by Ivan Shaman
“See you later. Jump faster!” As soon as he was alone, the maximum dispersed APC slammed into the side of the people’s vehicle with its full force. The grinding sound of the crushed metal was deafening, but the APC still moved. Pulling back, he turned around, and then he moved on to the next opponent, trying to crush as many people as he possibly could.
An explosion shook the vehicle, shattering the hull and leaving a huge hole in it. A tank! Damn it! He hadn’t even noticed the tank. Throwing everything, he clamped the gas pedal down with the butt of a discharged machine gun and, grabbing another gun, jumped out into the landing hatch – just in time to see the second shell explode inside the APC, turning it into a pile of burning debris.
He found himself in the middle of the battle. The soldiers he had hit were slowly getting up from the ground, but he wouldn’t give them any chance to rejoin the battle. Marksman! The trigger was pressed, and the belt was quickly devoured by the machine gun, spitting out deadly bullets one by one. Black shells of steel smashed into bulletproof vests, shaking the people and making neat eight-millimeter holes in the titanium plates. He wasn’t accurate, but it wasn’t exactly necessary with a machine gun.
Only when the belt ran out, did the people begin to shoot back, but Demon was ready. Jerk!
He wasn’t going to engage in melee while there was at least one cartridge remaining, and he had a lot! Charging the second belt, he looked over the fallen APC and saw how the rear ranks of the people were being swept away by the reinforcements, led by Lex. But the people didn’t give up.
Without paying attention to the technocrats, the tank turned its turret and fired a direct shot at the TPS, destroying the brick wall of the old building. Demon figured that it must be recharged, but then he realized that the people had decided to destroy the TPS in order to not give it to the technocrats.
“Lex, the tank! The tank is about to destroy the boilers!” He shouted as loudly as he could. There was a shot, but the shell suddenly went up. Demon looked out from the shelter and saw Jack raising the gun with a huge effort. The next second, he was cut off by a twin machine gun, and the Goliath roared and fell right in front of the tank. The driver immediately moved the vehicle forward to smash the giant under the caterpillars.
Demon looked around. There were more people than cyborgs. First-levelers attacked in waves and were being slaughtered. He saw nobody above the tenth level. Lex was somewhere behind the buildings, his song was harsh and bright, but he didn’t reach many of his brothers. Kris fought inside the building, destroying the shooters. Demon had no choice. Jerk!
He picked up the giant and quickly realized that he wasn’t able to carry him. If only he’d had more strength. Hell, he had that skill! Strongman! The blood nourished the muscles, and the adrenaline and testosterone flew through his body. Jerk! The strength ended as suddenly as it appeared. Looking up, Demon saw that he was standing at the ruined brick wall and dozens of guns were aiming at him.
“Fire!”
Chapter 13. Roof
He saw flashes of fire and heard the sound of the shots while under the protection of the gun shield.
“What are you doing, idiot?” Jane cried. “Get inside!”
“I can’t, it’s too heavy, and I have the Strongman’s cooldown,” Demon replied, exhaling with relief. The bullets rained against the shield, but it was designed to protect against a direct hit from a large-caliber armor-piercing cartridge from a hundred yards. “If you give me three minutes, the skill will rollback, and I’ll pull him out.”
“We don’t have three minutes,” Jane said, peering through the narrow viewing slit in the bulletproof glass. “The tank is aiming at us. Get inside!”
The shot came before they could do anything. The explosion that thundered from behind hit them with a huge shockwave. Then a tsunami of steam, heated to five hundred degrees, came at them. The cyborgs were thrown aside; the whole area was covered with a dense, white fog. The visibility was down to near zero. Demon stood up – he couldn’t see anything, but he heard perfectly.
“They’ll kill all of us. Jane, you now have the ‘Strongman’. Get Jack inside, I’ll hold the shield.” He took the shield and, waiting as she activated the skill and dragged the wounded giant inside, listened carefully. He could roughly determine the direction from which the people were shooting, but it wasn’t as important anymore. The tank was much more important now.
Thinking back on the recent battle, he recalled that had seen a grenade in a man’s hand whom he had shot with the machine gun. “Light, give me strength,” Demon said mentally, doing his best to guess the location of the man’s corpse.
Jerk!
He appeared several yards away from the dead man. The steam was rising quickly; he only had a couple of seconds. He picked up the grenade and pulled the pin.
Where is the tank? He heard the unmistakable rumbling of the engine.
Jerk!
He was right in front of the tank, hearing a charge entering the turret. He released the trigger guard and shoved the grenade into the turret.
Jerk!
The explosion didn’t live up to his expectations: the turret swayed, but it didn’t blow up. Then the tank fired.
The internal damage in the tank barrel was enough to make the projectile stick and explode inside. A fountain of fire blew away the slowly settling frost fog, and Demon found himself standing in the middle of the carnage. The tank was burning, but it wasn’t the end of the fight.
“I’m taking control!” A woman’s imperious voice rang out. “Destroy all the zombies!”
Jerk!
He hid behind a pipe sticking out of the ground. The people weren’t reserving their cartridges, and hundreds of bullets rained down every second. He saw an increasing number of dead technocrats littering the ground. As first-levelers didn’t know fear, they had continued to attack – despite the obvious danger.
Demon felt the approach of a Luminary’s song. No pain! Oh, shit, it wasn’t Lex. No blood! It was someone clearly more powerful than Lex. He had no ability to resist. No darkness! Only the Light!
He felt that the Luminary was somewhere close by. He again saw with hundreds of eyes like once before at the square, and at the same time, this song was different. It didn’t give peace as Caesar’s had. Go! Go! Kill! Tear! Shred! All-consuming rage overwhelmed him.
It ended so quickly, in just two minutes. When the song came to its conclusion, the battle was in full swing. Demon found himself in a corridor as long as a shopping arcade and as narrow as a heating main. He had neither his firearms, nor the shield, and right in front of him, behind the backs of some first-levelers, there was a group of opponents.
“Don’t let them escape! Fire!” A young boy of about twenty shouted. “Clean the TPS of zombies!”
“Hey, man! Stop shooting, we’re just people!” Demon attempted to try and trick them.
“They have a controller! Don’t stop firing!” The commander screamed, and the shots increased in frequency.
Dammit. There was nowhere to hide or retreat within the narrow corridor. That meant he could only move forward. So... Strongman!
Demon grabbed a nearby first-leveler and threw him, still breathing, over the other brothers’ heads before the ten-second buff ended. The shots abruptly changed direction. Jerk!
He instantly flew over his brethren and landed on his enemies from above. His blow pierced a young girl’s head. No peace. He threw her on his enemies, ducked under the barrel of the nearest gun, and rocked a man’s head back from below. Hot blood burnt his palm. Catching the man’s falling machine gun, he aimed at the third man. Marksman!
The bullet screwed through the slot in the man’s helmet and continued deeper, breaking his nose and piercing his brain. A fourth man shot at Demon, and the automatic bullets hit straight against the double-armored plates on his chest. The first plate was pierced, but the second withstood the barrage. He staggered but remained on his feet, looking over to see that his opponent was now dead. Fro
m the corridor, the technocrats had run over his deceased brothers and wiped out the two remaining fighters, before pushing through out onto the street beyond.
Demon ran out after them. They were moving too far away from the TPS. What the hell was he doing here? He needed to get back to his squad. He picked up the machine gun and turned.
As he moved, a bullet crashed into the wall by his head. Jerk! He was back in the building – just in time to see a crowd of the first-levelers rushing toward the nearest nine-storied building. However, as they ran, the crossfire began to cut them down. There were snipers out there, at least three of them, and a good cover team, too. So the first-levelers had been sent here to distract the snipers from the battle taking place at the TPS with their lives.
Of course, Demon didn’t intend to die – not today, at least. However, he could help to divert the people’s attention. Having collected all the ammunition, rifles, grenades and machine guns of two types – 9x39 and 9x54 – he headed for the stairs. Fortunately, the staircase was on the other side of the building, and no one could see him climbing up onto the roof.
Demon lay down on the roof and surveyed his surroundings. It was impossible to see the flashes of the sniper rifles from such a distance, even with his pumped-up perception. Therefore, he decided to call the fire upon himself. To survive, though, he’d have to make his opponents have to search for him. Taking aim at one of the windows on the second floor of the opposite building, where the cover team was located, he fired with his under-barrel grenade launcher.
The grenade exploded on impact, hitting the concrete wall a few inches above the frame. Dammit. Well, he had a dozen more tries if needed. The second one went to the left, and he was spotted. There was the briefest of pauses and then the machine guns rattled, bullets whizzing past above his head. Demon stood on the sunny side, the higher ground. It was snowing, and he was three times higher than his opponents. Crawling to the edge, Demon fired again, and the third grenade hit the center of the window. There was a quiet clap followed by much louder cries of pain. What a good shot!
The snipers finally joined in and turned their fire on him. At least two out of three anyway, as far as he could tell. That meant the third sniper was in an apartment with no windows on this side. Demon was showered with brick rubble. It seemed that now, as he wished, all their attention was on him. A bullet flew within inches of his head. The cyborg hoped that the helmet he was currently wearing would protect him from a direct hit. However, that wasn’t a reason to find out anytime soon.
Descending a little down the side of the building, he looked out around the side of a ventilation pipe. He wasn’t able to see the snipers, but he could make out a group of people with machine guns running toward the buildings. It was reinforcements, and they didn’t know about him. Shifting his position back up again, he decided to defiantly load the grenade in view of the snipers, but now where the squad couldn’t see him. One sniper lost their nerve as expected.
“Beware!” A girl on the ninth floor shouted, waving to her companions. It was impossible to imagine a better target. Marksman! He took her out with a long burst of machine-gun fire, sparing no bullets. Then, shifting again down the side of the building, he fired the grenade at the people below. They were in plain sight again, even trying to hide behind an abandoned car. After a moment, he realized that he was getting too carried away, becoming too self-confident. A heavy armor-piercing 9mm bullet went straight toward his head.
Neither his helmet nor ‘Hard skull’ helped him. He was lucky – the bullet, breaking through his defenses, deflected on its path and passed right through the side of his skull without hitting his brain. He was now holding on to the edge of the roof, clinging to his visor and afraid to move. If he moved higher, he’d get shot again. If he moved any lower, he’d likely fall from a height of five stories.
Demon looked down apprehensively from his precarious position. It was very high. If he didn’t break his neck, he’d survive. Maybe. Everything would heal within a week, even with his ‘Regeneration’ and ‘Stamina’. Perhaps he should go back up? One glance was enough to see that the peaks of the nine-storied buildings were hidden from him if he didn’t raise his head.
Great! Clutching at the roof with his claws, he quietly turned to face away from the building, without changing his position too much. Now Demon could see the balconies below. The nearest one was two yards ahead and four yards down. Only he had to crawl along the section where the triangular roof sloped to reach it, and he’d be visible while he did so. Taking a deep breath, he pulled up his helmet so that it rested on the very top of his head, and then he moved forward. A second later, the helmet flew off his head after receiving a direct hit. Jerk!
He fell down for what felt like forever, but suddenly his claws dug into the insulation on a balcony and he tripped over the grate. Strongman! He ripped out the steel mesh protecting the window and, breaking the glass, he climbed inside. Not allowing himself to relax, Demon stood up and immediately staggered. The bullet that had passed through his skull wasn’t like a blow from a stool, but it had still left him a little shaky. Quietly, moving against the wall, he reached for the nearest door. He had to eat something and recuperate.
Moving through into the apartment’s kitchen, he looked into the refrigerator, immediately slamming the door and holding his nose. Yeah, apparently, the electricity had gone out before it had gotten cold. Checking the shelves, he found a few cans of corned beef under the sink. He opened them with just swipe across the lid with the claw of his index finger. It wasn’t enough to really sustain him, but there were no more cans in the house.
“He must be on the roof!” A male voice came from the corridor. “We’ll kill the controller, and then we’ll get out of here.”
“Look, can’t we just go back?” Another man asked uncertainly. “Damn it! Let’s just kill it later.”
“No, we must finish it off right now! It is cunning! It shot Natasha!”
“Not it, but he,” Demon said, opening the door as they passed. “And it was you who attacked us,” he added, grabbing the nearest enemy. Punch! A titanium plate and two Kevlar layers were pierced like thick bovine leather with an awl. Jerk! The second opponent managed to get a shot off, but he didn’t have the chance to aim. Demon’s claws tightened around his throat. “We didn’t start this war. But we’ll win it.”
Chapter 14. Master
He picked up the rifle. It was good, with a long barrel, a comfortable, adjustable buttstock, a large caliber, and an adjustable bipod. Demon listened. Everything seemed quiet now. It was strange. He had absorbed the nanomachines from the enemies’ implants, but very little experience had been added. He searched the load-bearing vest, collecting everything useful. He even changed the plates in his bulletproof vest for new ones. Unfortunately, neither of the people had worn helmets.
He decided not to go back to the roof for the guns. He’d killed the snipers, and he could deal with the rest of the soldiers without them. Carefully descending, Demon heard wounded people talking on the street below.
“Why the hell has the Colonel gone south? Why do we need to obey that idiot?” A male voice asked.
“Because there is a huge city without management there, and we only have a college.” There was a heart-rending cry. “Calm down. I’ve taken a fragment out. I’ll sew you up, and we’ll go home.”
Demon went out, after checking the passages. There was nobody there, only some living people in the street. Leaving the building, he carefully approached them, feeling a few first-levelers following him out.
“Man, watch your back!” The soldier, who was bandaging, cried out, throwing up his gun. He was aiming somewhere behind Demon. “Zombies are behind you! Watch out!”
“They aren’t zombies,” Demon smiled calmly. The man finally understood. He trembled and shot Demon’s chest. However, the technocrat only staggered, not slowing his step. Jerk! He took his enemy’s palm, breaking his fingers. The animal-like cry forced Demon to wince and move away
to give a path for his brothers. A few seconds later, there were no living people in the area. A dozen brothers crouched on the ground, watching him closely.
“What do you want? I’m not a Luminary. What are you looking at?” He waved them away hesitantly. Then he realized that, in some ways, they were right. He was the most senior brother here. “Eat, pump, and level-up!”
The grateful brothers pounced on the corpses as Demon reminisced. Who had told him the same thing not so long ago? While he was trying to remember, the brothers finished up. Two of them had reached the fifth level and were already straightening up. They had 50 in their ‘Intelligence’ now, which, of course, wasn’t enough for the ‘Primal Self’, but at least it was enough for ‘Integrity’. The rest were still the same animals they had been a few minutes before.
There was another explosion from the TPS pipes. Hell, he’d forgotten the fight wasn’t over yet. Picking up a machine gun, cartridges and a helmet, he quickly examined the dead bodies, but he didn’t find any grenades. He ran toward the TPS. The low-levelers didn’t lag behind, on the contrary, from the gateways and houses more and more of them appeared to join him. Many of them were covered with blood. It was an excellent hunting opportunity. Unfortunately, many brothers and sisters had also been killed.
They were just in time to strike a small group of retreating people from the rear. Demon spotted their enemies before they saw him and that was critical. Raising his fist up, he activated the ‘Connection’ and commanded, ‘Stop’, forcing the brothers to lie down in the snow. They didn’t have to wait long. Having briefly examined the lane and not seen the running cyborgs, the people took a defensive position with their backs to them near some abandoned vehicles.
They shielded themselves with the APCs and then, a few moments later, a crumpled vehicle, slowly turning its wheels through the snow, left the lane, moving toward the forest with some of the people onboard.