by Astrid Amara
Both Mack and Chan shouted suddenly. I saw their heart rates go faster, and my own heart stuttered in terror. I forced my body to move, even though I remained under assault. On the bright side, my suit could take dozens of shots before the armor gave. Unfortunately, the first part that usually gave was the enforced silicon helmet. I kept my head down and looked for Mack and Chan. I saw three revs on them, disabling them and forcing them to their knees, hands behind their heads. With Mack’s helmet off, he looked so exposed and not a little scared. One of the brawnier revs kicked him in the stomach.
My gun was still set up on the roof wall. I moved toward it and got shot for my efforts. Two bullets hit me in the helmet, and the sound reverberated through my head. Not good. I had to hope they’d run out of ammo.
I managed to get my hand on the butt of my rifle, but I couldn’t aim while being shot at. A break in the gyropod’s assault offered me a chance run to the staircase and off the roof.
But that meant leaving Mack and the others without cover. Fuck that.
Besides, my body hurt so badly there was no running in any scenario. Crawling was about the best I could manage at the moment.
I concentrated on the view scope, tuned out the way my body felt pummeled, and squeezed off a shot directly to the head of the man who’d kicked Mack. Before he hit the ground, I shot the other revs. One of them managed to get a head shot to Chan and she dropped in a heap. Her heart rate flat-lined. I finished off the rev in sudden fury. Fuck the no-kill order.
“Shit!” Cole cried. “B Squad, move in for support!”
A cable dropped from the gyropod. Company. I unlatched the rifle from the mount and swiveled.
I only had a moment to take in the scarred face of the man who lowered himself from the bungee cable. I had a fleeting thought: he doesn’t look like a rev. But then I recognized the shrapnel canon in his hands, and realized I was fucked.
Pain blossomed all over my body as the slivers of poisoned metal shot through the gaps in the polymesh suit and sliced through my organs. The force shot me back against the wall and over it. I scrambled for purchase, about to plummet off the roof.
A second ledge jutted out under the roof, narrow but not far, and it seemed my only option. I couldn’t reach my rifle, or even the pistol at my side. I felt immediately weak, as the shrapnel that had pierced my chest sliced open my lungs.
As the asshole readied the canon for its second blow, I realized that even if I fell onto the second landing, I was a dead man.
The monitors in my screen all pulsed furiously as the battle engaged, except for Chan’s heartbreaking flatline.
I couldn’t believe it, actually, that this would be my death. This moment had come so close, so many times, it seemed ironic that I’d end up dying here, in what wasn’t even a dramatic battle. A run-of-the-mill terrorist team, and here I hung, metal in my heart, about to fall and splatter to my end.
I clutched the roof for another few seconds, long enough at least to look toward Mack, and send out an apology.
“Sorry, baby,” I said over the com. Mack was in the middle of handcuffing the one rev who had survived my assault. I caught him glance up at me suddenly.
I couldn’t see his face without the scope. I couldn’t see the disappointment or grief. For that I was grateful.
“Ivo!” He screamed on the com. “Ivo!”
I felt the second blast from the shrapnel canon, and the pain stopped my breath. I tipped off the edge and fell. My stomach rose as I went down.
I was scared and sorry and pissed, but most of all, I felt guilty. And as I felt the crunch of my back breaking, as I watched my own heart monitor stutter and flatten, I thought, Mack is going to be so mad.
Chapter One
Ten Years Later
The train shuddered right, left, right, left. The rhythmic sound of the tracks formed a staccato pulse under the metal grates of the car floor. Air blew up from the grates, sterile and odorless, filtered and colored to highlight biohazards. The only light that entered the black anodized carbon fiber compartment came from the four-inch-tall sliver of plastic window that stretched the compartment’s length. It revealed an endless vista of yellow sand dunes, blurred by the speed of the train. The yellow of the dunes and the blue sanitized air mixed to cast a greenish glow.
There was no furniture. The primary object was the repository, stored in a magnetized lockbox about ten inches square, secured to a platform in the corner.
The only other object in the large space was a gray plastic crate. I sat on this, propping my head in my hands, resting my eyes. Everything got foggy around the time of my next upload, and the pain in my head was always so bad I found the only way to make it those extra minutes was to close my eyes and try not to think or move.
But the train moved. I’d been aboard it for an unspecified amount of time. I was one of two men in the car protecting the repository. Agent 472 leaned against the wall to the southern car, right arm weighed down with his gun brace, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The rest of security were scattered throughout the remainder of the private train.
My body started to itch all over, another symptom of needing a hit. I wore a thin polymesh layer and heavier tech armor over top of that. My left arm was left bare of all but the polymesh and the thick black plastic band of my osys and drug dispersal system, wrapped tightly around my wrist. No armor covered me here because I had a plasma shield generator strapped to the side of my forearm. My cybernetic hand was hidden under a stretchy glove to protect the delicate enhancements.
The bulk of my right arm was encased in my energy rifle and its brace. The skin under it itched intensely. I tried to fantasize about taking off the gear and sleeping, but every time I tried to fantasize about anything, my mind grew hazy and I felt a little nauseated. I focused on the left, right, left swing of the train instead.
I heard the distant popping sound of the button on 472’s osys wristband filling with powder and my mouth watered. He slammed the blue rubber button with his palm, opening the latch, then lifted his left wrist to his mouth and dumped the bitter white powder down his throat.
I watched in jealousy. My head began to throb.
472’s eyes brightened, and a smile transformed his scowl. It was an automatic response to the effects of Peak. It always made you smile. Words couldn’t describe the euphoria that filled the body after that deep inhalation.
I glanced up and blinked twice, activating the embedded cortex screen linked to my osys through the implant screwed in my ear. In the corner of my sight, I could see the countdown timer to my next hit. Fourteen minutes, thirty-two seconds.
Fuck.
I put my head back in my hands.
I heard 472 strutting around the car, body thrumming with energy. Peak made you invincible, indestructible, burning with the need to smash, to destroy. I hoped he didn’t try and take it out on me. I had a vague memory of him doing something like that once before.
The problem with a Peak hit while on guard duty was that all the burning energy had nowhere to direct itself. But at least one of us was heightened and alert in case of danger.
We didn’t know what the danger could be. The repository was critical and valuable to our employers. That was all that mattered.
I scrolled through kill stats as I waited for my hit. There was a contest among the agents, and it would be ending soon. The person in my security unit with the highest number of kills would get four extra hits of Peak, whenever needed.
I sat in second place in my security unit. I had to beat 390. She was unstoppable. I didn’t have much hope as long as I remained relegated to guard duty. But the prize was so sweet. I would kill a dozen men for that if I had to. God, give me the chance to do that.
I wasn’t religious. Was I?
But it was strange to think about how I needed an opportunity to up my kill stats, and then immediately hear the screech of metal as we fell under assault.
A shudder pulsed through the train. I slammed against the back wall
as we came to a sudden, unintended halt.
472 craned his neck to look out the window. I stood and jerked back my right arm, powering up the gun brace that covered it from palm to elbow. The gun was heavy, a good eighteen pounds, and bulky as all hell, but it was powerful, had long range, and my aiming skills were good enough to compensate for the awkward use of the osys scope that a lot of other soldiers couldn’t master.
I primed my shield generator and activated my helmet. My world closed down to stats and facts that brightened in the darkened screen of the visor. Both 472 and I stood in silence, listening as something farther up the train exploded. The sound of screeching metal was soon accompanied by the whirring of gyropods.
In my ear, the osys link broadcast the Security Director’s words. “All agents—we are under attack. Mass at cars 3 and 4. Protect the repository and safe. Don’t—” Static filled the comms.
472 vibrated, ready for a fight. I looked at the nearly psychotic energy in his eyes, saw how they were bloodshot. I wondered if that was what I looked like when I was high.
What did I look like? I wondered suddenly.
As I stared at 472, the roof of the car sheared open with a massive explosion. Before the debris even hit the freight car floor, someone fired a sticky grenade onto 472’s helmet. He exploded.
I turned, but the force of the explosion threw me to the ground. The sound of metal ripped from the roof filled my ears. I rolled to a crouched position and clenched my left palm, activating the plasma shield. My ears rang painfully, and the stench of burned hair and blood flooded my nostrils.
A dark-red bungee cable dropped from the humming gyropod hovering above the gaping hole in the car roof. A second later, a single man dropped into the car, armed to the teeth.
A massive, concussive shudder burst outside, and the sound fizzed through my coms and made me wince. At once all my communications went blank.
The terrorist fired at me, but the energy blast sprayed over my shield. The counter in the left corner of my eyesight kept track of the strength of my shield. He wasn’t fucking around—these were pure blasts, designed to kill.
“Get down,” he said. His voice sounded tinny through his bio-suit helmet. He wore all-black polymesh like myself, but over the top of his armor was some sort of vest with pockets stuffed full with random objects. He fired at me again, and I moved closer, blocking the spray and readying my aim.
My head pounded. The withdrawal fucked with my concentration. I had only minutes to go, but what shitty fucking timing.
I should complain to the authorities, I thought.
I opened my left palm and released my shield and fired two energy blasts directly at him. His suit absorbed the blows, but he staggered back from the strength of them. He had no shield, but he was big and fast. He darted around me, firing repeatedly. I could feel the blows on my armor, shaking me, until I erected the shield again. I moved toward the repository, putting myself between the terrorist and the box.
I tried calling security, but they didn’t respond. The concussive blast must have been a comm grenade, something recently developed by the terrorists to knock out all satellite-based communications.
I lowered my shield and fired another round. The man darted out of the line of the blast with unnerving speed. He hopped around the car like a rabbit.
“You shouldn’t fire energy blasters that close to the box,” a tinny, mechanical voice informed me from the bio-suit. He sounded calm, which infuriated me.
I lowered my shield and took another shot. He shot back at the same time and pinged me in the helmet.
I shook my head. My screen informed me I only had a few more hits lefts to my helmet before it would retract. And my shield energy and gun-energy reserves were draining fast. The bad side of high-powered weaponry was their inability to last through drawn-out combat.
Since I couldn’t stop the soldier, I aimed next for his weapon. A direct shot to his energy pistol and it exploded it in his hand, throwing him backward against the wall of the train. He reached into one of his many pockets and pulled out a small conventional pistol and fired at me. I heard the door from the north of the train open. I turned to see two more agents enter with weapons raised.
The soldier didn’t appear ruffled in the slightest. A shot to the helmet caused a hissing sound as his suit leaked oxygen, but he continued to calmly fire.
He tossed an energy grenade at the three of us. The light blinded me temporarily and disabled our electrical weapons. As we struggled to regroup, the terrorist fired clean rounds into both the other agents, disabling their helmets, then shooting them in the heads.
He got several rounds in my helmet while I slammed the locking bolt on the underside of my arm gun. The empty gun snapped open, dropping to the floor, useless.
My helmet retracted, and he aimed his pistol straight at me.
He was out of bullets.
I reached for my baton and turned to face the terrorist, who started to reload his weapon.
The stench of 472’s exploded body made me want to puke. It could also have been the withdrawal. My stomach churned with nausea.
As I stepped closer, the soldier suddenly stopped loading the gun and stared at me. At least I assume he did, since I couldn’t see any expression in the black clouded helmet that covered his face.
The man stood there for a moment, gun raised. I lifted my baton. My body pulsed with withdrawal, but I had a good minute or so before I could download my twice-daily dose.
The man yanked on the side of his visor, and it retracted into his suit. His black hair was flat and sweaty against his head from the helmet. His face was pale, and his eyes were huge and blue and filling with tears. “Ivo?” he whispered.
Chapter Two
Who the Fuck Are You?
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked. A strange churning filled my gut. My head pounded even worse. I needed a hit so badly my own eyes started to water.
“Oh God, Ivo!” He rushed toward me, and I moved in, smacking the gun from his hand and whipping it around with extreme speed to point it back at him.
He froze. Now there were actual tears in his eyes. “You don’t remember me?” he asked softly.
“No.” My head pounded in rhythm with my heart. “Who’s Ivo?”
“You are.” He moved as if to reach for me. “Shit, what happened to you?”
As he stepped closer, I fired the gun to his right and he froze. “Don’t fucking move! Put your hands behind your head.”
“It’s me.” The man’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “Ivo it’s me, Mack. Robert MacKenzie. Mack.”
“I don’t know a Mack,” I said.
“You used to know me. I was with you when you fell.”
Something flickered across my memory, like a recollection, but then it was gone. I gestured with the gun. “Get on your knees. Now.”
The man named Mack complied, hands braced behind the back of his head. He winced as his kneecaps contacted the grates of the train floor. He stared at me with a disconcerting level of fascination.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Shut up.” Keeping the gun pointed at his jaw, I moved in and felt along Mack’s front and the multiple pockets for weapons. I withdrew one more energy grenade, a knife, and two spare rounds of ammo. I pulled back fast. “Don’t move, or I’ll fucking shoot you.”
“Why not just shoot me now?” the man asked, bizarrely calm given the situation.
“Security will want you for questioning.”
“So you can’t shoot me then,” Mack said smugly.
“I’ll shoot you in the knee if you don’t shut the fuck up.” I pointed at his knees, and he shut his mouth immediately.
I blinked to call up my osys directory. “Security,” I said aloud. No signal. I wiped my eyes. I was crying for some reason. A deep ache filled me, but I couldn’t for the life of me say why. I scrubbed my eyes against the back side of my arm band where there was fabric and not polymesh. There must have been somet
hing in the air.
I was always allergic to things. I shuddered as the thought entered my mind. Things like that would occasionally occur to me, followed by a wave of nausea.
I glanced down and saw my osys blink blue, showing a new dispersal code had been uploaded before the comms died.
“Who are you?” Mack asked again.
“Shut up.”
“Just your name. I need to know your name.”
The question pounded into me. Why did he need to know my name? And for that matter…what the fuck was my name?
Why couldn’t I—
The light blinked blue on my band, and the button popped as it filled with powder. I didn’t hesitate. I hit the button and held the band to my mouth, sucking in the sour Peak.
The crash of joy flooded my senses. Everything turned bright in the room. My muscles surged with energy, and the feeling of euphoria nearly made me laugh with pleasure.
I glanced down at the man at my feet, feeling a hundred feet tall and strong as a magcrane. The man looked up at me with wet eyes and he appeared…heartbroken.
“Do you know what’s in that box?” the man asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” I replied.
“But it’s your job to guard it, right?” He narrowed his eyes. “That’s what you are doing? You work for the security team as a sniper?”
I wasn’t sure how this guy knew I was a sharpshooter. “Less chatter, smartypants.”
He blinked. “So…you do remember me?”
I frowned. I couldn’t remember ever calling anyone smartypants before. Why would I? This guy looked like a typical jarhead—all muscle and no brains.
“Ivo—”
“Stop calling me that,” I yelled at him. For emphasis I fired the gun at him, this time in front of his crotch. He froze instantly.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “But you do know that if you keep firing pistols next to that thing, it’s going to blow, right?”