by Adam Thielen
“And you hadn’t spoken with her since your time in Australia,” prompted Walters.
“Well, you know,” she said, gesturing toward him. “We never spoke, but we sent a couple messages for a few months after. But even that stopped.”
“You sound a little sad about that,” Perry observed.
“Ya,” Blain said with a head tilt. “Sure. No regrets. I guess it’s just a sad thing.”
“Thank you, Ms. Blain, for sharing your time with us,” said Walters. “One last question. What did you think when you saw the footage of Tsenka Cho in Beijing?”
“Oh gods,” she exclaimed. “I remember all the news about the protests that night and seeing her and that big robot. I was too wrapped up in the excitement of the spectacle ta feel worried or happy about it. Then the next day, with the fighting and all the rest of it, I didn’t know what ta think. I just wanted her to win, whatever that meant for her.”
Episode 18: Chinese Handcuffs
Corp intel had pieced together what was happening shortly after they lost contact with the Behemoth, and had just figured out which column of relief plates had been released when Roland called. He followed their directions, speeding toward that section of the city.
Still two kilometers out, a loud crash filled the cabin of the vehicle. The front windshield cracked. The SUV’s wheels hopped off the ground.
“Jesus!” exclaimed the driver.
Roland saw it all coming but even so, he found himself becoming agitated at the scale of the events unfolding and wondered if there was anything he could have done differently to stop it. He touched his silver crown. A thick cloud of gray dust exploded toward the vehicle.
“Steady,” said Roland. “It’s just dust.” He connected to intelligence. “We need some ventilation down here. I don’t care who has to do it, find them and tell them.”
As the windshield display indicated they were within a hundred meters of the plates, Somer ordered his driver to stop. He activated a group com to address his men. “On foot from here. Dan and I will take point.”
“The hacker?” asked Danliti.
“Lock her in the rear compartment. Tell Eddie to stand watch,” ordered Somer, hopping out of the vehicle and walking toward the plates, still obscured by dust.
Dan nodded and unlocked a thin cabinet inside the rear compartment. He grabbed a rocket-propelled grenade launcher tube from a rack inside, then set it down and slipped two spare grenade tubes into his bandolier. He exited the rear of the SUV and locked the door behind him. He started to follow Roland when he heard another vehicle in the distance. He turned, zoomed in with his new eye, and saw Desre’s car approach.
“Your sister,” he said.
Roland stopped and stared at the armored car for a moment. “I think it’s time to end this childish fantasy of hers. Screw the board and their charade.” He glanced at Dan’s launcher. “You know what? Take position and wait for her to get close enough, then blow the SUV. Make sure she can see it happen. Then disable her car.”
Danliti Nurat nodded and marched toward a compact car he could use to prop up the launcher and use for cover. Somer and the rest of his squad, numbering seven in total, formed a spearhead and moved in sync to within fifteen meters of the stack of plates, stepping over strips of metal that had somehow escaped the crushing while overhead vents quickly cleared out much of the dust.
The psion stopped as the cloud surrounding the wreck dissipated, revealing a woman standing atop the platform. Rain, actual rain, fell down the series of holes and onto her and the iron plates, the drops twinkling against artificial light from the screen above as they fell.
From her gear, Somer knew she was the woman from Ulaanbaatar, except her hood was lowered, making her visage plainly visible. Her sword was drawn, the tip resting on the iron as she waited patiently for Roland to appear. His heart leapt from his chest as he recognized her face. Tsenka fucking Cho! He coughed at seeing her with his physical sense.
“Impossible.”
“And yet here I am,” she called, stepping forward and hopping down from the stack of plates half buried in the ground.
“If that’s really who you are, then you should have quit while you were dead,” said Roland, placing his hand on the butt of his holstered handgun.
“I’ll quit when you’re dead,” she retorted.
Roland smiled. “So this is about me, after all… Ya know, I still think about that day, too. Hell, I think some of my boys even think about it when I can’t get them out of the john.”
One of the men laughed while the rest smiled.
The words stung Cho and made her blood boil. Her mind kept trying to revisit the pain, the embarrassment, the sadness, but Tsenka ripped it away. She stared into Somer’s eyes. “Maybe you’d like to try again, now that it’s a fair fight.”
“Oh, hon,” laughed Roland. “It’s never going to be fair. But 'ey, why not? My men know there’s nothing that walks this Earth that can touch me.” He gingerly pulled out his pistol with the tip of his thumb and forefinger, tossing it to the ground. “Let’s make it interesting. Let’s make it last.”
Tsenka followed suit, tossing her gun and sword aside. Somer’s men backed away and Roland strolled toward the vampire. Tsenka charged at him.
“Here we go,” remarked Roland, grinning. He tried to affect her mind, but like his cyborg lieutenant, Cho had thin lines of polonium infused into her implants, thwarting his attempt.
When she reached him, the former agent threw a few quick jabs to test him, and Roland was out of the way for each one. He saw exactly where he needed to move from repeated iterations of the same fight coupled with his probability matrix and cybernetic reflex augmentations.
It’s like Desre said, she acknowledged. But let’s see how long he can keep up.
The vampire continued probing Roland’s fight acumen and defenses, attempting feints and trick movements to try to throw him, but the psion simply followed his path. He started to counter her movements, landing a jab to her nose, then a hook to her body. She felt his enhanced strength as it knocked the wind out of her.
The man had fate on his side, but little real martial arts ability. Even so, he continued to land his blows, knocking Cho off-balance, and frustrating her. Blood ran from her nose, but the rest of her skin would not be so easily hurt. Somer soon realized he needed to cause enough trauma to her head to make her truly vulnerable.
Tsenka decided that if he was concentrating on using his future-sense to guide him, then she would need to strike at him faster than he could mentally process and overwhelm his ability to decide how to move. She darted next to him and swung with her left elbow, then her right while throwing up her knee. Roland leaned left, then right, and blocked the knee.
He then punched her in the chest, but Tsenka did not try to avoid. Instead, she ducked down and threw at his gut, then grabbed for his collar. Roland stepped back to avoid the body blow and pushed her hand away. Tsenka had her right hand ready to go, jabbing while shuffling forward. It landed, marking the first time the vampire had managed to touch him, hitting him on the chin but without the force required to knock him out. Roland kicked forward, pushing them apart, then shook his head.
He then went on the offensive, working his abilities and cybernetics overtime. Cold droplets formed on the outside of the ring, while the rest of his body temperature climbed. He moved in lock-step with Cho, pummeling her with every other movement. He spent the other half of the time dodging her swings. Feeling the pain, Cho anticipated a hook and ducked, but Roland countered with an uppercut, slamming his fist into her jaw.
Her head flew back and blood shot from her mouth. She kicked forward and Roland easily dodged by stepping back while Cho lost her balance and fell onto her side. He was beating her again. Tsenka’s body hurt all over from his cybernetically powered strikes, and she began to realize just how unkillable the psion was. The trauma he inflicted taxed her vampire healing, and her suit dosed her with a limited amount of painkillers.
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Roland laughed between deep breaths through his mouth, convinced that a short break was just what he needed before finishing Cho off.
* * *
Danliti waited in position, facing the rear windows of the SUV. To his surprise, he could see Kate’s face in the window. She had managed to break her zip tie. He kept the launcher trained on her, ready to fire if it looked like she figured out a way to unlock the door, though he was confident she could not. He glanced toward Desre’s vehicle every few seconds, waiting until he was sure her natural eyes could see the explosion.
Kate could see Dan staring back at her with the launcher. What is he waiting for? she wondered. Then she spotted Desre, but still didn’t understand what Dan was doing. Desre did not see Dan, but she did see Roland’s men leaving the SUV and also saw Kate’s face. She then saw Kate’s hands motioning for her to stop and so she obeyed.
Drew’s nanos had restored connectivity to his main servo bus, allowing him to push up to his knees, then rise to his feet. From his vantage point, he could not see Kate, but when he spotted Roland’s lieutenant preparing to fire on the SUV while Desre watched, he deduced there could only be one valuable target at risk inside the vehicle. Worried that his human emulation engine would interfere, he disabled it and all safety overrides as he sprinted toward the thug.
When Desre stopped her car, she was still at least fifty meters out, but Nurat decided the only reason she would have halted her approach was if she saw Kate inside. He disabled the launcher’s safety, took direct aim at the vehicle’s rear door, and fired.
Drew had failed to reach Dan in time. His eyes estimated the acceleration curve of the rocket. The AI fired off a message to the dead-drop box and changed course. He moved in front of the SUV’s rear doors, and turned to face the woman who had taught him everything that mattered about being human, including what it meant to love. Through the use of the neural hub, he had traveled inside of her mind and seen her wildest dreams and darkest fears. He had examined her every synapse as part of his attempts to save her from a degenerative disease. He had once even stolen a kiss and perhaps a glance or two when she had not even considered his presence while nude. Drew adored every part of her. And now he wanted one last look.
Kate saw a flash as the RPG flew from the launcher and slowly grew in size, leaving a faint smoke trail behind it. This is it, she thought, staring at the projectile.
Taking its place was the synthetic face of her longtime AI companion. Her heart skipped a beat. He was smiling a perfectly formed smile, and in the moment of seeing him so unexpectedly, she flashed a smile back that quickly turned into a look of panic.
“Drew! No! Move!” she cried.
But it was too late. He had made his decision. The grenade collided with his back, then detonated, blowing his body apart and knocking the back of the SUV into the air and spinning the vehicle laterally ninety degrees.
Desre floored her car, putting it between Dan and the SUV before he could reload. The lieutenant dropped the launcher and picked up his assault rifle. He stalked toward the SUV, having decided the seer had seen enough. It was time to kill Kate.
The neuro had other plans. Her body tumbled about the back of the SUV before coming to a rest. She screamed and then composed herself. Her mind raced, looking for a way to escape. No, she thought. A way to avenge.
With the hood removed from her head, Kate logged onto the network and queried for records of medical database software based on corporation name. Once she found Chantech, she searched for exploits for accessing the database files and found a candidate. The medical database was on a private network that required authorization. She already had the important details of the city managers, so she emulated the com again. The network server responded that it could not find the rootkit.
Of course, thought Kate. Another blasted rootkit. She quickly allowed it to install, then before it could request a data transfer, she sent a request to the database for the records of frequent patient, Danliti Nurat. The entire file downloaded into her storage, and she went through it a page at a time looking for the way to defeat the man.
Dan stood in front of the rear doors, now blasted partially open, with his rifle aimed in shotgun mode. The interior of the compartment was dark and hazy. He couldn’t see the hacker, and though he believed she should be disarmed, he decided not to risk it by moving inside. Instead, Nurat reached for one of his grenade rounds, but his fingers would not grip the cylinder. Then his arm drooped to the side of his body. His right arm joined it. Then his legs lost their cybernetic strength, though Dan was able to keep himself upright with what remained of his natural muscles. He then lost sight from his electric eye, and finally, his HUD shut down.
After sending the code to disable all of Dan’s augmentations, Kate leapt from the back of the truck and tackled Nurat to the ground. She stood and kicked him in the side while he used his legs to flail at her from his back.
“You killed him!” she screamed, circling him as he tried to rotate his head out of kicking range. “I’m going to finish what I started with your eye, you fucking drone!” Kate leaned down and picked up his rifle, kicked him in the head, and then yanked the pins from three grenades attached to his vest. She then ran behind the SUV and covered her ears.
Normally, Dan’s armor might prevent most of the damage from one grenade, but against three close-proximity explosives, he had little hope. When the first one blew, it detonated a second one. The shrapnel from both tore through his armor, especially the thin mesh that lined his pant legs. The third grenade was kicked up into the air before it blew, raining shrapnel down onto him as well as into the armored car and SUV.
Kate emerged from behind cover, and stood over Nurat. He was still breathing but was gravely wounded with so much flesh torn from his right thigh that part of the femur was revealed, while much of his body and face was covered in blood. His natural eye looked up at Kate as she lowered the rifle to his exposed chest, just left of the sternum. The muzzle flashed, and his heart seized.
Desre got out of the car and ran to Kate. The hacker draped the strap of the rifle around her neck and slid the gun behind her back. She hugged Desre, then pulled away.
“We have to find Drew,” urged Kate, scanning the area.
Desre joined in her search, not knowing exactly what Kate was hoping to find.
“Here,” yelled Kate, lowering to her knees. She had found what was left of the robot’s torso. The glass on the front had been shattered. Kate pried the rest of the glass door to his brain chamber out of the way, then let out a sob. A large chunk was missing from the quartz orb, and several cracks decorated its exterior.
“No,” she cried. “You can’t be gone. Drew, you can’t. I need you. Please, don’t do this to me.” Kate began to sob and, after a minute, calmed herself.
“I’m sorry I wouldn’t admit it,” she lamented. “I was scared. Please, forgive me.” She bowed her head, resting it next to what was left of his unique and unfixable brain. “I loved you, too,” she cried softly.
* * *
“Not bad,” breathed Roland. “Now I’m going to destroy you.”
Cho scrambled to her feet and pulled a red auto-syringe from a belt pouch. She quickly placed it against her arm and pressed the button.
“Wait, what is this?” he asked. “Blood? Hmph, I have a surprise for you as well.” He reached behind his back and unsheathed a silver dagger.
Cho needed to stall. She could take his punches, but a well-placed silver blade would stop her heart, and she could feel her body absorbing the blood and attempting to reject her implants. She needed to give her body and nanos time to win the fight against her immune system.
“You sure you want to bring a knife to a fist fight?” she asked, hiding her pain.
“Yes, and if you go for your weapons, my men will gun you down,” threatened Somer. “You had your blood, and I have this knife. Let’s see how much punishment you can take.”
Before Cho could recover, Roland charged
at her. The vampire backpedaled toward the iron platform she had ridden in on. Her mind raced to come up with a plan, and kept returning to standard combat techniques. Grab the hand with the blade, kick out his legs, go for my sword and ignore his goons. Each seemed sound, but Tsenka knew none would work against someone who could see it coming.
Then she realized that if he couldn’t see it, hear it, or feel it, he couldn’t stop it. As she moved back, she dug the toe of her boot into the dirt and kicked up a clump at Roland’s face. He moved to the side, but dirt clouded the air around them, and he had ceased his chasing in order to dodge the bulk of it. She repeated this two more times and reached behind her back, opening one of her belt pouches.
Roland had backed her up against the metal plates, and as he came at her again, his movement slowed. Cho’s body was ready. As he came in with his chin exposed for a lunge, she easily moved out of the way, but before she even threw the jab she had planned, his head started to move back. Dammit, she thought, he still knows what to do. I have to overwhelm him.
Instead of trying to hit him, she purposefully threw punches that obscured his vision, at least partially, but stopped short of hitting him. He wouldn’t know what to move out of the way of if nothing ever hit him. She pulled several jabs short then swung a hook that whooshed past his eyes, then moved back and kicked up to his chest but pulled away.
Roland tried to adapt, examining the upcoming possibilities and following the most prominent memories. That’s when he found what he wanted. As Cho’s leg came up for the kick, he stabbed down with his silver dagger. The blade tore through her suit and skin and into her thigh muscle just above the knee.
Tsenka screamed in pain, and her foot landed lamely on the ground, almost causing her to fall. Roland darted toward her, but Cho was still energized by the blood and moved back, recovering some use of her leg and avoiding his attempts to feint in.
The only way he’ll commit to an action is if he sees it will be successful, realized Cho. I will have to take one more hit. The vampire continued to dodge until she saw his arm start to move toward a lunge. She ducked, leaving her shoulder exposed to him while stepping forward. Roland drove the blade into her flesh at the top of her arm. Tsenka continued forward, moving close to his body.