by M. R. Forbes
She slipped the visor back on, the path becoming clearer when she did. She turned right at the first intersection, nearly crashing into a soldier as she did. His qi turned red and green with angry confusion, and she threw her fist into his face, cracking him in the jaw hard enough to leave him stunned.
“Witchy, you may be interested to know,” Gant said. “Quark and Currl’s beacons are active.”
What about Neo? Damn.
“I’m very interested to know that,” she replied. She had to save the sadness for later. “Where?”
She reached another intersection. A warning tone began to sound nearby.
“Fifty meters forward, one hundred meters left.”
She turned down the left corridor, picking up speed again. She heard footsteps behind her, along with the lumbering gait of the Executioner.
She heard them ahead of her too.
“Fifty meters ahead, fifty meters right,” Gant said, updating her on the distance.
She came to a corner, slowing as she neared. The energy of the oncoming soldiers was already stretching out beyond it, showing her they were close.
She came to a stop, waiting at the corner as the first soldier reached it, leading with his rifle. She grabbed it, snapping it up and back and into his face, spinning to the right as the other soldiers tried to react. She danced into them, using the gun as a blunt instrument, knocking them in the chest and face. One of them fired, but she was already out of his way, and the plasma sank into the soldier opposite him.
She slammed the stock of the rifle into the side of his head, and then turned the weapon in her grip, pulling the trigger and hitting a third in the back, the shot going right through his armor.
She turned back toward the corridor, the four soldiers all on the floor, either dead or unconscious. She caught a glimpse of the Executioner’s qi out of the corner of her eye. He was still coming after her.
“Fifty meters ahead,” Gant said. “Three meters left.”
She kept running, charging down the hallway.
“Hey, scout!” the Executioner called out as she neared her target. She glanced back. The Nephilim had something pointed at her, his hands turning deep red.
She came to a stop, turning to face him as something launched toward her. She was already moving aside as the energy of the projectile became a flash through her saturated vision, passing within centimeters of her but ultimately missing.
She leveled her stolen plasma rifle as he continued to fire, turning her body left and right to avoid where he was aiming. The distance and the enemy’s qi gave her the time and input she needed to avoid being hit.
She shot back at him, squeezing off round after round, without trying to aim. He was so big she could hardly miss.
The Executioner wasn’t ready for her to dodge bullets and return fire. He was stuck flat-footed as the plasma bolts sizzled into him, striking his chest and shoulders, and finally his head.
His qi turned purple and faded as his body tumbled to the floor.
Hayley didn’t waste time staring. She continued to the target, finding herself outside another door. She could see the heat of the electricity powering the control panel, and she smacked it, causing the door to open.
The room was clear. She hurried inside, looking ahead the last three meters to where Quark was standing with Currl beside him.
“See Witchy,” he said. “I was right, as usual. You are damn good.”
10
“What happened to you?” Hayley asked.
“Never mind that,” Quark replied. “We need to get out of here. You can see the energy field, right?”
A sharp flow of energy like a screen was passing between her and Quark. “Of course.”
“Can you shut it down?”
She followed the flow of energy through the kaleidoscope of color around her, letting it lead her to the source. She walked over to it, kneeling down.
“I won’t be able to heal you once I open this. I’m too spent.”
“We’ll manage. Do it.”
Hayley reached out with the Meijo, ordering it into the cell’s power supply. A flare of energy followed as the naniates destroyed themselves to short it out.
Fear was a powerful tool.
The energy screen dropped, and Quark stepped forward. She stood, and he reached out and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
“Good work, kid,” he said, releasing her. “We need to get topside, and call Gibli for…” He paused, noticing her face. “Frag me. Okay. We’ll figure it out once we’re out of this place.”
“We can’t leave,” Hayley said, surprising herself as much as she surprised Quark.
“Say what?” he said.
“Not yet. I know what they’re doing here. They tricked us into coming. They wanted to capture you. To test you against their new soldiers.”
“Bring ‘em on then,” Quark said.
“No,” Hayley replied. “I’ve seen what they can do. You don’t want to tangle with them, especially not here, on their terms.”
“Getting the frag out of here sounds like a good plan,” Currl said.
“No,” Hayley insisted. “We can’t let them get the data back to the Extant. They want to use it to change the Goreshin.”
“By change, you mean?” Quark said.
“Bigger, faster, stronger, more impervious to damage. Their resistance to the Gift is gone, at least.”
“So the Prophets can control them more easily.”
“Exactly. The one I saw, Tibor, he’s a slave, as much as any of the Unders are in the Extant. He doesn’t want to fight.”
“That Devain is one tough bitch,” Quark said. “Ugly as sin, too. You’re lucky you can’t see her. I don’t know what’s happening to the galaxy, kid. One day, there ain’t a Gifted that can hurt me. Then your mom comes along, and now this. Devain wrapped me up and held me tight, like all my fire and fury was nothing.”
“She can’t hurt me,” Hayley said.
He smiled. “Ace up our sleeve. So you’re saying you want to try to grab the research?”
“Or destroy it.”
“Might help to grab it if we can. Send it back to Don Pallimo. He’s working on understanding the full effects of the naniate spread. You can imagine it’s taking a lot of his processing power.”
“You’re the boss,” Hayley said.
“Am I?” Quark replied, smiling. “I feel like I’m following your orders.”
“I just want to do the right thing.”
“I know. You’re a better individual than I am. We try to find the data and take it. If we can’t take it, we destroy it. This shit goes any more sideways than losing half our fragging squad, and we bug out.”
“Yes, sir,” Hayley and Currl said.
“And I thought today was going to be a good day.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I broke Devain’s nose,” Hayley said.
Quark’s qi changed color, signaling his amusement. “It does. Thanks for that. Now let’s move.”
The three of them retreated from the room, pausing at the door to scan the corridor. It was quiet for the moment, but the emergency klaxons were still sounding, and Hayley could hear boots down both ends of the hallway.
“We’re about to get squeezed,” she said.
“I see that,” Quark said, using his augmented eyes to look through the solid walls of the compound. “Witchy, give the rifle to Currl. You take the left side, I’ll handle the right. Currl, cover us.”
“Yes, sir,” they replied.
Quark tilted his head to both sides of his shoulders, his neck cracking loudly as it moved. He flexed his back, another line of cracks following.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he said.
Hayley made a face. The Colonel was hundreds of years old. He paid millions every year for treatments to keep himself alive and locked in the body of a fifty-year old.
Finished stretching, he stepped out into the corridor, turning to the right. He whistled a moment l
ater. “Is that an Executioner?” he said, looking back at her. “You do that?”
She nodded.
“Good girl,” he replied.
She smiled, exiting the room and turning left. It felt good to have Quark back.
The soldiers were cautious coming around the corners, especially after seeing the dead Executioner. It didn’t matter. Hayley didn’t turn to look, but she heard the gunfire as Quark moved into the fray, and then the screams and cracks and thuds as he systematically dismantled the opposition.
The soldiers on her end made it to the corner. As before, she waded into them before they knew she was there, throwing lightsuit-enhanced punches and kicks that knocked them off-balance and created a level of chaos they couldn’t recover from.
Currl fired into the group from the center of the hallway, his impeccable aim taking them out of action.
A dozen quick heartbeats later, the area was clear.
“Which way to the lab, do you think?” Currl asked as they met near the dead Executioner.
Quark bent down and picked something off the brute, holding it out to Hayley. “I think you lost this.”
She smiled as she took her Uin from him. “Thanks.”
“I saw a door back that way that looked promising when they brought us in,” Quark said, pointing back down the corridor. “Witchy, you notice anything down that way?”
“Devain is back that way,” Hayley said.
“Much as I’d like to get back at her for hog-tying me, I’d rather get you out of here alive. We’ll head this way.”
He started down the corridor, leaving Currl and Hayley to catch up. He whistled again when he reached the soldiers she and Currl had downed, grabbing two rifles and tossing one of them to her.
“I love taking other people’s guns,” he said.
They continued along the adjacent corridor, which opened up into a full intersection a few dozen meters later. Quark paused there, scanning with his eyes. Then he pointed to the left. “That way.”
“How do you know?” Currl asked.
“Experience,” Quark replied. “And my peepers can see through the wall to the wiring. There’s a conduit running back there that’s typically associated with large quantum mainframes.”
“What?” Currl said.
“Big fragging computers,” Quark said. “Like the kind that model genes.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
“Damn right,” Quark replied. “Witchy, cover our asses. Come on.”
They started down the corridor, guns ready. Hayley moved backward, focusing on the position behind them, making sure they stayed clear. They covered a hundred meters before the next group of soldiers arrived. They had no qi, only the silvery-red of Nephilim naniates.
“Servants,” she said, crouching low.
The others did the same, turning and opening fire. They aimed for the Servants’ weapons and hands. Incapacitate and decapitate. That was the play.
Return fire shredded the walls and floor around them. Rounds slammed into their lightsuits, like a hard jab to the impact point that was sure to leave a bruise. It only took three seconds for the firefight to come to a close, Hayley rising and charging the Servants, Uin in hand.
They tried to attack her, despite having lost their weapons. She slipped through them easily, their intent obvious in the whorls of color that composed them. Her Uin had no trouble slicing through the heads and leaving them on the ground around her.
“Witchy, let’s go,” Quark said. He had moved ahead, to a secured doorway near the end of the hallway.
She sprinted to his position. He was already working on the control panel for the door, having produced a tool from his boot and removing the face. He examined the wires for a moment and then disconnected a pair of them.
The door slid open, revealing the lab behind it. The scientists were huddled in the corner. They were human. Republic citizens, not Outworlders or Nephilim. They looked terrified.
Hayley could only imagine what Venerant Devain had done to them to get their compliance.
“Frag me,” Quark said. “Who’s in charge here?”
None of the scientists responded. They remained huddled. Their qi was solid white with fear.
Quark’s head turned as he studied the lab. There were some terminals at the front and a lot of different machines and equipment further back. At the end of the room was a chair surrounded by wires and tubes, a pair of robot arms and clasps to keep whoever was in it secured.
Hayley could hear motion down the corridor, back the way they had come.
“Colonel, we don’t have a lot of time,” she said.
“Roger,” he replied. “My name is Quark. I’m with the Republic. Do you want to go free? You need to help me out.”
“She’ll kill us,” someone within the group said.
“Nope,” Quark said. His confidence was enough to change the qi of the group a little bit.
“She’s got magic,” one man said. “She can kill with a thought.”
“Don’t you worry about her,” Quark said. “If she were so tough we wouldn’t be here. Just ask my girl over there. She broke that bitch’s nose.”
“You should have broken more than that,” someone said. His qi was turning a more solid blue, the white fading quickly.
“Him,” Hayley said, pointing him out. The enemy was getting closer. They had to move.
“Your lucky day, son,” Quark said, singling the man out. “I need a copy of the research you’ve been doing here, and then I need to blow the frag out of the mainframe.”
“Yeah, sure,” the man said. “You’re going to get me out of here, right?”
“Anyone who wants to come can come. But I’m telling you up front; it isn’t going to be a luxury cruise.”
“It has to be better than this,” someone else said.
The first scientist had already moved to one of the terminals and was inputting his credentials.
“I can show you the mainframe,” the second scientist said. Her qi was still an off-white, but she was coming around.
“How are we going to blow it?” Hayley asked.
Quark turned to her. “You know how.”
“I’ll be useless.”
“I doubt that. We hit the right spot; it shouldn’t take much effort.”
Hayley glanced at her arms. The constant color of the naniates on her tattoos had already faded when she unlocked the last door. She looked over the scientists. They must have been brought in from worlds that hadn’t been affected by the naniates yet because they were squeaky clean.
“You’re the boss,” she said.
“Damn right,” he replied.
“Show me,” Hayley said to the woman.
She followed the scientist to the rear of the room, past the chair and the equipment surrounding it, into the second room behind it. A massive mainframe filled the entire thing, a series of copper plates with microscopic etchings throughout, connected by wires and transistors and all kinds of electronics Hayley didn’t understand.
“If you want to destroy it, you need to overload the power control system and then spike the power to it,” the scientist said, pointing. “The PCS breaker is here.”
“Can you put your finger on the exact spot?” Hayley asked.
The woman did. “Right here. Then the limiter is here.” She walked a couple of meters over and touched the wall.
“Got it,” Hayley said. She raised her voice. “Colonel! I’m ready when you are.”
“Currl, cover the door,” Quark snapped. “How long?”
“Twenty seconds,” the male scientist said.
“We don’t have twenty seconds,” Quark said.
“I can’t control the speed. There are over ten petabytes of data here.”
“Currl, get ready.”
“I’m on it, Colonel.”
“How long will it take to overload?” Hayley asked.
“About a minute.”
“Gant set a timer. One minute.”
“Done,” the AI replied.
Hayley didn’t hesitate. She reached out with the Meijo, sending it into the spots the scientist had shown her.
Then she told the naniates to explode.
A single naniate couldn’t do much damage with a detonation. But a few million of them?
The heat and energy spewed out of the side of the mainframe wall in both spots. Immediately, a warning klaxon began to churn over the doorway, and the door itself started sliding closed.
The scientist hadn’t mentioned that.
Hayley grabbed the woman, tugging her through the door only moments before it came down too far for them to escape.
She remained on the floor, her head spinning. She tried to focus, to get her vision back, but everything was moving too quickly. All she had was a sea of rainbow colors, none of them coming together to give her any kind of resolution.
“I’m washed!” Hayley shouted.
“Shit,” Quark replied. “Hang on, kid.”
“Incoming!” Currl shouted, at the same time he started shooting.
“Done,” the scientist said. He handed the data chip to Quark.
Then Quark’s arms were lifting Hayley, propping her over his shoulder. Her heart was racing, panic threatening to overtake her.
“I’ve got you, Hal,” he said gently. “Time to go.”
11
They didn’t make it far. The incoming soldiers had blocked the corridor leading back the way they had come, pinning them down in the room. Currl returned fire, keeping them honest as Quark approached with Hayley over his shoulder.
“We need to make a break for it,” Quark said, surveying the attack. “The big lift should be close.”
“How do you know?” Currl asked.
“You’ve been with me three years, and you still ask me how I know things all the time. I know because I fragging know because I’m the fragging Colonel and I’m old.” Quark turned his head back toward the scientists. “If you’re coming with us, you follow me out. You keep your head down. You don’t look back. You don’t stop running. I’m telling you right now, there’s a good chance some of you will die, but the more of you come, the more of you make it.”