The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3)

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘Jeez,’ she muttered as she ducked back, the bullets missing her with only fractions of an inch to spare. Frankly, it was somewhat scary how good Hellion was in a fight. She really had her doubts on whether she could take her on.

  Frankie didn’t want to give Hellion too much leeway, though, and moved back around the side of the wall with her gun up and ready. She needed to keep Hellion ducking for cover.

  She turned and found Hellion standing right there, less than a meter away, and with a flash of her sword, Frankie’s rifle fell in two, its front half coming away in her hands, making the gun useless.

  3.17

  Frankie didn’t really think, she just reacted, following her instincts to keep herself alive in the face of this deadly foe.

  Frankie kicked out at Hellion, connecting with her body before the blonde demon had even finished her attack on Frankie’s weapon. Frankie hit her with a good solid strike and sent Hellion flying, knocking her backwards. But she went with it and rolled head over heels, coming back up to a ready position, her feet planted wide apart and a look of fierce determination on her face.

  ‘Bravo,’ Hellion said.

  Frankie felt more ready for her this time, and reached over onto her back and withdrew the sword that was strapped there.

  Frankie swiped it back and forth, getting a feel for it as she stepped towards Hellion, who was rising into a more relaxed standing position.

  ‘You’ve come prepared this time,’ Hellion said with a smile.

  ‘I didn’t want to disappoint,’ Frankie said.

  Hellion dropped the gun she held in her off hand and whipped her own sword up into a ready position.

  ‘You don’t,’ Hellion said before suddenly she moved and was right in front of her, swiping at Frankie’s neck.

  Frankie was ready and fended her off without too much difficulty. Hellion was fast, though, easily as fast as that ninja she’d fought with earlier. Faster, maybe?

  Frankie concentrated hard, focusing on the fight at hand and moving her sword to parry Hellion’s attacks and only really attempting to defend herself for the moment. Frankie was as well versed in sword fighting as she was in most forms of combat, including gun fights, but it wasn’t something she got to practice very often. She’d never thought of the sword as a valid weapon in this world of ballistic weapons, but seeing Hellion knocking the bullets from the air like that, using her enhanced senses and speed to defend herself was incredibly impressive.

  She resolved to practice melee combat much more. She’d love to be as good as Hellion.

  Hellion pressed the attack, swiping at Frankie from the left and right, keeping her on her back heel. Frankie felt under pressure, but, knowing a fight like this was probably going to happen, and also having the correct tool for the job, changed everything, and although she felt a little outmatched by a clearly superior opponent, she also felt confident that she could hold her own, for the time being.

  ‘You’re turning into something of a pain in the arse, my dear,’ Hellion said as she swung her sword in again, only for Frankie to deflect it back.

  ‘There’s no need to thank me; it’s our speciality,’ Frankie answered her, feeling flippant.

  ‘Seriously, I’m impressed. Freeing that little hacker of yours and killing Frak, all without me knowing. I have clearly underestimated you,’ she said between swipes.

  ‘You aren’t the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last,’ Frankie said. So, she knew, not that it changed anything now. She just felt relieved that she had been able to get Dion out without further harm coming to him.

  ‘I won’t make that mistake again,’ Hellion growled, her voice sounding deadly as she backed off.

  ‘I should hope not,’ Frankie commented, thankful for the break in her onslaught, however brief it might be.

  They were circling each other as they spoke. Frankie watched Hellion carefully, looking for any hint that she was about to attack, but she saw nothing until the last second when Hellion suddenly rushed her.

  Hellion was clearly a highly skilled and competent fighter with a cybernetic body that was arguably more advanced than hers was.

  She would have to talk to Xenox about this, she thought to herself in amusement. It just wouldn’t do to have someone out there with a more advanced body. Frankie adjusted her stance and parried Hellion’s attack, swinging her sword around to fend off the next one, twisting and moving with swift precision to keep Hellion’s sword at bay.

  ‘So, you’re just another Psytech stooge, then, is that it?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘If that label makes you happy, then yes. They pay me very well for services rendered,’ she said.

  ‘Why are you working with them?’ Frankie asked as she deflected yet another lethal swing.

  ‘Money, my dear. Do I need more of a reason?’ Hellion challenged her.

  ‘Don’t you have any principles? Don’t you want to stand for something?’ Frankie answered, challenging her right back.

  ‘What, like you do?’

  ‘We could use someone like you. You could really help us make a difference,’ Frankie argued.

  ‘That’s your sales pitch? Jesus, you need to work on that one, Frankie my dear, you’re not really selling it. I go where the money is; can you offer me more?’

  ‘So, that’s your only motivation?’ Frankie asked, knocking Hellion’s latest attack back again.

  ‘But of course,’ Hellion said and unleashed another series of strikes, pressing Frankie harder than before. Frankie moved her sword like lightning, swinging it back and forth to keep Hellion from hitting her. The blade sang as it slashed through the air.

  As the attacks flew in, Frankie struggled to keep up, and when a stabbing sensation on her left side washed over her, she knew she’d missed one. Hellion smiled, but it was a grin of hatred and power, delighting in finally hurting her.

  Red icon’s flashed up in her vision, laying out the details of the wound, but it wasn’t anything serious.

  ‘Frankie!’ yelled Gibson from nearby, and suddenly gunfire peppered the floor close to her and zipped past her as Gibson attempted to shoot Hellion.

  Hellion moved fast, twisting out of the way, withdrawing her sword and ducking for cover as she ran. Gibson’s bullets hit all around her, but missed their target.

  Frankie dropped to one knee for a second as she held her side and let her body’s nanobots go to work on the stab wound. She could call the feeling pain, but it wasn’t the same feeling she would have had in her organic body. She knew she’d been stabbed, she felt it happen and knew it had damaged her, but it didn’t hurt or fill her mind with the anguish it would have done before her cyberization.

  ‘Frankie, are you okay?’ Gibson asked as he sprinted up and knelt down next to her.

  ‘I’m fine, it’s just a flesh wound,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Nothing serious. Where’s Hellion gone?’

  ‘She’s over there,’ Gibson said, pointing off to the far side of the room.

  Frankie looked over to see more operators in that direction, which made sense she guessed. ‘Come on,’ Frankie said. ‘We can’t let them get away.’

  Running forward, Frankie moved to some nearby cover that overlooked that side of the room, with its floor to ceiling windows giving an impressive view of the Undercity. Pulling out her sidearm, she snapped off a couple of quick shots at the closest operator in a group of about three or four.

  The man dropped, and the others with him looked around. Frankie noticed right away that two of them did not look like operators. In fact, she had seen them before: they were Psytech agents, and they moved into better cover, blasting away at Frankie and Gibson’s cover as they went.

  Frankie ducked down, avoiding the agent's shots, and looked round to see Veronica sprint over and slide in next to her, her huge sniper rifle in her hands.

  ‘These guys don’t quit, do they?’ she said.

  ‘Not really,’ Frankie agreed and peered around the side of the cover they were behind, spotting He
llion who had caught up with the two remaining members of her team, the sniper girl, Wildkat, and the ninja, Spectre.

  ‘I need to get to Hellion before she makes a run for it,’ she said and looked back at her two friends. ‘Where’s Cole at?’ she asked. ‘Cole? Are you close by?’ she sent through her neural link to her team.

  ‘Over here,’ he answered her.

  Frankie glanced around and spotted movement a good distance behind Gibson. She saw Cole there with a few Jackers waving at her.

  ‘I see you,’ she said. ‘Guys,’ she said to them all. ‘Can you give me covering fire? I need to reach Hellion before they depart. We can’t have this team leaving and coming after us again. I’ll move up and take out these agents if you can give me supporting fire,’ she said.

  ‘We’re on it,’ Gibson said.

  ‘You can count on us,’ Veronica answered.

  ‘Three, two, one, fire,’ Cole said, and they unleashed hell towards the operators, the agents, and Hellion beyond. Frankie vaulted over the boxes they were behind, taking advantage of the break in gunfire from the corporation forces, sprinted for the agents and leapt over their cover. She collided with agent Nefarium and knocked him to the floor with a grunt of pain from him. The woman, Arcana, spun to face Frankie, bringing her rifle around, only for Frankie to kick it from her hand and grab her arm. Frankie moved around and behind the woman, still holding her arm before ramming the back of Arcana’s elbow with the heel of her hand. Arcana’s arm bent backwards with a crack and a yell from the agent as she saw Nefarium start to regain his feet.

  Frankie reached down to Arcana’s thigh to where she had seen a side arm strapped to her leg. Gripping the pistol’s handle, she withdrew it, flicked the safety with her thumb and fired at Nefarium. She loosed off a series of shots which slammed into the agent and knocked him down again.

  Arcana twisted as Frankie fired, pulling away, her broken arm still in Frankie’s grip. Spinning around and having somehow pulled a knife with her good hand, Arcana brought it up and slashed through her elbow, ripping the remains of her arm free as she severed it.

  Frankie moved to face Arcana and fired the agent's own pistol at her, but Arcana slammed her knife into Frankie’s outstretched arm. It passed through her flesh knocking her shots off target before Arcana let go of the blade and backhanded Frankie across the face.

  Frankie knew from the force of the punch alone that this agent was a powerful cyborg, and wasted no time bringing her stabbed arm back in, pistol whipping Arcana across the face. Arcana might be a cyborg, but she wasn’t state of the art like Frankie and was not as strong.

  Arcana grunted, the force of the attack bending her forward before Frankie followed it up with a knee to the face. With her back upright again, Frankie ripped the dagger from her right arm and brought it slamming down into Arcana’s chest.

  The agent staggered backwards, dropped to her knees and then fell back.

  Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the direction of the windows, forcing Frankie to move before she knew if she’d killed either of these agents. They were cyborgs, and killing them was not as easy as it was with an operative, but now wasn’t the time to check these things out. Looking up to check where she was being shot from, she noticed Hellion and her two allies run for the open windows and towards the gantries hanging below the underside of mid-level.

  They were getting away.

  3.18

  Frankie ducked behind the small amount of cover, hiding from the shooters as she watched Hellion lead Spectre and Wildkat away over the metal walkways above the Undercity.

  ‘Guys, I need you again,’ Frankie sent through the link.

  ‘Hold on,’ Gibson said. ‘I’m a little tied up.’

  ‘I gotcha,’ Cole said, and suddenly more gunfire rang out.

  The operators shooting at her reacted immediately and turned towards this new threat. Frankie ran from cover and sprinted towards the open window. Two of the operators saw her coming though and moved to intercept, bringing their weapons to bear. Frankie jumped, but then dropped to the floor before the first man, bluffing him into thinking she would be going high before slamming into his legs and taking them out from under him. She reached up as he fell and yanked him down to the floor with some force.

  Still moving, Frankie rose to her feet and leapt up at the second man, smashing him in the face with her knee, sending him crashing through the windows beside the open ones that led onto a catwalk.

  She watched him fall with nothing beneath him but the street below. Automatic fire smashed the windows to her left and ripped into the operative that was there as Cole covered her run forward.

  Frankie could see Hellion and her two teammates up ahead, moving along a metal catwalk hundreds of feet above the street below, and wondered where they were going.

  Running through the open windows, her footsteps rang out loud and clear on the metal gantry, causing Hellion and her two friends to look back.

  Wildkat turned more fully and dropped to one knee beside Hellion, who looked down at her, and then patted her on the shoulder before taking the next right on the gantry, followed by Spectre.

  Frankie skidded to a halt. She was a sitting duck out here and wasn’t sure what to do next. She was too far away from the sniper and confined on this walkway, maybe a second from being shot. She gritted her teeth and braced herself for the coming bullet hit.

  A sudden, loud gunshot from behind Frankie made her jump. She half thought it was the sniper in front of her, but the shot clearly came from behind. Simultaneously, the sniper’s head whipped back with a spray of thick red blood and then flopped about uselessly as she collapsed to the gantry floor.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Veronica said through the neural link.

  Up ahead, Hellion turned and looked back at the sniper.

  ‘Wildkat!’ she called, before glancing back to Frankie, and then turning to Spectre and issuing some kind of order.

  Spectre nodded and turned around, moving back to the walkway that Frankie was on with cold determination in Spectre’s walk.

  So, she thought, it looked like there was to be a rematch. She had already held her own against Hellion, so she felt a little more confident now, and pulled her sword once more. She saw Spectre nod, acknowledging her having a sword to fight with this time.

  Suddenly, another gunshot rang out, again from Veronica, but with a swift swipe of his blade, and a spark in the air before the ninja, it was deflected away.

  ‘What the hell,’ Veronica said over their link. ‘Did he just deflect my bullet with his sword?’

  ‘I believe so, yes,’ Frankie answered.

  ‘Is that even possible?’

  ‘Clearly, the answer to that question is yes,’ she replied, her voice probably sounding a little pedantic as she answered what she thought to be an obvious question.

  ‘That’s insane,’ Veronica commented. ‘Looks like I won’t be much help to you with this one,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I got this,’ Frankie said as she approached the ninja.

  ‘You have a sword this time,’ Spectre said, its digital voice deep and guttural.

  ‘I do. I thought if we were to have a rematch that we should meet on equal terms, Spectre.’

  ‘You know my name,’ Spectre said. ‘Then, know my face, too.’ The ninja reached up and pressed a hidden button on the side of its helmet, and the face plate folded back to reveal a beautiful and sleek female face beneath.

  ‘I would say it’s a pleasure, but it really isn’t,’ Frankie offered.

  ‘But of course,’ Spectre answered, her deep digitised voice replaced with a much softer and more feminine one, and brought her own sword up.

  Frankie did the same and lowered herself into a ready stance, her sword poised for the inevitable attack. Spectre lunged forward suddenly, but not unexpectedly, and Frankie was ready, swiping the sword away and taking a step back to give herself some room.

  The attacks came thick and fast from Spectre, her movements
swift and smooth, but also measured and cool. She was a skilled and seasoned fighter, but also, not quite up to Hellion’s standard.

  Spectre was good, though, and certainly a match for her. She wondered if Hellion had trained this one, taught her how to fight, maybe. It certainly wouldn’t surprise her to find out if that was true. Spectre had a similar fighting to style to Hellion, with many of their moves being almost identical.

  But the crucial thing was that she was not as good as Hellion, and Frankie did not feel quite so under pressure as she had when she had stood against Hellion only moments ago.

  As it had with Hellion, fighting with a sword rather than using a rifle to parry Spectre’s swings really helped, even though they were fighting in a very confined space.

  ‘You’re good,’ Spectre said to her between swings of her sword. ‘It is an honour to fight someone who can hold their own.’

  Frankie raised her eyebrows at the comment, it sounded like a very self-important thing to say. But then, she guessed that fit the brand they wanted to put across to people, especially their targets.

  Frankie thought about answering Spectre for a moment but soon thought better of it. Why bother? She needed to concentrate and focus on the job at hand before Hellion got away.

  She looked over and saw Hellion standing a short distance away, still on the side branch of the walkway, watching the fight. Frankie also thought she looked a little distracted, which suggested she was talking to someone through her neural link.

  Another attack brought Frankie’s attention back to Spectre again as she blocked this one, too. She wanted to get over to Hellion if she could, but Spectre and herself were evenly matched it seemed, with neither of them able to gain the advantage.

  Frankie went on the offensive, stepping in towards Spectre and attacking her rather than defending against her. She wanted to end this fight, incapacitate Spectre and push past her towards Hellion, but Frankie couldn’t do any of that right now as Spectre was just as good at defending herself as Frankie was at attacking. The confined space of the walkway didn’t allow for much movement, either. They were unable to circle each other, but instead, just moved forward and back.