Pivotal (Visceral Book 3)

by Adam Thielen

  Tsenka poked her head out of the sunroof then looked down at Gao. “See you on the other side, Sarge.”

  The SUV was moving laterally across the field of view of the walker when the metal monster charged its cannon and fired, pancaking the front of the vehicle. The truck’s forward momentum sent its backside springing upward. The motion catapulted Tsenka through the sunroof and into the air. She gazed at the firefight below and saw Chantech’s men already disengaging as a result of the flooding done by Ping’s hackers.

  She pulled her legs up halfway and attempted a smooth landing into a run but instead, her legs flexed too far and she fell forward, landing on her shoulder and rolling twice before recovering onto her feet. Tsenka rotated her hurt shoulder, eliciting a loud pop from the joint. She sprinted to her gun and sword, flung away from her during the landing, and snatched them off the ground. She holstered her pistol and twirled her sword in a quick circle, flinging dirt from the blade, then sheathed it behind her back.

  She kept moving as the machine tracked her. It held back its attack, likely because it no longer knew if she was with Ping or with Chantech. But Tsenka knew that would not last forever. She looked back at the SUV and saw Teo emerge. She looked around the battlefield, and saw many of the cars now on fire, tipped over, or just wrecked beyond drivability. As Gao had commanded, his men had ceased using firearms at the same time as the enemy.

  That enemy emerged from behind the cover of wrecked vehicles and the two sides began to pummel each other with fists and makeshift clubs. A few sported a dagger or pocket knife, and one with a sword spotted Tsenka and rushed toward her. She readied her fists and the man stopped a car-length from her. He pointed at the handle of her blade then flourished his own, twirling it on each side of his body.

  Cho unsheathed her sword and let the tip touch the ground. She beckoned the man with her free hand. He came at her with a lunge. Tsenka moved to the side, the point of her sword still buried in the same patch of dirt. He swung for her head and she leaned back. He slashed at an angle and this time the vampire darted behind him and cracked him just behind his ear with the hilt of her blade. The man began to fall, and Tsenka wrapped her arm around his jaw, pulling his head to the side. She lowered to the ground with him, sinking her fangs into his neck.

  Cho didn’t realize how thirsty she had become until she tasted the soldier’s blood. She took several hurried gulps as footfalls headed her direction. A man with a club swung down at her and Tsenka rolled away, blood dripping from her chin. The club hit the swordsman instead of her.

  As Tsenka expected, pain engulfed her body. The clubber ran at her and swung again. Cho dodged, holding her stomach with her hands as it twisted in knots. His next swing came quickly and hit Tsenka on the back. She felt it, but the rest of the pain drowned it out. Cho turned her body and laid the man out with a right hook. Four more men approached to take his place. One of them had a knife, two were unarmed, and one had a broken bottle.

  “Where did you even get that?” Cho whined.

  Tsenka’s face and arms became moist with blood that had seeped from her pores. Less than last time, she noted, but combined with the blood on her mouth, she looked ghoulish. As the men positioned themselves, the pain subsided, and the rush took over. Her skin tingled and her eyes widened in excitement.

  The man with the bottle stabbed forward. Cho moved to meet him and braced his wrist with her right hand while slapping the back of his hand with her left. The bottle flew into the face of the knife-wielder, who in reaction dropped his blade and turned away with his hands covering his forehead and eyes.

  A third man swung with his fist while the fourth kicked toward Tsenka’s calf. The vampire threw a straight punch at the man who had brought and quickly lost the bottle, while simultaneously lifting her leg out of the way of the kick and using her other arm to parry the punch. Her own punch struck with enough force to knock the bottle man backward. She took her already-lifted leg and moved it higher, then outward, slamming her foot against the kicker’s chest.

  The puncher swung again, and Tsenka parried his blow with her arm a second time. Her leg lowered, and with the other men down, she focused her attention on him. He continued throwing, and Cho effortlessly moved out of the way by leaning back, then ducking and weaving. The man stepped back to catch his breath, and Tsenka leaped forward with her knee lifted, ramming it into the man’s gut. He flew back, leaving behind him a trail of vomit.

  “Nasty,” she remarked.

  Cho surveyed the field and to her surprise, it looked like Ping was getting the better of Chantech. She sprinted from enemy to enemy, dropping them with a quick flurry of punches or a well-placed kick. Tsenka was moving toward a skirmish between opposing forces when the Chantech soldiers began to retreat back to the factory. The metal goliath that had become still during the melee sprang to life and aimed at one of the remaining vehicles maneuvering around the battlefield’s wreckage and unloaded with a barrage of high-speed Gatling fire, tearing the truck and anyone inside to shreds. It then fired one of its rockets at a truck where two Ping men were leaning, launching the vehicle into the air and obliterating the men in a fiery explosion.

  Cho drew her handgun and rapid-fired an entire clip at the large emitter on the machine’s chest. If her bullets managed to scratch it, she couldn’t tell. It did, however, notice her attack. It turned toward her and leaned down, pointing the emitter directly at the former agent.

  As the light behind the glass intensified, Tsenka leapt out of the way. Night turned into day again, and the ground where Tsenka had been standing compressed into a trough for several meters. Then it aimed its high-caliber Gatling guns at the nightstalker, but Tsenka quickly darted underneath the giant’s legs to evade.

  She drew the blade Matthias had bestowed upon her and gave it a couple practice swings until she got it to faintly hum with vibration. For a moment, the walker tried to readjust its position to get a clear shot. Tsenka hid between its legs, looking for a vulnerability, when she heard a buzzing sound. But it was too late to get out of the way. High-current arcs of electricity webbed between the machine’s legs, catching Cho and lighting her up as she dove away. The shock caused her to drop her sword, and smoke wafted from her skin, which had reacted to the electricity by diverting the flow around her internal organs.

  Cho’s HUD shorted out and shut down, leaving her without several of her tools. Looking up, she saw the giant bright red eye staring at her, and with all her strength she again dove away while the battlefield was engulfed in white. The sound and vibration rattled her bones. Tsenka quickly shook it off and spotted an exposed hydraulic pipe on the back of one of the walker’s legs where it connected to a foot. She sprinted toward the walker, kicked her sword up as she went, and reached forward to grab it out of the air. Cho pirouetted with her blade outstretched. The metal hummed loudly before hitting the exposed rod and bouncing off ineffectually. The vibrations jarred Tsenka, punctuating the futility of her attack.

  “Cuts anything my ass!” yelled Cho. She searched for any other vulnerabilities while circling the machine, but found none. She sheathed her blade then connected with Teo’s com channel.

  “Sergeant, it looks like I’m not going to be able to take this thing down. Get your men out of here.”

  “Ordering a fallback now. What about you?”

  Cho looked around, seeing no places of refuge. “I’ll run circles around this thing all night. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Understood, Cho,” replied Teo. “In case I don’t get the chance later, thank you. You are not what I expected. Good luck.”

  Gao’s men fled, many of them piling into the one SUV still drivable, with a few running on foot behind it, shooting erratically as they went. Several Chantech soldiers had retrieved their rifles and were giving chase, paying no heed to Tsenka. She flicked her wrist, ejecting the spent magazine from her pistol and slapping the spare in place. With her HUD down, she missed her first two shots against one of the chasers before hitting hi
m on the shoulder. Cho sighed and ran at him, holstering her pistol. The man dropped his rifle, grabbed his shoulder and started running away. Tsenka ducked down and grabbed his gun then punched him in the back of the head.

  He stumbled forward and Cho grabbed the back of his collar, pulled him backward and then sank her arm around his neck in a chokehold. The vampire spun with her new shield to face the metal goliath, curious as to whether or not the machine would kill one of its own to get her. It stood and stared. Tsenka grinned. Answers that question.

  She lifted the man’s rifle and opened fire on the remaining Chantech men, mowing them down with automatic fire before expending the clip. Two men remained standing at a hundred meters, and they had no qualms with filling their comrade with lead. One of their rounds caught Cho on the left side of her chest, piercing her suit but stopping at her graphene-enhanced skin.

  Tsenka tossed the empty rifle and pulled her pistol again. She aimed carefully but missed the first shot, then hit the man in the leg with the second and then finally in the chest with the third. Her hostage had gone limp, and Tsenka continued holding him up by the neck while she aimed and fired on the final man, who took two shots to the gut and one to the head before he dropped.

  The walker sensed that Cho was carrying around a corpse and fired a rocket at her feet. She dashed to the side, but shrapnel screamed through the air, tore through her suit, and dug into her side and left leg. Cho cried out in pain. It was the first time she had been physically injured since having her skin replaced. Without hesitation, she yanked the deformed metal out of her body. Had she not had both a durable skin and durable suit, such shrapnel would have traveled through her body, destroying everything in its path.

  As she tried to stand, despite the pain, she looked around for some path of escape but saw she had nowhere to go. She could run toward the highway and hope she didn’t get picked off, or she could charge toward the factory where Chantech security forces waited. Neither were practical options. As the particle cannon fixed on her position began to charge, Tsenka sighed. Killed by my own pride and recklessness… again.

  Preparing to dive again, she heard the distinctive crack of hypersonic travel as a barrage of bullets from a high-powered machine gun collided with the front chassis of the walker, igniting bright sparks and disrupting its attempt to aim the cannon.

  “What have you gotten us into, Ms. Cho?” queried an even-toned voice the vampire instantly recognized.

  “Drew!” exclaimed Tsenka. “This thing is bad news. I’m not sure how much longer I can avoid it.”

  “I am here,” assured Drew. “Now let us see how this thing likes missiles.”

  The robot launched a missile at the walker, who detected the incoming projectile and turned away while bending its legs to crouch, letting it impact against the smooth rounded shell of its back. The explosion knocked the menace forward, but as the smoke cleared, the machine appeared intact. It spun around to face Drew’s incoming monocopter, then fired a guided rocket of its own.

  Drew calculated the speed of the rocket and flipped the monocopter upside down to let it pass. It exploded after detecting that it had missed its intended target, and the shock wave rocked the aircraft.

  Tsenka watched the fireworks nearly destroy the copter. “This thing is invincible. Get clear, Drew.”

  “Ms. Cho, I cannot leave you here,” he replied, the virtual gears in his brain turning. “How far can you run in ten seconds?” Drew asked while he retreated away from the walker, rolling the aircraft to avoid Gatling fire.

  “Uh, let’s see,” said Cho. “Maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty meters?” She looked up as the machine disengaged the copter and began tracking her again.

  “I will lob a flash-bang,” he explained. “When I give the word, sprint toward my location and I will pick you up.”

  “From that distance? It’s impossible,” protested Cho.

  “I can do it,” said Drew. “Be ready to move.”

  The walker deployed a nozzle from under its emitter and filled Cho’s vision with blinding yellow as flames shot forth. Napalm caught Cho’s cloak as she rolled away. She pulled it off and threw it to the side. The metal monster continued spewing flames across the ground toward her, creating a lake of fire that stood between her and Drew.

  “Now,” commanded her AI friend.

  Tsenka leaped across the flames and sprinted toward the copter as the machine homed in on her. Its particle cannon grew bright, and then a flash of white painted the ground and vehicles in front of Cho. The light wasn’t from the cannon but from a perfectly placed flash grenade. The visual sensors for the machine blacked out as they tried to adjust for an unexpected luminosity change in its image processors.

  Drew rushed down toward Tsenka as she sprinted harder than she ever had, and almost overshot due to her surprising speed. At almost two hundred meters away from the walker, they converged. Cho leapt into the open passenger door. The third prong of Chantech’s trident had recovered its sight. It charged and fired its particle cannon as the aircraft rose into the sky. It aimed above them, predicting the path of the copter, but Drew countered, halting their ascension and allowing the beam to miss high. The AI throttled them away from the compound before the machine had another chance to strike.

  * * *

  Kate’s eyes fluttered open, darting around to make sense of her viewpoint. In front of her was the ceiling of the hotel room, and to her left was Desre Somer, who had sat next to her playing with a com while Kate rested. The psion leaned over Kate, her hair falling around her face.

  “Well hello, beautiful,” she said, adding some alarm to Kate’s confusion. She tried to remember the events of the evening. They had started drinking, then dancing… then Drew.

  “Shit,” she said, trying to sit up and almost head-butting Desre, who moved out of the way then extended her hand to help her. The neuro scooted herself back against the divider wall and took a deep breath. “Where’s Drew?”

  “He left,” said Desre. “Said he was going to find Tsenka.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that, not without me. Did I pass out?”

  “The robot said you were seizing.”

  “He told me…” said Kate, stopping to swallow. “He said he and Taq had been keeping me alive. Oh god. I don’t remember what happened after that. I was angry. I am angry.”

  “You said you hated him,” revealed Desre. “May have given him a slap or two as well.”

  Kate frowned at the amused look on Desre’s face. “Dammit, I should contact him.” Kate sent the request to Drew’s ID but received no response. “Hmph. He must have gone dark. And why are you so fucking amused?”

  Desre’s smile disappeared. “You get so worked up over a robot, but—”

  “He has a name.”

  “—then you scold him for having feelings,” Desre pointed out. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s not real.”

  “You’ve had a problem with him the whole night,” said Kate.

  “He has no mind that I can sense,” said Desre. “I don’t understand what he’s thinking, and so I don’t trust it. Where a man is mimicked in behavior, I sense nothing, as if it is a ruse or cruel joke.”

  Kate looked down at her lap and pushed back tears. “He’s real,” she said. “His feelings are… inconvenient. I don’t know if he actually loves me, but he’s been my companion for a long time now, and he’s earned my trust. It’s just…”

  “You’re going to die,” said Desre, trying to finish her thought.

  Kate sniffed and nodded. “His life can’t be about me,” she explained. “I don’t even know what’s going to happen to Taq when I’m gone, and that’s bad enough.”

  Desre started to smile, then straightened her face. “You may have solved one of those problems.”

  “I don’t want him to think I hate him either,” lamented Kate. “I don’t hate him. I adore him. I might even love him, but love just isn’t a simple thing.”

  “Sure isn’t,” said Desre
. “Not that I’d know from firsthand experience. I had a couple flings, but I’ve been caged all of my adult life.”

  “Chantech?”

  “Yes'm.”

  “That’s awful,” sympathized Kate.

  “Oh, I know, but I like your friend, Tsenka. I have a good feeling about her.”

  “She’s something else,” said Kate. “Was a rising star before meeting your brother.”

  Desre rolled to a knee and lifted herself to her feet. “It seems his end is in both of our interests. I just never thought it possible.”

  Kate followed suit, with Desre lending a helping hand again. “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “Cautiously optimistic, I think they say.”

  “Very cautious, I’ll bet,” said Kate.

  Desre leaned backward and forward to stretch, then from one side to the other. “Mhm. So, want some wine?”

  “Ugh,” Kate emoted, sticking her tongue out and down toward her chin.

  Episode 12: Roland's Lieutenants

  In the safety of Kate’s monocopter, Tsenka unsheathed her sword, examining the edge, searching for where it had struck the walker’s hydraulics. Her artificial optics magnified the edge as she scanned. There, she thought, spotting a tiny indention halfway down the blade. She caressed the spot with her fingers and sighed, returning the sword to her back.

  “You saved my life, Drew,” she hollered toward the cockpit.

  Drew switched on the intercom. “You are welcome, Ms. Cho, but you were not supposed to get involved in corporate warfare.”

  “Sorry, Drew,” said Cho. “But Chantech is a threat we can’t ignore, and we now know the enemy of our enemy as well as specs on some of their tech.”

  “Kate would not be pleased with an expansion of our mission here,” said Drew. “She made a difficult choice to warn Chantech of the attack in order to ensure that the Republic was not implicated.”