Nanoshock

  White-knuckled against the ceiling, I forced the glorified paperweight to move. Forced it to snag my clothes so I could get out of this capsule. The two slept soundly. Or had died. I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  The entry point was all of four scoots away. I wasn’t kidding when I called it a capsule – coffin hotels, built exactly what they sound like, and rented by the hour or night. They used to market to the business types who didn’t have time to go home between shifts and eventually caught on to the dregs. Now you find them everywhere, often host to people like me doing things like this.

  I pushed the door open with one bare foot and leveraged myself out of the tube. A few capsules up, primo suite. Somebody had splurged for the headroom and enough space for most of what we’d done. Better not have been me.

  The floor was cold on my soles as I landed in a clumsy flail. The air was just as cold, full blast fans meant to blow the stink out of the place. Didn’t work. It smelled like dust and mold. And the thick cloud of sex I brought with me.

  Something clattered beside me, bounced and landed against my foot.

  I looked down. A purple strap-on, size ohshitwhat. Like I needed a ribbed fuckstick, crusted over and well used, to explain what I’d been doing.

  I snapped back a laugh before it escaped from my mouth, only to cringe when my head tried to pull itself apart. Rubbing at my eyes with flesh thumb and forefinger helped nothing but the sticky grit still attached to my eyelashes.

  When I opened my eyes, blinking, my peripheral keyed in on a shadow. A boot.

  Behind me.

  My chest clamped down, heart leaping into my throat. My brain went red hot and I jumped, already whirling, one foot up and momentum solid. I leveraged a kick hard enough to crack bone at whoever was stupid enough to jump me this fucking early in a hangover.

  My target was lower than I expected. My foot connected solidly with a face that didn’t offer any resistance, slammed his skull against the bottom tier coffins so hard that it rang two like a bell. Three of the transparent doors went dark as blood splatted outward in a messy circle. Quick, hard and easy.

  I dropped my foot again, panting as adrenaline collided with tired. This hangover needed a boost, a recharge or both. And the bullet still lodged in my back was beginning to pinch. I’d have to get that removed when I fixed my protocols.

  I remembered that much, anyway.

  The man whose day I’d ruined lay folded over in a heap, neck bent near in half, the rest of whatever smarts still in his head leaking out. I’d smashed in his face; looked like I’d broken a shoulder. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t me who’d killed him. Slack face and ashen skin said he’d been dead a couple hours, long enough to go cold. Merc, maybe.

  And I thought I was having a rough wakeup. His hangover made mine look like a splinter.

  I struggled to get my hungover ass into my wrinkled pants. My throat felt scratchy. My eyeballs burned, dried out. Shit, even my bones hurt. Worth it? Maybe. It’d depend on how long the hangover lasted.

  I looked up at the open capsule door. A long line of something wrinkled and black swung gently from the lip. I reached up with my right arm, still trying to tug my pants up while shaking out my stinging foot. The tie I’d knotted around my neck last night tumbled free in my fingers. Spots of white decorated the wider end, and the threads had started to unravel at the edges.

  Laughing while hungover is the worst possible thing. My head thudded in violent protest, sharper than before. I flinched, jammed the crumpled tie into my pocket. Dressed first. Hanging out with my nipples hardened in this cold draft wouldn’t do me any favors.

  I’d cut glass with these things.

  Bracing myself, I bent for my dropped tank. The thing had landed half on the bloodstain. I’d be worried, but the stuff had dried to a brown smear long before I’d woken up.

  Whoever this guy was, he’d pissed somebody off in a big way. The ink stretched out on the dead guy’s neck gleamed vid-ink red, still sparkling. It would until the chipset drained down – he hadn’t rigged it to blow, which was a bad call for a saint. It meant anybody could extract data from it, if they knew how. Most enforcement types did.

  I didn’t recognize the insignia, if it was one and not some dumbass idea on a dumbass day. I think it was supposed to be a scripted bunch of letters and numbers. For all I knew, it spelled momma’s boy and he’d just gone all out.

  I pulled my shirt over my head, grimaced when my shoulder howled at me. Goddammit. It was too early to drink my brain into letting it go, and I had no access to painkillers right now.

  Grabbing my boots by the sloping tops, I padded barefoot down the long line of capsules. The bottom three tiers were tiny, coffin-sized. Not even enough room to flip over in. Cheaper than anything else, but stifling. Bigger mercs had to fork over for primo suites, but hey, life isn’t fair.

  I rubbed my sweat-grimed arm over my tired eyes as I rounded the corner back to the lobby.

  Didn’t see the fist coming. Sure as shit felt it connect.

  My head snapped back on my neck, rattled my soggy brains ear to ear. My nose caught the brunt, cartilage popping as it sheared right back into my face. I screamed, surprise and rage. Dropped my boots as I threw my metal arm up to block the second fist. Her turn to yell, cursing as her knuckles met unforgiving diamond steel.

  I jumped back. Blood streamed from my nose and throat. I spat out a mouthful, just as the red- and yellow-clad woman – curves, tall, a flash of red streaming behind her – spun in midair, slammed a blaringly yellow boot at my head. I barely ducked in time. Not that it helped.

  She grabbed a fistful of my greasy hair, dragged me in a dizzying semicircle and locked me in place; bent over backwards with my arm twisted out in front of me, wrist forced at an agonizing angle. Shockwaves exploded up my spine. I only saw the faintest details of her face – yellow-brown skin, a glittering wink of red somewhere around the shape of a bared-teeth smile.

  “Oh, fuck this,” I snarled. I kicked up with one leg so hard my knee popped. Ligament. Joy. That hurt almost as bad as the two vertebrae her forced dip ground together. Using the momentum of that swing, I rolled back over her.

  “Ai!” Surprise and dismay.

  Distance achieved. Not enough to breathe.

  Taking advantage of the corridor I’d just left, I faded back as a flurry of fists and feet came at me. Elbows and knees. Black half-gloves, yellow shoes, copper skin. Full scale fury in the form of mostly meat, and one cunting hell of a right roundhouse.

  I tried to give back as good as I got, but I was sluggish, wrung out already and in desperate need of a recharge. I drove my flesh fist into my assailant’s gut, earned a grunt for my efforts. Her belt buckle cracked my knuckles; I swore long and hard as I grabbed the back of her neck and drove both knees into the same spot, one at a time.

  Strangled pain from the both of us.

  I didn’t expect her to duck low and drive right into my grip, ramming her shoulder into my stomach.

  We both staggered. Flailed in a tangle of arms and legs and lost balance. Bile and acid roiled up into my throat, mixed with blood and worse. She rolled away, taking any semblance of support with her.

  I dropped to my hands and knees and threw up a bucketful of something that defied recognition. It splattered, splashing the slumped shell of the corpse I’d kicked into a second level of hell. It took a few more seconds of wrenching heaves before my intestines sagged back into place.

  Yellow boots rimmed by studded floral designs planted right by the spreading pool, too fucking bright in my streaming eyes.

  “Well, somebody had a night.”

  11

  Ragged voice. Panting, but I recognized it anyway. It graveled when she laughed, legacy of a shattered voice box pieced back together by surgery when her nanos couldn’t handle it. Was there when it happened.

  “Shit,” I rasped, then spit out another gobbet of sour mucus. Tasted a hell of a lot like Kongtown stir fry. Or
what was left of it. “Fuck me.”

  “No bueno, babe. Thanks, though.”

  I couldn’t take a breath without smelling puke. Which would only make me vomit whatever was left. Grimacing, I pushed myself back up to my screaming knees, shoved my grimy hair out of my eyes and wiped that same arm over my mouth. “Muerte,” I spat when I could.

  She grinned, unrepentant as she sank to her heels near me and laced her hands under her chin. “You look like shit.”

  “Suck my dick,” I growled, sitting back heavily on my ass. I struggled for deep breaths. Everything just hurt more. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving your mexican’t ass.”

  “The hell you are.”

  “It’s true.”

  Yeah, and I was the one on my knees. “Funny way of showing it.” I glowered at her smug expression. “What the hell are you trying to prove?”

  She shrugged, her shoulders wide under the yellow flak epaulets she sported over tattooed arms. Fringed. Because why the fuck not?

  Typical Muerte. I used to run with her, back in the day when we were both Kill Squad specialists. She’d been the one to put a round in Carmichael’s ass. I’d never seen her laugh so hard as then.

  I hadn’t heard from her for a few years, though her name cropped up on the network occasionally. Muerte was a fixer – saints who get what you need. Drugs, hookers, data, names, jobs, whatever. You need a guy? They are the guys. The best ones have fingers in a few holes.

  Muerte had a lot of fingers, and a lot of holes.

  She hadn’t changed much. Her dark brown hair was longer than I remembered, ends fuckoff red and pulled up into a severe ponytail at the top of her head. Long straight-edged bangs just barely hit her eyelashes, fringing brown eyes ringed with neon green filaments. The optics fed her more information than my tech arm integration did, and she kept up with superhuman analysis. A lot of street roles overlapped on the fringes; she’d give Indigo a run for his creds if she had to.

  Muerte was tall and curvy, with more vid-ink than I had in more places, square jaw and round cheeks. Insanely deep dimples, and she’d put sparkling red studs in both. Smile or not, they made her look irreverent as fuck.

  The curved nanosteel bar under her right eye was new. Tempered glass divots following its bend no doubt recorded whatever she wanted, uploaded it to her personal datafield.

  I scowled at her. “If you recorded this, I’ll shit on your face.”

  Muerte threw back her head and laughed. That hadn’t changed. She’d always laughed like she didn’t have a single fuck to worry about, loud and rough. “Yeah, yeah. Did you know your freqs are burnt out?”

  “Thanks. Go die,” I added for clarity. I struggled to my feet, ignored her helping hand. “Did you have to knock me around?”

  “Just testing you. Making sure your shit’s in shape.”

  “When’s it not?”

  She snorted so hard, it echoed. “Like now?”

  “Fuck you, I’m hungover.” I did my best to ignore my body’s killer payback. And the rapidly congealing pool of last night’s fun. At least this time, I knew why I couldn’t remember. Self-imposed amnesia wasn’t the same as losing months to fuckery by some necro farming laboratory.

  I used the opportunity to drag myself to my feet, avoiding the puke swamp. “What drags you into my hell?”

  Her amusement upped by about six notches. She pointed at the open door to my primo suite. “You weren’t exactly hard to trace,” she said wryly. “A club full of looselipped hombres heard your plans. Saw,” she amended, laughing again, “your plans.”

  Ah, balls. “So you followed me?”

  Another shrug, and that wink of red in her smile. Which faded fast. “Short version, nena.”

  “Speak slow,” I grunted, bending to stomp into my boots. It hurt so much. “And I’m not your girlfriend.”

  “You could be,” she said on one breath, and then added with the next, “People are looking for you.” From laughing to serious in seconds.

  My chest tightened. Anger and exhaustion. Adrenaline swirling around with nowhere to go. It left me shaking. I snapped upright, had to slam a hand against a capsule to brace myself. “Say again?”

  Muerte rose to her feet as well, dusting off her hands. “Some decent up-and-comers, looking to score a quick cred shot.” A nod at the corpse. “He knew. Found him searching capsules.”

  “So?”

  “Knife in hand.”

  “Looking for me?” I asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Come on.”

  “Don’t laugh.” She turned, slammed one foot into the corpse so hard that it folded around her shin. Third level of hell, if not at least four more. Muerte’s right foot had been replaced from the knee joint down, enhanced more than mine and machined beautifully into shape. She’d spent far more, I’d guess. Don’t know. She’d had it as long as I’d known her, and why wasn’t my business.

  It explained her nightmare roundhouse.

  The clatter as he tumbled into the capsules for a second time rocked a sharp echo in my head. I winced. “It’s not safe to stay here,” she said, totally casual for all she’d just snapped a body in half. “For the awkward fuck-fling wakeup, if nothing else.”

  I snorted. She was right, anyway. Mornings after? Not my thing.

  Assuming it was morning.

  “I got somewhere to be,” I told her as I nudged the abandoned strap-on into the corpse’s splayed elbow. The ridged dick on that thing looked good pointing to his flattened face. “So do me a favor and make this quick.”

  “Hot date?”

  “Definitely be heat,” I muttered. I bent, adjusted the cuff of one boot. “What time is it?”

  “Why don’t you have that programmed in to your setup?”

  “Because fuck you, that’s why.” I was beginning to repeat myself, but I didn’t have it in me to try for more. “What time is it?”

  She shrugged. “Almost ten.”

  “I hate you,” I muttered. I hadn’t gotten sleep. “You didn’t crawl out of the Squad’s territory to do me a favor.”

  “Actually?” She laced her hands together behind her back. “I’m hoping you’ll do me a favor. In exchange for saving your ass.”

  “You mean kicking it?”

  “In your defense,” she said, chuckling, “you look like shit. Come with me,” she added, humor fading. “It gets better.”

  Fuck. I rolled my throbbing shoulder, staggered my way back down the corridor. Muerte wasn’t exactly an old friend, but we’d had good times patrolling together. I’d been young when Lucky forked me over to the Kill Squad. Too young to understand what was happening, too fresh. Dancer and her casual brutality had scared me to death.

  I’d run. She’d come to collect me from Lucky’s place; he let her take me. You don’t run from a gang like Dancer’s. She’d dropped me off again, unconscious and broken on his doorstep.

  Soon as I’d healed, I went back. Probably my first real lesson. Never let them see you flinch. Muerte became something of a wingman, Dancer my example, and I’d learned what Lucky wanted me to.

  Street rule number one: survive. At all costs.

  Right now, I’d have to use Muerte to do it.

  “Hey,” she called after me. “You gonna take that home?”

  I braced my hand against the corner she’d jumped me from. Summoned what dignity I had left and glanced back over my shoulder without biffing it. I followed the line of her finger to the plastic dick, shrugged the shoulder that didn’t hurt. “Nah. I’ll leave it for them.”

  She raised her eyebrows, obvious only because a corner of her mouth quirked when she did it. Her long bangs hid the rest. “Token of your affection?”

  “Souvenir.” I tipped my chin at the capsule still open over her head. “He’ll wake up feeling it.”

  Her laughter followed me into the lobby.

  I refrained from babying my aches and pains as I left, aware of Muerte’s searching gaze on me. Spine, head, jaw, knee. The ache lowe
r in my back came from something else entirely – I’d worked those muscles hard.

  Wolf, my satisfied ass. Guaranteed I’d used that thing on him till he screamed.

  Lance seemed to have returned the favor. Probably while I was plastic balls deep in the other one, which would also explain the fire in my arm. Maybe I’d worn it out. I flexed my fingers and rubbed at the seam at my shoulder like it’d help. Didn’t. It wouldn’t no matter how many times I tried.

  Muerte passed me, hands tucking into the pockets of her bright red shorts. Her bobbing ponytail caught fire in the sun, first warning before light hooked steels through my eyeballs.

  “Urgh.” A groan.

  Muerte’s rough chuckle drew me farther out.

  Morning or not, the sun had no mercy for my pain. It slammed into me the moment I left the unreliable sanctuary of the hotel, hit with a wave of heat so intense I was sweating by the time I made it to the sidewalk. A little cosmetic enhancement to my nanos could have taken care of the filth I’d accumulated, but I didn’t want it. In my line of work, I try not to push my threshold with non-essentials. You never know when you’ll need the room.

  Like the loss of my arm.

  Muerte obviously didn’t feel the same way. Whatever other technical improvements she packed, I could only guess. The lack of bruising said skinweave of some kind, and her light as goddamn air step suggested enhanced recovery. Maybe pain dampeners. Both gave a little extra durability in a fist fight. On the plus side, her tech threshold hadn’t been crossed yet. Would hate to see the business end of her focus if her dead flesh came at me.

  I shielded my eyes best I could and scanned the street. Heat rolled off the asphalt in shimmering waves, baking the rack and everything in it. The nightlife had transitioned out to day walkers somewhere around dawn. Not much difference, save the weirder ones were sleeping it off. Now, only the usuals threaded through each other, on the way to whatever miserable achievements they had for the day.

  Included in the standard civilian package are apps meant to turn life into a never-ending stream of acquired achievements, rewards for the slog the sinners call living – go to work; ding! finish your shopping list; ding! your fiftieth day in a row at the pachinko palace; ding!