Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  “Thanks,” I said, and shouldered the Valiant. “Run if the shooting gets closer.”

  The old man smiled, yellowed teeth and jaundiced eyes wide. “Bring them to hell.”

  I loved communities like this. They’re few and far between, but some band tighter than others. Long as you don’t go pissing in their cultural dish of choice, they didn’t mind helping in a pinch.

  Tossing off another salute, I sprinted down the hall in the direction they’d indicated, found the creaking, old stairs and pounded up them. The carpet under my boots was worn thin, bare in spots, and slick with decades of accumulated wear. Not much to soften my approach.

  Or the sudden echo, louder and heavier than mine. A man shouted, muffled. Two other voices joined in, and then gunfire erupted just as I hit the third floor.

  Literally. Hit. The third. Floor.

  28

  A faceless enforcer rolled smack into my ankles, flailing arms and limbs catching me up. Wholly unprepared, I jerked wildly between ducking and jumping – and I missed every opportunity to avoid either. Automatic fire sprayed us both. Pain slammed into my thigh, momentum swinging me sideways. Most of the line of fire caught the fucker who’d run into me – saving my life. What a nice toolbag he was.

  The other two enforcers went back to back, locked between whoever pinned them on the landing and me. Which wasn’t a bad tactic, except I had a body shield and neither I nor the shooter on the other side cared about running a bullet through them both at the same time. And probably each other. I mean, I didn’t care.

  Obvious they didn’t either, given the blood welling out of the through-and-through in my leg. At least they’d missed the artery.

  Wasting no time, I opened fire. So did the other shooter. The soldiers dropped under the collective spray of two assault rifles, my Valiant and – by the sound – a Bolshovekia. Beautiful assault rifle, kicked like a drunk and killed like a dream.

  Mine was better, though. Bigger. Juicier.

  If a line of firepower carved uneven holes too close to my head, I’d take it in exchange for the splintered mess I made of the doorframe beside the other runner. One hand raised at me, a merc in full gear. The type who rolls around prepared, I guess. “Truce,” said the modulated voice. Couldn’t tell who or what. “This floor clear?”

  I got to my feet, absently rolled the corporate corpse down the stairs. Thudded and clattered all the way to the next landing. “Civs from this floor down,” I replied. “Not sure about the rest.” I looked past his shoulder. “You see Indigo?”

  “Never heard of her.” The merc paused, faceplate reflecting a distorted version of me in its yellow-mirrored surface. “Last I saw, a squad pinned a handful of saints south of here. Maybe she was one of them.”

  She. I snickered.

  The merc exchanged the clip of his Bolshovekia, dropped the spent cartridge and gestured with the weapon back the way he’d come. “Fourteen meters that way, trapped in a dead end.”

  “Shit,” I said by way of thanks, and tucked the Valiant back into my harness. The thing was designed for easy reach and easier grab. Nobody smart runs around with an assault rifle half-cocked, especially when prepping to run balls out through an obstacle course. I’d need both hands and, all things considered, none of my other parts shot off by my own swinging weapon.

  The merc, gloved hand painted a neon yellow down the center back, smacked my arm with theirs as I passed. “Watch it,” came that oddly computerized voice. “This is a shitbig raid. MetaCorp’s after someone worth burning the place down for.”

  I froze mid-step. Whipped back around. “How do you know it’s MetaCorp?”

  “You check,” came the dry reply. They bent over one of the bodies, yanked a helmet off and tossed it away. A bit of digging, and they fished a black tag on a chain out of the body armor. The chain snapped in their hand, then glinted as they held it up for me to see. “Dog tags. Branded with MetaCorp’s logo.”

  Shit. Shit fuck ass shit shit fucking snot.

  “Who are they after?”

  The helmet turned side to side as the tag vanished into a side pouch. “Heard one calling in a mayday, mentioned something about no sign of target. All I have.”

  “Great.” I smiled thinly. “Luck, mate.”

  A brief, distorted chuckle. “Have fun, killer.”

  I left the merc digging at the second of three bodies, searching for another tag. Trophy hunter, I figured. Not sure if they’d keep the tags or sell them, but not uncommon for a saint.

  MetaCorp. Unfreakingbelievable. They were everywhere I wanted to be, and nowhere I looked for them. Like they knew my shit before I did. There was no way this was a coincidence.

  I ducked out the way I’d been directed, out onto Bali’s fire escape. Another corpse peered up at me from the slatted metal, her helmet missing and armor shredded. No sign of her weapon, probably lifted. Guns are a good thing to collect. More useful than dog tags.

  I shouldn’t have stopped to check her over. Shouldn’t have paused to breathe.

  A clunk registered somewhere overhead. I looked up; too late. Too sidetracked by my spinning thoughts. Gunfire erupted from somewhere above me. Somebody screamed. It echoed, loud and ragged – mine. Blood splattered the wall behind me, exploded outward into the hall. Don’t know if the merc was still there; didn’t expect any help, either. This was my problem.

  My flesh all but shredded off the bone of my right arm, joined the blood spatter in wet chunks as I spun with the impact. Agony lanced through my brain, whitehot fire and a whole lot of rage.

  If I lost this arm to MetaCorp, I was going to burn the fucking place to the ground. Assuming they didn’t beat me to it.

  Worthless thoughts while I writhed on the gridded fire escape, screaming through gritted teeth. It hurt, fuck me, it hurt so bad I could barely see. My fingers, slick with blood, twitched as I struggled to get to my knees. To get behind cover, back around the corner. I heard voices, felt the impact of boots thudding up the rusted steps leading from the street below.

  Everything blinded me. The constant barrage of lights, flashes, grenades, and helos blazing above the streets. The sheer, shrieking agony in what was left of my arm. The blood that had splashed up onto my right cheek and into my eye. Fire everywhere, piercing spotlights, flares in every color.

  It was all I could do to get my ass on the platform, back against the wall. My tech arm had pulled the Valiant out, instinct and habit, while my flesh arm bled out at a rapid pace. Whatever time my nanos had bought me mending my thigh went up in smoke.

  I was in so much trouble. I really, really wish I’d gotten my protocols fixed.

  Dammit, Lucky.

  Dammit, me.

  “Riko!”

  My head fell back against the wall. I sucked in ragged breaths, teeth clenched, cradling my ruined arm to my chest. At least my rotator cuff was still in one piece. Meant I still had an arm free to murder the next motherfucker who came up those steps without worrying about losing the right one to gravity.

  “Riko, move.”

  My name barely cut through sheer, blinding torture. Barely made it through a thick fog of fury and panic and pain. I couldn’t even feel my heart in my chest, couldn’t hear it pounding in my ears. It was too busy spewing my blood all over the place.

  A dark shape came at me from somewhere other than the steps. I’d been ready for an attack from there. But instead of coming at me, the figure blurred into place from above. Or over? I had no idea. Just that one second, I was hearing my name and the next, there was a Manticore barrel shoved into my cheek. “Don’t move!”

  I tried my best to do exactly the opposite of that, swing my Valiant around to put bullet after bullet into whatever part of him I could hit.

  Fucking meatsack wouldn’t listen.

  “Operator,” said the voice, “Unit D has a lockdown on targets one and two. Send reinfor– argh!”

  The figure jerked, lights catching on MetaCorp armor and turning into halos in my tunneled vis
ion. Spots floated in front of my eyes. Black spots, white. Nanoshock, maybe. Or just raw bleeding hurt. The enforcer went sideways, split and turned into two figures. Shit. Shit.

  “Riko, get the fuck up!”

  Who the shit.

  One of the figures leapt onto the railing as the other fell over, long tail of a blue-black braid carving a gleaming arc as he lined up a shot with another shadow in the double windows across the alley.

  Oh. Indigo the shit.

  Relief drowned helpless fury. “My side,” I panted. Talking hurt. Breathing killed me.

  Yet another figure followed the path of the first, dropping directly into my line of sight from the rusted metal platform above us. I blinked. My hand was numb now, slippery and useless. But my tech arm, that remained nice and useable.

  The enforcer focused on Indigo’s back. Which gave me a perfect shot at the seam where leg armor thinned at the groin. Mobility is important. It’s also a design flaw. My aim, tunneled down to a narrow point, held up just enough that all I had to do was angle my functioning metal limb.

  The sheer rate of fire left no room for error; to say the Valiant carved a path up shit creek wouldn’t do the mess justice. The guy screamed, faceplate muffling most of it. They’d be wired in. No reason not to be; this was professional stuff.

  Which meant this one had already passed on this location and more would show soon. Operators. Always on track.

  I struggled to get to my feet, back pressed hard into the supporting wall and boots braced against the porous platform. My arm hung useless from my side, black claws drawing fresh agony with every move I made.

  The guy I’d anally violated with 12mm caseless bullets abruptly stopped screaming, making me the only one left. Indigo yanked a nasty looking serrated knife from the back of the enforcer’s neck, flesh caught on the edges. The thing was twice as big as my interceptors, left three times as much carnage in its wake.

  “Walk,” he snapped at me, teeth bloody.

  I locked my teeth, held my breath. Couldn’t stop twitching. Too much muscle exposed, too many nerves recoiling. This would kill my nanos, shove me screaming into nanoshock. My vision was already going black. I hadn’t hurt this shitting bad in a long time. My bottled shriek whooshed out on a guttural, “Shitpissingsuicidalfuckingfuck–!”

  One of his hands wrapped around my left bicep, narrow shoulders twisting with the effort to haul me off the fire escape grate. “Where’re the others?” he shouted. It was the only way I’d hear him over the chaos in the zone and my own screaming brain. Pinning me against the bloody wall kept me upright, but my legs wouldn’t hold me. And goddamn, I tried to make them.

  Sucking in air, I managed, “Scattered to find you.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “Shit.” He looked up, eyes flashing frenetic blue lightning in the wake of helo burns and scattered billboards. “Can you walk?”

  “It’ll seal,” I muttered, then hissed in a wildly harsh breath as he bent and tucked his shoulder under my left side. He peeled me from my lopsided prop. My destroyed right arm swung loose; my shoulder pulled, fingers of visceral agony tearing up my senses. “I lied,” I managed, white-faced, “it’s going to fall off.” What little blood I had left wasn’t sticking around in the brain. “Jesusfucking–”

  “Hang on, we’re moving.”

  “Move fast.” I sucked in air. “These asswipes have a target.”

  “I noticed. Now shut up,” he added, “conserve your strength.” He yanked me down the stairs, carrying most of my weight when my feet couldn’t manage to hit the steps. They dragged behind us, jostling every bone in my body and my right side lit up like a fireworks factory gone very wrong. I threw my head back, jaw clenched so tight it cracked, and couldn’t see anything, hear anything, say anything as I fought not to black out.

  “Stay with me,” he snarled in my ear.

  “Fuck,” I wheezed through aching teeth, “you.”

  “That’s the Ree I know.” A grunted compliment. “Keep it up.”

  He paused. Couldn’t see why. Suddenly, he dipped, shoved his free shoulder into a door I couldn’t see through my streaming eyes. The cacophony around us dimmed, then vanished altogether as the door scraped shut behind us. A man darted out from shadows, either from the room or from my tunneled vision, black on black. “Neela?”

  “Māpha karanā.” Indigo tipped – the room tipped? – and I heard him talking over my head, the response given. Something that sounded like my name, followed by a whispered nanoshock.

  Yeah. Yeah, that seemed right. Blood and mucus streamed from my nose and mouth, more blood from the grated meat hanging from my arm bones. But there was grit between my teeth. Floods of the mechanical fuckers trying to keep up with the damage, replicating faster than they died off. Oozing from every orifice, every wound.

  Too much tech in my body. Nanoshock left unchecked would convert.

  I tried to say something. Anything. Managed a garbled rasp.

  A dark hand covered my eyes. “She’ll need a doctor.”

  “I’ll find one,” Indigo said, voice mangled. Faded. I reached out, trying to push through the hollow corridor of my consciousness.

  I don’t think I managed it.

  In the dark forced by the hand on my eyes, I watched Indigo’s back get smaller and smaller. Until he vanished entirely.

  Whatever was done after that, I couldn’t stay conscious long enough to know what.

  29

  A thin finger poked me in the cheek. Twice. “She alive?”

  “Can we eat her?” asked another – this one as familiar as shattered glass.

  I cracked open dry, crusted eyes. Color oozed, fuzzed like a bad signal in horizontal streaks. “Muerte,” I snarled. “You can eat my–”

  A cloth soaked with sanitizer slapped me full on the face, dripped there as I struggled to get out from under it. Burnt my goddamn nose hairs. My body didn’t move so well, muscles aching and slow. A dull throb in my head almost drowned out the fiery waves radiating up and down my right side, and the base of my skull felt like hot needles had been jammed into my chipset.

  That cloth vanished, whipped away. “Don’t kill her,” Indigo said flatly.

  Muerte’s face tipped into my bleary vision. “Keslake, Riqa. Nice to see your pretty smile.”

  “Go die,” I growled. I blinked fast, tried to get a sense of my whereabouts. Gritty ceiling, dingy gray. A mesh of crisscrossed lights painted the walls in myriad shadows and blurred colors, shifting with every blink and flicker. Thin mattress under me. My head pillowed.

  By, I realized as Muerte patted my cheek, her lap.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  I tried to sit up. She reached over and thumped my clenched abs, forcing the air out of my stomach and weakening my attempt. I groaned instead.

  “Stay,” Muerte said, graveled voice stern. “We got your arm mostly back together and your nanos are recharging, but we’re talking hours of damage here.”

  I winced. “I pass out?”

  “Like an itty bitty baby,” she teased. “Nanoshock set in real quick back there. Surprised you didn’t go necro right in the middle of it all.”

  I bared my teeth at her, hoping some blackened reams of burnt out nanos still lined my teeth. Just for her.

  Grimy boots thumped to a halt by my shoulder. “You,” Indigo said, bending over so I could see his furious face, “are reckless. You should be dead. You would be, if it wasn’t for me.” Blue flame all but crackled out of his eyes, a searing blast of fury I might have whistled at if I wasn’t so cunting tired. His lips chiseled down into a line so hard and tight, I wondered if spraining them was a possibility.

  Could one sprain one’s lips?

  I had no idea.

  Why was I staring at his mouth?

  “She’s currently stupid,” Muerte said, gaze turned up to him. “Ignore her.”

  “I’m familiar,” he replied between clenched teeth.

  “Hey.”
I managed to get my left elbow under me, relieved to find it still worked. My right? Pretty much a big flopping dick. Fucking A. I grimaced. “I’m right here.”

  “Thanks to Indigo,” came a low, even voice. Tashi. “Doc says you were shitclose to an incineration.”

  “Doc?” I squinted up at Indigo. “What doc?”

  “Local,” he said tersely. “Not good enough for anything but a diagnostic and a splint. Barely agreed to do that after seeing you.”

  I sighed. No repair for me. And I was too tired for this fuckery. Letting myself fall back into Muerte’s lap, I closed my eyes and muttered, “Thank you for saving me, Indigo Koupra, you god among linkers and incredible specimen of manliness.”

  “Asshole.”

  But something in those two syllables, something just faintly there under the salt, made me wonder if he’d be fighting one of those smirks if I opened my eyes.

  So I didn’t. Better, I thought hazily, that I didn’t know.

  I probably drifted off again. I can’t imagine I didn’t. My whole body was focused on healing, every nano pushed to the breaking point. I’d meant to rescue Indigo, and he’d saved my ass instead. Absolute opposite of our last run, where he’d tried to save me and I’d turned the district upside down to drag him out.

  I’d fought off waves of flesh-crawling necros. He only fought off a couple MetaCorp enforcers.

  I’d take that win all the way to the grave.

  At least I’d gotten some decent help here. The first thing I realized as my eyes opened was that I didn’t hurt nearly as badly as before. Second was that I hadn’t died. So, that was solid.

  I pushed myself to a sitting position, pleased when my right arm obeyed without too much complaint. I still had a right arm; guess I didn’t have to burn everything down. This time. The splint had been removed, laying bare the carnage left behind. The meat was still knitting, splicing itself back together as my recharged nanos wove everything into place. New skin carved up sections of my tattoos, creating canyons of tender, too-pink flesh.