Pivotal (Visceral Book 3)

by Adam Thielen

  Tsenka rolled her fingers on top of the armrest. “Well, I kind of beat up a lot of their guys.”

  “That will complicate things,” concluded Drew. “On the bright side, I may have managed to steal some data on the Behemoth.”

  “You mean that thing down there? Nice name. Good work, Drew.” Tsenka reclined her chair and rested. I need a shower, she decided after looking at her reflection in a chrome panel.

  “Tsenka?” A voice came through her com. “Are you… there?”

  “Aye, sergeant,” replied Cho. “You and your men make it out?”

  “We suffered a lot of casualties,” he said. “But we would have wiped had you not been there.”

  “You may be giving me too much credit, something I hope Chantech doesn’t do.”

  “I am sure they are watching you in action right now,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Cho.”

  “It was kind of an asshole thing to do,” she teased. “But I could have left whenever I wanted.”

  “My life will be… difficult now with this failure in my records,” said Gao. “I decided to use what capital I had left to authorize the release of a few files you might find interesting. Something else you should know. As much as Chantech is a menace, there is a logic to their actions. They would not have attacked our facility unless they saw it as a threat to their own R and D.”

  “Teo,” said Kate, skimming through the first file. “Thank you.”

  “Happy hunting, former NRI agent Tsenka Cho,” said Gao before disconnecting.

  Tsenka skimmed through more of the files, then unbuckled from her seat and moved to the cockpit. She took the co-pilot chair and strapped herself in. Drew glanced over, looked forward, then turned his head to fully focus on her bloody face.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not theirs,” she said. “Hey, why isn’t Kate here, or the psion?”

  Drew looked forward out the cockpit window, considering how to answer. “They are both at the hotel,” he said, keeping it simple.

  “Ah,” she said with a nod. “Makes sense. Hope Somer doesn’t try anything.” To this, Drew did not respond. “I suppose you are in a big hurry to get back.”

  “No,” he replied. “Amendment: I mean, if you have somewhere else we need to go, now might be opportune.”

  Cho thought his answer odd but decided not to spoil her chances. “I want another look at the site Roland firebombed.”

  “What do you believe you will find?”

  “Probably nothing, but it’s the only place that can corroborate some of my intel… without a fight.”

  “It will be dawn in less than two hours,” cautioned Drew.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Cho. “And I will be quick.” The last part was more hopeful than sincere.

  “Very well, changing course.”

  “Thank you, Drew. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go rinse off.”

  “Excellent idea,” the AI commended.

  * * *

  It was a rare personality type that could serve as part of Roland Somer’s counter-intelligence team. Very little was left of the initial crew he selected both from the pool of Chantech security staff and his own personal recruitment efforts. Formed four years ago when he was finally trusted with the command position, he started with eighteen bloodthirsty men and two women.

  In the first two months of running operations, five members had attempted to kill Roland for various reasons ranging from ethical to personal. In the year after that, another six had simply quit or requested reassignment. Over the next three years, six of the remaining nine would either die or leave. Three men remained of the original group. Loyal, bloodthirsty if not amoral, and seasoned.

  One of the survivors was sixty years old when he joined. He was a bad shot then and did not improve with age. Roland kept him around out of his own loyalty to men willing to do whatever he asked of them but even then, the old man was mostly useless. Of the other two, one was a talented mage named Lane Marquez, whose ambition was only tempered with the wisdom to know that crossing Roland was a death sentence.

  Lane grew up in the bombed-out streets of Barcelona before being kidnapped by Spain’s version of the Mage Enforcement Services. There, in the awakened prison, he was trained to use his abilities to deadly effect. His elders staged a coup against the provisional governing body in Madrid, and were themselves usurped by polonium-infused wardens before Marquez had turned eighteen. It was then that the cleansing began, and Lane was forced to flee via cargo ship to the Middle East to escape persecution.

  In Turkey, he fashioned himself a mercenary to earn a living and after a few years, he had earned a reputation as a powerful mage. Chantech took an interest and sent recruiters. Their offer made the scraps he earned from shaking down debtors seem trifling. Once a part of Roland’s team, he did not care what his leader did. What Lane cared about was money, the respect of his peers, and the opportunity to use his spells to dominate others. And in Roland’s group, he got what he wanted.

  The third remaining original was Danliti Nurat, or simply Dan, a dark-skinned man raised in the north part of Sudan. He kept his age a secret, but it was somewhere between that of the mage and the old man. Born into the Hausa tribe, Dan spent much of his life toiling for a mid-east mining conglomerate that had spread out after the Collapse to colonize several regions in Africa. In his late thirties, he became a wanderer, living day to day while making his way east toward the beacon of hope that Beijing was becoming.

  But the city was not what had been advertised, and he was among many men without employment, sleeping in makeshift houses at ground level amidst the smog and polluted water of the industrial zones. Nurat turned to robbing his fellow homeless of whatever possessions they might have pilfered or earned through begging, accumulating small amounts of cash until he had enough to start buying and selling illicit goods; human blood that wasn’t certified to vampires on a budget, vampire blood to the aspiring mage, drugs to just about anyone else, and reclaimed cybernetics to clinics that didn’t mind looking the other way. If there was a profit to be made in a market that wasn’t saturated, Dan capitalized on it.

  At the same time, he started picking up bits of Mandarin, English, and Cantonese. While he wasn’t getting rich, he was making ends meet. But as money came in steadily, Danliti became complacent, and Chantech security arrested him during a sting. His fate was left in the hands of an arbiter, who gave Chantech the option of providing employment to Dan or letting him off with a warning while giving Dan the option of working for Chantech or losing a hand. Both parties agreed that paid work was the best solution.

  Lacking open positions and seeing busywork as an unprofitable proposition, Chantech decided to employ Dan in the same work he had been arrested for but with corporate resources behind him. This experiment only lasted a few years and afterward, he was transferred to city security. There he made a name for himself busting men and women who filled the vacuum created when Chantech left the illicit goods trade. The irony was not lost on him.

  When Roland was commissioned to create a team, a big name security guard was an easy pick. Danliti Nurat joined on the condition that Chantech provide an additional allowance for cybernetics and augments. And over the years, Dan replaced or enhanced parts of his body, bit by bit. Synthetic muscles in both arms and a mechanical hand for precise shooting. A brain stem accelerator. Metal plates on his shins and ribcage. His scalp and forehead were replaced with a sturdier graphene composite with synthetic skin overlaid that didn’t quite match the shade or texture of his face. To him, these changes were pragmatism taken to a level of purity, and it made him a highly effective operative.

  And so it was Marquez and Nurat that became Roland’s right and left hands. But despite their personal loyalty to him, they were still employed by Chantech, and the Chairman decided it was up to them to recover Desre for the second time in as many days. Lane was a talented destruction artist, but his ability to traverse the Ethereal plane was lacking. Even so, without her collar, Desre cons
tantly radiated energy from her aura, and this allowed more specialized mages in the corporation’s employ to track her. To discern her exact physical location took time, but with multiple mages scouring the Ether they could coordinate and triangulate her position faster.

  After determining that she must be inside the Tangla Hotel at Tianjin, Chantech information specialists looked for discrepancies in the hotel’s record-keeping and queried the managerial staff on the presence of a woman matching the psion’s description. Within minutes of entering the lobby, the corporate machine churned out the room number and provided it to Roland’s lieutenants.

  Despite his own use of magic, Lane wore a neutralized polonium-laced pendant similar to that used by the Russians. Since the metal absorbed Ether as it entered the physical plane, the pendant would only affect magic evoked near Lane or directed at him. The common pendant, with its low weight, was effective against the low energy directed by psionic abilities, but against physical magic, it would become red-hot and useless after a single spell.

  Dan, by contrast, did not need a pendant, as much of the metal in his body had small amounts of polonium embedded within. The cyborg carried with him his custom assault rifle, capable of magnetic propulsion rounds as well as traditional cartridges. It was configured for a single shotgun blast in a pinch, which could be replaced with a mini-grenade. He carried three of each such rounds proudly displayed on a bandolier draping from over his shoulder and around his waist, with another three frags attached to his vest. As the duo neared the door to Kate’s hotel room, he inserted a shotgun cartridge with rubber pellets.

  Nurat stopped and placed his hand in front of Lane. The two stood in the middle of the hall, just a meter from the door. “How we do?” he asked, his voice gruff and low.

  Marquez looked confused. “How? We go in there and grab that bitch. Kill anyone else in the room.”

  Nurat sighed. Though his speech was often compressed into vital utterances, he understood Marquez’s language to be insulting to the sister of the boss. “How many in?”

  “There was a girl and a bot with her when she escaped,” said Marquez, turning to Nurat. “Front desk said there’s only two now, but maybe the bot can stealth.”

  “Flash-bang, EMP, shock web?”

  “A banger’s a bit of a risk. EMP is prob a waste. How dangerous is a shocker?” asked the mage.

  “Depends.”

  Marquez stared at Dan before following up. “Well, can it kill someone?”

  “Ya.”

  “Blast! Why didn’t they just send the boss?”

  Nurat shrugged.

  “Right. Okay, nothing like that then. Can’t take even the slightest risk that she dies,” said Lane. “The way I figure it, she can’t do much to you, so you kick down the door and pepper the first thing that moves. We ID our girl then take down anyone else.”

  Nurat shrugged again. “Jammed?”

  “The boys are just waiting on my signal,” answered Marquez.

  Nurat nodded and moved in front of the door. Lane waved his hands, casting a spherical barrier with a wide diameter around himself and Dan. The surface of the protective orb glowed a faint blue. The barrier was a foundational spell, used by almost all combat mages to protect themselves and others from firearm projectiles while ignoring anything that moved slower.

  Lane's pendant, despite some distance from the barrier's edge, began to glow dimly. He nodded back at Nurat, who knocked on the door. A high-pitched hum filled their ears then dissipated as all network com bands were flooded with noise.

  In the wee hours of the morning, Kate and Desre retired to their beds, located in small rooms on opposite sides of the suite. Desre passed out quickly, but Kate tossed and turned, refusing to think through the events of the day and thus denying her brain the peace it sought. She ran her fingers along the inside of the necklace Taq had given her before she left.

  A hum filled the suite, and then silence. All the data streams that Kate’s neural interface plugged into for constant analysis went quiet. The silence triggered a minor bout of anxiety, and she sat up and hopped out of bed.

  KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

  Oh no, thought Kate, realizing what was happening. She looked for her bag but realized she had left it next to the kitchenette. No, no, no, she panicked, looking at the locked hotel window. Kate shook her head. Calm down, Kate, and think. She realized her drones were also in her bag, and tested their short-range controls. Success! The neuro ordered one of them to move, dragging the bag along with it until it bumped against the bedroom door. Kate opened it and pulled the bag inside.

  DING, DONG.

  They are probably using sonar mapping, she thought. Just waiting for someone to expose themselves. Kate pulled out a glass cutter, her handgun, and a stealth unit that she hoped was charged. She moved to the window to start cutting and heard the sound of a door opening and feet shuffling along the floor.

  “Just hold on a fuckin’ minute,” yelled an intoxicated psion.

  “Fuck,” hissed Kate, remembering Somer existed. She ran to her bedroom entrance and shout-whispered at the psion, “Desre! Stop! Get over here!”

  Desre turned to look, confused at Kate’s face wedged between the sliding door and its frame. At that moment, Dan kicked the door, sending the hook-latch system flying off the splintering wood. Because the door wasn’t on hinges, the intrusion knocked it off of its railing and into the room, where it spun, hit the mini-bar counter, then fell flat on the floor.

  Kate watched as Desre spun to face the cyborg. She held her palms out in defense as a storm of rubber pellets flew at and around her. Her feet left the ground with the force of the shot, and her body was flung back. When she landed, her body continued to move into a backward somersault, coming to rest near the back of the room, facedown. Blood streamed from her nose and mouth, pooling on the planks below her as she lay motionless.

  The blast was loud, followed by a flood of pings from pellets hitting the floor, walls, and ceiling, then bouncing and hitting another surface, and repeating several times. Kate flinched and closed her door. She picked up, dropped, then again picked up the stealth generator. She adjusted a wide knob and looked down to clip it onto her pants, but realizing she wore none, and instead clipped it onto her panties, causing one side to dip down with the weight of it.

  Kate grabbed her gun, checked the chamber, then unzipped her duffel the rest of the way and commanded three of her drones to rise into the air. They were soccer-ball-sized robots with power-hungry anti-gravity engines and a small gun barrel facing one side. The bots had cameras in several locations and a variety of tools and emitters that could be deployed on command. Each one had a colored strip around its equator signifying its designation. Blue, Yellow, and Green hovered in the air, awaiting commands. Kate stood and faced the door, her nerves temporarily calmed with the help of a neural implant program.

  Dan frowned when he broke open the door to see Desre. He knew that while it wouldn’t kill her, the pellets would likely injure her, and that if Roland saw her with a bruised-up body, the boss might decide to take it out on him. However, failing to obtain her would be much worse, and a plan is a plan. He fired, cringing as she flew backward. His eyes darted about looking for other targets while he side-stepped inside the room, allowing his partner to follow behind.

  The noise from the shot bouncing around drowned out all other sound, but the cyborg’s optics caught movement inconsistent with pellet fire in the right corner of his eye. He looked and saw a closed door. Dan smacked Lane’s shoulder with the back of his hand then pointed at the door. The mage nodded, and Dan stalked toward the bedroom while Lane turned to the left, his barrier traveling with him. He scoured the living room for targets and spotted the open door to Desre’s room. He stopped and waited for Danliti to check Kate’s bedroom before searching the rest of the suite.

  The augmented agent examined the door, noting there was no lock. He approached with his rifle butt nestled against his armpit while crouching slightly. A
s he left the protection of the barrier, the bits of metal in his body drained its power slightly. When he reached the door, he considered firing blindly through it or asking anyone inside to come out but decided he wanted to take care of whoever was hiding quickly and cleanly. He reached over with his right hand and pressed the open button.

  The wood panel slid open, revealing nothing. His electric eye alerted him to a suspect distortion in the imagery presented to it, then went dark as Kate’s bullet tore through the lens and collided with the medial bone behind it. His body tensed and his head flung back, carrying his torso with it. He stumbled back one step then fell to the side.

  Whether dead or unconscious, Marquez could not determine the fate of his partner. He briefly glimpsed the visage of the hacker before light refracted around her again, hiding her from sight. He yelled, then reached out with his aura, pulling Ether into the facade in the form of an electrical discharge inside the bedroom. Kate moved to a corner of the room, and the few arcs that could reach her were diverted to her pendant. The heat from the charged metal stung her neck, and she swung the pendant behind her where it rested against her shirt collar.

  The electromagnetic field from the spell disabled her stealth field, which was already low on power. It also caused her activated drones to shut down to avoid damage. “Dammit,” she muttered, then took another breath. She moved next to the door, then rolled to her side in front of the opening and fired her pistol. Bullets ricocheted off of the mage’s barrier. Each shot damaged the magical wall, and as it moved energy around to maintain a perfect sphere, the lining thinned and Lane’s brow began to bead with sweat.

  Nurat began to stir. He felt at his missing eye and shook his head around violently. At the same time, his mage partner ripped off his pendant and threw it aside, then bent his elbows and moved his arms back with the palms outward as if double shot-putting from the waist. The air around him took on a red tint that converged around his hands. A small flame appeared in front of him that grew into a large ball. As he prepared to launch it, he caught sight of Desre charging at him. Her face had three large welts and blood was still streaming from her nose. He had no time to adjust his aim and continued preparing the spell.