s right hand fell off, his wrist still glowing as the meat around it cooked. ‘But you’re not really there again, are you.’

  Scab felt sick. Different, somehow less with the eyes gone. He was aware of his wounds, the holes in his skull.

  ‘Will you let him go for me?’ asked a female voice every bit as beautiful, resonant and sad as Fallen Angel’s. Scab managed to look up from the floor. His nano-screen was all but screaming warnings in his neunonics, his defences were being overrun. Elites fought at all levels of conflict.

  Scab felt absurdly gratified that after dropping him, Fallen Angel had shown enough respect to take a few steps away, out of easy striking distance.

  She was a female version of Fallen Angel: same black hair, a feminised version of the same build with small pale breasts, same eyes. Tall, slender to the point of fragile while still conveying power. Scab recognised her: she was the third monarchist Elite. She was called Horrible Angel and was said to be Fallen Angel’s sister.

  Uncaring of Scab, she took her brother’s head and kissed him long and deep.

  ‘You know who he is?’ she asked when they had finished.

  ‘Another ghost of someone I killed who has followed me into the underworld. He’ll seek revenge but in the end just follow me with empty eye sockets and a tongueless mouth. Silent and accusing.’

  Clearly to Fallen Angel it was all about him, Scab thought. The idea almost made him smile. He was going to die fighting Elite. He
had cut one, and given him pause with the energy javelin. Impossible feats for many. Scab wasn’t sure if it was enough. If he could die now… No. He remembered the deal he had made. This way it would not end.

  ‘No,’ Horrible Angel said. ‘This is Woodbine Scab, bounty killer extraordinaire and ex-Elite. One of us…’ Fallen Angel turned to look at him. Something had changed. It was as if he was regarding him in a new light as he wrapped his arms around Horrible Angel.

  ‘… now little more than a frightened animal,’ Fallen Angel said, finishing his sister’s sentence. ‘Why did they take your wings away?’

  Horrible Angel turned to look at Scab as well. He had managed to back himself against the wall so he could sit up a bit. Trying to ignore his smoking wrist, he was tempted to tell them the truth. That he couldn’t remember. That the information was gone after they had mentally spayed him. It was, after all, very difficult to lie to Elite. They were trained and augmented to read people. They had to be able to predict the movements that any opponent made against them. Be it a single opponent in hand-to-hand or an entire Consortium navy battle group. Scab still had vestiges of the talent himself. He wished he had a cigarette.

  ‘I didn’t want to be a slave,’ he told them both. They both looked impassive. Maybe they believed him, maybe they didn’t, maybe he had inadvertently guessed the truth. It was the ultimate irony of the Elite. They were undoubtedly the most dangerous and physically powerful people in Known Space but their masters were not stupid. Their loyalty was conditioned and programmed to the nth degree, it was absolute. The killer gods were the ultimate servants.

  ‘What did you think you could do here?’ Horrible Angel asked.

  ‘He fought me,’ Fallen Angel said redundantly.