by Ivan Shaman
“It’s unlikely they will. If you need extra hands, take everyone that you need.” Demon looked around, searching for the building where they’d fought with the Emperor. “I’ll go there now. If you need me, call me through the ‘Connection’. I’ll hear.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Marcus hesitated, but when he saw Demon’s gaze, he nodded silently.
Demon turned to leave when Jane appeared next to him.
“Do you mind if I keep you company?” She asked, taking his arm. “I think they’ll do well enough without us.”
“Yes, of course. Marcus is in his element now; my presence only distracts him.” He looked at the Senior Master. “He controls everything and so be it. He has to work all night.”
“But, if you turn on the ‘Connection’, his productivity will increase significantly.” Jane smiled. “Where are we going?”
“To the Emperor’s grave,” Demon answered honestly. “To his last battlefield.”
“How do you know where he died?” Jane asked carefully.
“Well, he tried to kill me,” Demon began. “I defended myself. I can’t say that it was very successful, but, as you can see, I survived, but he lay there on the roof. Although it’s impossible to say that I won. If it were not for the EMP and the beginning of the nuclear war, I would have become just another excellent feed for him.”
“Accidents aren’t accidental.” She spoke in a low voice. “I was always afraid of him. Of his supernatural abilities, his level, and his high status.” She was silent for a second. “Now you also have all of this, but I’m not afraid of you.”
“For nothing,” Demon answered in the same low voice. “I suppose I am the strongest Luminary on the island, although I am not the only one.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?” Jane asked in surprise. “You won’t eat me. Or will you?”
“I’ll surely swallow you.” Demon smiled bloodthirstily. Of course, he did so as a joke, but, judging by Jane’s reaction, it had looked far too natural. “No, of course, don’t worry. Simply put, I’m the number one goal for the people. They know how to kill us, even the Immortals, so this is very dangerous.”
“There is hardly a safer place than next to you.” Smiling, Jane nestled against him. “Maybe I’ll label you right now, but you’re still a Blazing Luminary, carrying the hope and support of all technocrats.” Seeing how he frowned, she immediately corrected, “But I, of course, see you only as my friend and lover.”
“That’s not the point,” he said, hugging Jane by the shoulders. “You’ve just said ‘technocrats’ and this is a human concept and term. We are no longer people. I think that we are closest to cyborgs, so from now on we are cyborgs.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Jane remarked, after thinking on his comment for a few minutes. “Of course, we have nanomachines in our bodies, but it isn’t correct to call us cyborgs. We are still more human than mechanism.”
“Who knows?” He muttered, looking at his left hand. “Who knows?”
They had just reached the necessary building and climbed the narrow stairs one by one. It wasn’t very comfortable to talk in such a position, so they went up in silence. The roof greeted them with a chilling, gusting wind, blowing down thick snow.
Sliding across the icy surface, Demon neatly approached the place where, if he remembered correctly, the Emperor’s body lay. However, the corpse wasn’t on the roof. Having carefully examined the drifts, he found several piles of nanomachines mixed in with the snow, some pieces of the skin, and a few armored plates.
“Are you one hundred percent sure that he was anywhere here?” Jane asked uncertainly, looking as he searched. “Maybe it was not this building?”
“Here are parts of him, so I definitely haven’t confused the building. He’s just disappeared.” Demon looked behind the curb roof. “He couldn’t have blown away.”
Below only lush drifts were visible. It was impossible to see anything under the snow. Then he remembered the distance to the edge, measured out in steps. It was sixteen feet. The Emperor’s body weighed at least seventy pounds.
“There are two options,” Demon muttered, continuing to look around. “Either he survived, which is extremely unlikely, and he has gone away. Or someone found him and dragged off the roof.”
“Who could it be?” Jane asked in surprise.
“For example, the Japanese. They scoured the area, looking for any anomalies. They even found me, though I was hiding.” He kicked the drifts on the roof, trying to find some clues. The strong wind was blowing the snow along with inactive nanomachines. Demon scooped up a couple of handfuls of gray ice dust, but he couldn’t reactivate the nanomachines. At some point, his shoe touched something solid. Having bent down, Demon pulled out the right arm of the Emperor from under the snow. “Wow, this is a find and a half. It isn’t clear, why...”
He looked at it with his skill ‘Master’:
Rail cannon
Needs repair
Can be used when joining a general life support and a power supply system
What should he do now? Tear off his own arm and put the Emperor’s one in its place? Without any means to do so? However, there was no point in throwing out such a valuable item. Who knew – maybe they would be able to make a separate weapon out of it or find any other way to use it.
“Look, what I’ve found.” He showed the weapon to Jane. “So, this is definitely the roof. The only pity is that the rest of him has disappeared.”
“Do you think he went away himself?” She asked, looking around.
“And left his arm?” Demon was surprised. “No, I think that’s very unlikely. Rather, they dragged him away, but they simply didn’t have the chance to find his arm in the snowdrifts. I wouldn’t have found it myself if I hadn’t kept looking.”
“It’s high here,” Jane said, looking over the edge. “Do you think people would appreciate this beauty?”
“No. They just don’t have enough perception to see it all at night.” Demon spread his arms, inhaling the clean, frosty air. The picture was awesome – the dark city, spreading from sea to sea, stretched from the north to the south. The buildings, all of the different types, and the years of construction had created a technogenic landscape for a new world.
Suddenly, a bright red dot blinked between the buildings about twenty yards away. Demon was able to discern it only thanks to the chance and the maximum ‘Perception’. Looking closer, he realized that the whole area was lit a little better than the rest of the space. A large group of people with torches and lanterns were moving quickly toward the center.
“Damn. I had hoped we wouldn’t be disturbed at least until the morning,” Demon swore. “Let’s go. It’s necessary to prepare the relay station for defense as soon as possible.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just leave the center before they get to us?” she asked fearfully.
“No. If we run away now, they’ll just kill us. We need to wake everyone up.”
Without further ado, he examined the city. The people were approaching from several directions in groups of fifty to one hundred people. In total, there were around twenty groups. If they didn’t have time to restart the brothers, almost two thousand people would attack their small squad.
“Marcus! People’re going to assault us. They’ll get to the relay station in five or six hours,” he said to the Senior Master through the ‘Connection’. “Build barricades and destroy the stairs of the first floors. Get ready for defense.”
“Yes, Luminary!” The Master reported immediately. “What about you, Blazing?”
“I’ll go to meet these people,” Demon said, choosing his first goal. “I’ll try to delay the nearest group as long as possible. If I can, I’ll destroy them.”
“Understood. We’ll leave the position for retreat and make the first ten floors impassable.”
“Lancelot, protect the repeater. Kris, come to me quickly,” he commanded, reaching out to the fighters. While he was descending from the thirti
eth floor, he managed to see the list of his available troops. He found two more Ghosts – Silina and Harry – and he called them to him. “Jane, I understand that we have only recently found each other again, but could you, please, cover Marcus. He’ll need help now, but I’ll need mobility.”
“I’m just bothering you.” She pouted, then smiled. “Promise that you’ll come back?”
“I certainly will,” Demon said, tightly hugging her in his arms. “I still have to wake up our brothers and sisters today. Take care of yourself and don’t go down under a hail of bullets, agreed?”
“Agreed.” Jane kissed him gently but passionately, then ran toward the relay station.
Demon noted the position of the repeater on the map and measured the location of the groups of people. The nearest one was moving from the southern port, where the people had a naval base. It consisted of about two hundred and fifty people, perhaps one of their largest detachments. They didn’t have any vehicles with them. Without waiting for the Ghosts to arrive, he noted a gathering point half way between them and the group of the people. Then, picking up a small rucksack from one of the frozen bodies on the street, he put a rail in it and hung it on his back.
The distance, which a human could overcome in five hours, Demon overcame in two hours with the ‘Jerk 3’. He didn’t have to wait for his cover team, as all the Ghosts had the pumped ‘Dexterity’ and moved very fast to meet him.
Without stopping, Demon examined the stats of each of the Ghosts. With a minimal difference, they were pumped almost equally. Their ‘Dexterity’ was about two hundred points, and their ‘Strength’ and ‘Intelligence’ were around a hundred. All of them had the very high ‘Stamina’ and the maximized ‘Jerk’ and ‘Quiet step’. Everyone also had the second or third levels of the ‘Punch’.
The Ghosts moved extremely quietly, leaving almost no traces on the snow. He barely noticed them himself, and the people, who couldn’t see farther than the end of their noses, weren’t able to see them at all. Climbing up the fire escape on one of the buildings located along the route of the group, Demon examined the future battlefield.
“Ghosts, enter the following houses. Wait for my order to attack.”
He chose the most convenient points for the ambush on the map and sent the exact location to the Ghosts. Then he chose a position for himself – behind the group of people so he could attack them unexpectedly. When the group reached the desired intercept point, he sat down on the edge of the roof, aiming at the people below.
“START!” he shouted.
Chapter 39. Battles in the City
He made the first shot. A small fireball crashed into the group, followed by an explosion. Bloody bits and pieces scattered in different directions—the people were stunned and confused. About five people died on the spot, about twenty more were injured.
“In the shelter! Take defense!” Someone screamed out and the large group parted into smaller ones, spread out around the surrounding buildings. It would have been a smart tactical move, if they had confronted a large armed group. However, it was a fatal error as the people’s enemies were Ghosts who preferred to fight against small groups.
There came shouts from the buildings a few seconds later. The Ghosts cut through several of the small groups, and the people’s commanders had to concentrate the soldiers back on the street. Demon fired again. He aimed at the man giving orders, which was doubly profitable because he was guarded by a dozen fighters. One of the soldiers managed to react though, and they protected the commander with a shield.
The explosion threw off the military men, and the shock wave that followed struck those who were standing ahead, killing two and crippling four more. The people, who had now discovered the source of danger, immediately opened rapid fire at his shelter. However, their commander had already understood what the ordinary soldiers hadn’t realized yet. They had lost—almost half of their people had been killed in less than two minutes. Hiding behind snowdrifts and cars, they weren’t able to move forward.
“Kill as many as you can in one ‘Jerk’, then leave,” Demon commanded, assigning an evacuation point on the map. They could kill everyone, and they had to kill everyone. But this was only the first of the squads, and they had to destroy at least five of them.
From the roof, he saw people screaming and falling. The transparent silhouettes gathered their harvest, tearing the flesh of their enemies with the ‘Punches’. They retreated when the desperate people began to shoot in all directions.
“Gather at point two in three minutes,” he said via the ‘Connection’ as he descended the fire escape into the courtyard. Luck in the fulfilment of their task had relaxed him, and he almost paid for it with his life. The shotgun shot took him by surprise, the enemy, afraid to miss their mark from ten yards, had used the shot with the largest radius of expansion.
Jerk!
He’s quick, Demon thought, barely able to hit his opponent’s body armor with his claws. The young commander struck him with the rifle. Demon, who decided to block this blow, flew off a couple of yards. Something was wrong with this guy. He had a lowered body temperature, and he saw Demon as well as he did.
“This is something new,” the cyborg ducked, calculating the distance to the enemy. The soldier was strong, fast, as if he had the ‘Melee 3’, but he was inexperienced. Dumbfounded by the conjecture, Demon activated the ‘Control’, but the foe didn’t seem to exist. He was neither in the sphere of the Light, nor in the radius of the song. He wasn’t even marked on the minimap. It could only mean one thing: he wasn’t a cyborg. But humans couldn’t have such reactions.
Jerk!
The guy shot at close range, but Demon was waiting for this. Having taken the shot in his right shoulder, he hit his enemy with all his might. Punch! The soldier dodged, but the blade popped out much faster. The thin black strip of polymers smashed into his side, punching through the armor and cutting into his flesh.
It was dark. Very dark. Nevertheless, Demon saw that the man’s blood wasn’t red but green-brown. Dumbfounded by surprise, he missed the moment when his foe, throwing down his weapon, rushed forward. The wound had made him slower, so that Demon just sat down waiting for the commander, then he sharply activated the ‘Strongman’ and kicked him. The kick was so powerful that he could hear the plates of the bullet-proof vest crumpling under his foot.
The soldiers finally came to their senses, stopped shooting their own comrades in the darkness, and broke out into the alley. In the last few seconds of his ‘Strongman’ boost, Demon jumped, flying over a seven-foot-tall fence in one fell swoop.
“John, what are you doing? One on one with a controller?” sounded from the other side. To Demon’s surprise, the commander answered something. Despite the terrible blow that had to have broken his ribs and mashed his internal organs, John was still alive.
It was necessary to finish his task – to climb one of the buildings, wait for the moment, and then finish off his incomprehensible opponent. Then he would go to battle the next group, which was now getting closer and closer to the relay station. The second was clearly more important. Cursing, Demon turned around and, after giving more orders, ran towards the next target.
He used the ‘Jerk’ on the cooldown as soon as it was recharged, his running speed sometimes reaching fifteen to twenty miles per hour. It was his limit; he lacked strength – his body demanded food. Not now, though. It was necessary to destroy at least one more group first.
They were lucky with the second group. The people were slowly stretching along the street, freezing or simply saving their strength before the fight, which was supposed to start in a couple of hours. The cyborgs almost ran into a slowly creeping tank on which twenty people were sitting. The commander’s hatch was open, and Demon reacted to the opportunity that had appeared faster than their foes noticed them.
“Cut off the tank from the group. Kris, follow me!” He jumped to the commander with another ‘Jerk’ and, thrusting his claws into his throat, threw hi
m off the tank. Kris jumped inside while the other two Ghosts created confusion in the enemy’s ranks, throwing the defeated soldiers from the vehicle. The driver didn’t resist long; he was also thrown dead through the hatch.
“What’s next?” Kris asked confusedly, sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Slam the hatch and wait,” Demon said. “Go,” he ordered the Ghosts, and then he activated the ‘Connection’ to the maximum, directing it at Kris. “Hit them,” he ordered the girl, turning the turret around. The electronics failed, so he had to use the auxiliary systems that the people had been able to fix. Aiming through the circular periscope, he opened fire with the machine gun and the main weapon.
Up to this point, the people had been shooting at the hidden Ghosts, and they hadn’t expected to be under fire from their own tank. However, the streams of bullets instantly struck the group. The heavy bullets easily pierced their body armor and helmets.
The detachment, numbering hundreds of fighters, had decreased by a quarter in an instant. The people ran and hid in houses, occasionally trying to open fire with their machine guns. To their misfortune, it was a new area, and the houses were not made of concrete but of foam blocks, which were easily pierced with the tank’s bullets. It came to them slowly, but soon the people realized that the only thing they could do now to survive was to run away.
They ran, fell, got up and ran again. Some of them didn’t get up, because they died under the blades of the Ghosts. The cyborgs, taking advantage of the turmoil, cut down a dozen more people. The detachment was finally defeated and no longer posed a threat.
“Come back,” Demon ordered. He was tired, exhausted, but there were eight more groups remaining and less than two hours to go before they reached the relay station. Having estimated the distance, Demon swore quietly. They didn’t have time to attack the other groups; they had to return.
It was necessary now to prepare and find the right equipment. Demon turned off his ‘Connection’ and got out of the tank. Fifty corpses littered the ground around him. For him, this was only a grain of experience, For the Ghosts, though, this was enough to level-up, but only for one of them. After seeing their stats, he chose Kris without regret. Only she could raise her level with current experience.