Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  Didn’t realize until they both turned to look at me that their weapons were down. Monofilament discharger at Fidelity’s feet, Val’s Bolshovekia beside it.

  I gawked.

  White hair gleamed as Val tipped his head to his right.

  I let my head fall back on my neck and saw an upside down version of Indigo, his lips all but vanished under the intensity of whatever he was feeling. Anger. Probably anger. Maybe into fury.

  Couldn’t tell.

  In his hands, a Sauger Quad 78 – the 54’s younger cousin; less spray, more impact. The quadruple barrel pointed directly at his own team.

  Well. Shit.

  “Back off,” he said. Flat. Even. Serious as ballsweat, but meaner. “I’m not fucking doing this right now.”

  Hands raised, Val and Fidelity backed away.

  I lay there, feeling like bukkake leftovers, and tried to decide whether I wanted to be emotionally angry, physically hurt, or mentally exhausted.

  All three sounded like terrible ideas.

  Debris drifted down on all of us, gently floating bits of singed insulation, probably people. I grimaced as a flaky clump of ash smeared under my eye.

  “Freelancing, huh?” Digo’s gaze remained on Val, though he’d lowered the Quad enough to make it obvious he didn’t expect resistance.

  The merc shrugged. Then jerked, winged black eyebrows skyrocketing. He grunted in surprise, lifted up on his toes like an invisible hand had grabbed him by the head and pulled.

  Muerte came around him, looking rather pleased with herself. “He’s armed,” she said, smacking her lips, “with the finest ass this side of the divide.”

  I snorted. Couldn’t help myself. Indigo looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or swear.

  Val just murmured, “Thank you,” and accepted it like his due.

  What a sweet fucking family reunion.

  I growled under my breath, struggling to stand.

  “Don’t get comfy,” Muerte said, surveying the surrounding area. “We need to clear out.”

  Indigo looked up. Then back. When he stashed his shotgun, the others relaxed. Just a hair. Enough to make me realize they’d taken him at his word. He would’ve shot them. Why? For me?

  Piss.

  His stare burned the motherfuckers to the ground. “You stupid sons of bitches should have talked to me first.”

  Fidelity opened his mouth.

  Indigo’s eyes narrowed.

  Fidelity shut his mouth again.

  Valentine glanced at me. “What changed?”

  “You tell me,” I retorted, grabbing my tech arm in my bloody hand. “You’re so all shitting knowing.” Setting my teeth together, I wrenched my arm back into my shoulder socket. My healing shoulder shrieked. I knocked it down to a strangled, “Fuckingfuckholes.”

  Muerte waved a hand at all of us. “Amigos? The Squad?”

  Valentine ignored her.

  Indigo did not. “Get out of my sight,” he said grimly. “I’ll deal with you fuckheads later.”

  I glared at them, every bone radiating menace. If my Valiant had slipped around to my side – easy reach – I wasn’t going to point it out.

  Didn’t need to. Muerte’s hand came down on my shoulder. The good one. Squeezed hard.

  Valentine took a step towards Indigo, hands tossed up in exasperation. “Boss, you–”

  “Not,” Digo seethed, “now.”

  Linker done gave orders. Wasn’t the first time, either. Indigo didn’t snap often, but when he did, we left him alone. It was only partially personal. Valentine and Fidelity obeyed, leaving their weapons where they’d dropped them. When they passed me, they both shrugged, gave me a look I think I was supposed to read as no offense. “The creds were real good,” Fidelity said lightly.

  I shook Muerte’s hand off my shoulder. “You tiny dicked–”

  Fidelity smirked, but Valentine squared up. Muscle on muscle, murder in the buried glint of his eyes. He’d take me on. Without guns between us, I was more than ready to find out who’d scream first.

  Giving up on comforting, Muerte snaked an arm around my neck. The Valiant at my side suddenly vanished, the strap burning a rough line as she pulled it around. Cold metal locked against my throat, jerked me back hard enough that I choked. If I moved, if I breathed hard, I’d crush my own esophagus. “Tranqillo,” she said, slow and long and drawing it out. “Calm the tiny tits.”

  Like that’d help.

  The unmistakable sound of a shotgun primed? That did the trick. Val and I froze in place.

  Fidelity went still, too. Then smacked the larger man in the bronzed arm and strode away, back tense.

  Cold eyes met mine. Then he turned and followed the orange wonder into the crowd. The panic had subsided when nothing else exploded in the tenements above, but too many shitheads still lingered. Waiting. Watching.

  Sighing, Muerte released her hold on the barrel of my gun. “Seriously, Riqa. That would have been an ugly brawl.”

  I knew it.

  I grabbed the Valiant, yanked it from her loosened grasp, and spun on my heel. “Valentine said Dancer didn’t order the hit.”

  Muerte glanced at Indigo.

  The linker let the Quad drop to his side, muzzle down, and matched my pace. “She didn’t. One of her lieutenants did.”

  Well, didn’t that just make sense. “Rictor,” I snarled.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Muerte volunteered, catching up to the both of us. “He’s got a hit out on me, too.”

  “Oh, just fucking comforting.”

  Indigo let out a gusty sigh, the edges of his irritation torqueing it to gravel. “I’ll deal with Fido and Valentine later. Let’s go before any of them wise up to your escape.”

  I didn’t like leaving behind a fight. But I still wasn’t braindead enough to take on half the Kill Squad with only three of us.

  Pissed and hungry, hurting and shitting tired of getting shot, I had no choice but to run.

  37

  Another day, another ride to Kongtown. This time, I closed my eyes in the back of Muerte’s trike and let my bones reknit.

  The ramen stall Indigo guided us to seated five, and the cook – a large man with long brown hair shaved at one side – spoke a bastard hybrid of Kongtown dialects too fast to follow all the way through. Based in Korean, maybe. Not sure. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. We ordered. He delivered.

  He left us the fuck alone.

  Indigo propped an elbow on the bar, every line of his body broadcasting tired. I felt that. So did Muerte, if the chin she rested on her folded elbow was any indication. Her eyes closed by her large ramen bowl while steam wafted up from all three.

  The half curtain hanging behind us kept too much of the humidity in, even with two small fans running on either side of the counter. Tickticktick. One wobbled.

  Which also pissed me off. Really, very much pissed me off.

  So much pissed me off that I had no more off to piss.

  My teeth gritted, ground back and forth.

  “That could have been worse,” Muerte said without opening her eyes.

  I snorted out a bitter laugh. “At what point does it get better?”

  “Well, you could be dead?”

  “Preferable,” I muttered, rubbing at my shoulder. “I just got my nanos juiced, you know?”

  She shrugged lightly. “I know, but hey, you’re worth a fuck-ton of money. How’s that for fame?”

  “Wrong kind and to the wrong group.”

  “Picky.”

  I grimaced. She was yanking my dick and I didn’t need it. Nobody wanted this kind of shit on them. I frowned at Indigo. “How did you know the Squad had taken the hit?”

  “I know a guy,” he said blandly.

  Muerte grinned, shedding her cropped purple jacket. She stretched her tech leg out along the ground, propped on the bottom rung of another stool. “I’m the guy,” she added.

  “Another trail?”

  Indigo nodded. “Muerte showed me the
pattern. Once you know what to look for and who to ask, it’s not hard to spot.”

  I picked up the wooden chopsticks by my bowl, tore them apart. They splintered at the connector. They always did.

  Indigo’s, I noted jealously, did not.

  “And?” I pressed.

  “And you’re not going to like it.”

  Muerte jammed her chopsticks into her bowl, mixing the steaming contents without pulling them apart from each other.

  “Dancer?” I asked. “Would explain the Squad’s massive run at me.”

  She shook her head.

  Indigo was more careful with his ramen, wielding the utensils to pull ingredients over each other without ruining them. “I cracked the chipsets for the final piece. Guess who’s got links in to the blacknet?”

  Only one answer fit that question. I shifted on the stool, leaning back with a tired groan. “MetaCorp.”

  “Give her a medal,” Muerte murmured. Then slurped noodles she’d somehow wrapped around her single, double-wide chopstick.

  “What the fuck. What the actual shit.” With each word, I got madder and madder. Guess I still had some piss left in me after all. “How? How do they keep finding me? Why do they want me? What the cunting hell,” I continued, voice rising, “did I do to earn their dicks down my throat?”

  He reached over with a lazy hand, flicked me in the forehead. “Shut up.”

  My teeth clicked. My chopsticks broke between my nanosteel fingers.

  Muerte smothered a husky laugh.

  “We’re going to find out,” he continued. “Kern’s Knacklock location is the only shop still active, confirmed. If I can get there fast enough, I can get into his system before he shuts it down.”

  “We’re going to hit it,” Muerte translated helpfully.

  I punched her in the shoulder. Regretted it instantly when my own burned. Not fully pulled together yet. The food would help. “I know what it means,” I muttered. Then, “It’s about time. I’m ready to tear this chummer’s head right off his neck.”

  “Good.” Indigo took a moment to eat, slurping sounds accompanying the effort. Wordlessly, the cook slid another set of chopsticks to me. Good man.

  My slurping joined theirs, and as I soaked in the flavor, we said nothing for a while. Cars careened past us, too fast for the busy street. Joes yelled around us, laughed, spoke.

  What I liked best about this place were the paper lanterns strung up in every direction, every color and pattern imaginable; surprisingly delicate for such an overly crowded zone.

  There are neighborhoods in Kongtown that embrace that whole Chinese vibe and go all out, other places that roll with the muddled descendants of Japanese immigrants. They don’t mix much, save for a few places that operate like the rack. Neutral as long as everybody treats it that way. Same with the Korean refugees who’d made it before all hell broke loose over there, intermixed and entrenched.

  The busy districts don’t initially look like it, but structure reigns in Kongtown. Even the overwhelming numbers of mixed-blood people choose lines, and there is a lot of that. Indigo, with his Deli heritage, would fit right in without a sideways glance – as long as he chose a side. It’s not about purity, it’s about adherence to the way it works.

  The graffiti rolling corner to corner marks borders violently defended, and aggressively violated. Those who live in the middle work like messengers and diplomats between them – a kind of chosen side. One wrong move and somebody’s head shows up on somebody else’s doorstep. Whole families are slaughtered on the regular; peace is an ideal that mostly gets shafted by some up and coming gang looking to shake the establishment.

  For some people, traditions are ingrained so deep in cultural memory that even ignorant fuckers find themselves walking similar lines. For others, it’s all about the fetishism of a violent, made-up era long since ground into dust. Honor is a goddamn joke, and swords are only as good as the asshole using them.

  But then, that was true everywhere.

  I finished my food first, droplets of ramen broth splattered on the counter around my empty bowl. “We need a team,” I said.

  “You, me,” Muerte said, meat hanging from the end of her stick. It wobbled when she gestured, dripping. “Indigo, Tashi. What about Boone?”

  Indigo winced. “I told him to kick Valentine and Fido’s asses if they stepped out of line.”

  “Shit.”

  “Necessary evil.”

  Fuck those guys. I shook my head. “A linker, two splatter specialists and a fixer aren’t going to be enough.”

  “Ideas?” she asked.

  I glanced at Indigo.

  He raised an eyebrow at me, sweaty forehead wrinkling as he polished off his food.

  When I shrugged, he rolled his eyes. “If you can do it, do it. But you’d better make it fast.”

  “Who?” Muerte asked.

  Nice to know that for all the shit, Indigo had been serious when he said he’d stick to my side. I guess I’d needed the boost of support.

  My smile curved real slow. Real, real mean. “Pretty sure he’s got tools to help.”

  I had a plan. Thank fuck and hallelujah to the magical elephant, I finally had a plan. And within twenty-four hours, I’d have answers to all seven of my biggest problems.

  MetaCorp, MetaCunts, Meta-fucking-Cunts Incunterated. Cunts.

  At this point, I’d give Malik Reed my ass if it netted me what I wanted from him.

  Assuming my ass was code for my fist. I’d even give him the courtesy of a reach around for his trouble.

  Now, if Hope would only pick up. I’d have to get through her to get to Malik, and I was prepared to fall all over myself in apology. There was no other way.

  I took the opportunity to rest my meatsack, folding my elbows on the ramen stall’s counter and my forehead on my crossed forearms. Over my head, Indigo and Muerte chatted. Good. We didn’t have a regular fixer as part of our crew – our crew, I thought, tasting the words again – and if they’d hit it off, even better.

  Favor more than discharged.

  When the projected call connected, my attention switched fully to the box.

  I blinked. Would have blinked, if my projected avatar had loaded.

  This was not the Mantis lobby, like I expected. Nor was it Malik Reed’s office.

  Yellow sand, finely ground and spreading out far as the eye could see. Insanely blue sky, vividly saturated and bluer, clearer, than any sky I’d ever seen in my life. The occasional fluffy cloud. Turquoise ocean, white foam crests at the top of each wave, crashed into the sand, rolled up onto the shore and was sucked back into the surf.

  It was hot. It smelled like salt and something so clean, I wondered if my protocols had glitched.

  This was a lot of creds. And a shit-ton more bandwidth than I thought possible.

  Fucking executive shits.

  “You have nanosteel balls.” Reed’s voice, tenor lowered to cold anger behind me.

  I turned. My boots only sort of crunched on the sand.

  And then I choked back a laugh I figured wouldn’t do me any favors.

  “All this,” I managed with a nearly straight face, “and you still can’t lose the friggin’ suit.”

  Dark eyes, sunlight caught in the black depths and glittering, narrowed. If he cared, I couldn’t find so much as a twitch in the severe planes of his face. Not that I’d come to scope his fashion – or his taste in personal projections – but I couldn’t help it. Sun, surf, sand, and a charcoal gray suit jacket over a white button-down, one of his eternal vests sleek around his trim waist. Matching trousers. Shiny black shoes.

  Blue and gray striped tie tucked into the vee of the fitted vest. Perfect knot.

  Should have looked stupid in the middle of all this pristine scenery.

  Asshole looked good.

  “When you are done ogling me,” he said flatly, “you can get to the point.”

  I pulled my gaze back up to his face, tucked my hands in the pockets of my virtual cargoe
s and did my best to look like I’d reflected. “I’ve got an offer for you.”

  “No.”

  “Hear me out–”

  No,” he said again, and raised a dusky hand, a spiteful wave. “Goodbye, Riko.”

  “We’re hitting MetaCorp.”

  That got his attention. Gaze sharpening, he folded his hands behind his back. “That gets my attention.”

  I knew it would.

  I rocked back on my heels, but my feet didn’t dig into the virtual sand. His did. In fact, his blazer ruffled in the breeze.

  Ugh. “Knacklock. There’s a saint that runs it, and according to info picked up from a couple MetaCunt scouts–” I drew out the word. My turn for snide. “–he’s dealing with the corp direct.”

  Malik’s expression turned thoughtful. His mouth pursed faintly, posture unbending. So fucking cool. Asshole extraordinaire. “Your source?”

  “My linker.”

  An eyebrow. “Mr Koupra has decided to risk your presence again?”

  “Fuck you.”

  There. Hint of a smirk, cold glimmer turning sharply amused. “Your point.”

  “We need another hand to fill out the hit squad.”

  “You killed the last team sent in to one of your…” A pause. “…chopshops. You abandoned the most recent team I offered you. I am tired,” he added, humor fading, “of training my people for your disposal.”

  My turn to smirk. I sauntered towards him, sand and metal firm under me. The sun was warm, at least. I knew what the sun’s heat felt like, even if he’d programmed this one with less radiation burn.

  He watched me approach. His shoulders shifted, a minute movement.

  “Why, Malik,” I drawled, coming to a stop so close, I risked my protocols again. “I thought you had a lot of tools to spare.”

  “Don’t,” he said, low and bordering on a growl, “push it. You have no right to ask me for anything more.”

  I almost bit back. My hands clenched in my pockets, heart slamming. Anger.

  And a pulse in my snatch that couldn’t help responding to that thrumming voice of his. Authority pissed me off. From him, in moments like this, it made me want to crawl inside his skin and stroke myself off with it.

  All that aside, I recognized the truth of it.