Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  Malik Reed’s office bloomed into view. In it, the shape of Reed’s avatar – shoulders, something suit-like. Before my connection even firmed, I braced my virtual legs and screamed, “Extraction near the Mecca!”

  It was all I had. The connection shattered, falling to pieces as a foot slammed into the back of my head, grinding my jaw into the ground.

  I didn’t notice when a hand wrapped around my metal arm and heaved me out of the deadly flow.

  Indigo. Indigo dragged me to my feet, bloody mask grim. “We have to go!” he shouted.

  “Height,” I rasped. The least I could do was run. And as my nanos overclocked to heal the gory hole in my chest, I realized whatever else, I’d be next on the nanoshock wagon. I needed a boost. A recharge. I needed something to shove in my face and convert to energy for the little fuckers before they ate me alive.

  And all I had was white noise searing my eardrums and Indigo’s hand in mine, dragging me bodily when all I wanted to do was collapse.

  What happened.

  What went wrong.

  Something had.

  But what.

  Where.

  These thoughts whirled over and over in my head, collided as lightning forks of torture ripped up my body. As I gasped through thick phlegm coating my throat, I slipped in blood, mud and grime. Indigo led the way, blood and mud soaking the back of his tight-fitting T-shirt. He’d gone casual, a dim part of my mind noted. But sexy. Black material. Words scrawled across it in digipaint. Nice tech, wanna fuck?

  Classy. And so… so Indigo.

  My jaw locked. Screw this noise.

  When I braced both legs, Indigo snapped back in reflex, shot me an incredulous scowl. “What are you–”

  “I pinged Reed,” I cut in, thin. Tight. I hurt, shitfuck, I hurt so much. My vision crackled – gray snow, black snow. “We need to get somewhere high.”

  His jaw shifted, eyes filling with resigned fury. Determination. Fear.

  Yeah. I felt that, too.

  “This game again, huh?” he asked quietly. All around us, people yelled, guns went off. There’d be a lot of killing tonight. Two mercs hit nanoshock that hard in the open, and the necro hysteria follows. Anyone so much as twitches, they’d get one to the head.

  I couldn’t shrug. It hurt so much. Instead, I released his hand, pointed a metal finger up. My smile hurt too. “Helo, right? Up is better.”

  “There they are!” somebody howled. “Shoot them, kill them!”

  And there it was. Indigo grabbed my arm again, shoved me ahead. “Got your back. Go!” That wasn’t right. That was my job. I needed to protect him.

  But he shoved a fist so far into my spine that I had no choice but to run. That, or French kiss the bullet with my name on it when I fell. These shittards were not fucking around.

  Biting back a thousand variations on the word fuck, I ran. Indigo burned tracks on my heels. I ran like I didn’t care that I was losing more blood than my nanos could patch together. Didn’t care that Indigo’s breath panted and broke behind me at regular intervals. We had one fucking shot, and there was no guarantee Malik Reed even heard me. I hadn’t even stabilized before screaming it.

  What the tits was a projection feed for?

  Gunfire peppered the road at our feet. Pinged off metal sidings and whizzed by our heads. A grunt behind me, staggered footsteps, told me Digo’d been shot. I slowed.

  He shoved me. “Don’t stop, I’m fine,” he gasped, teeth clenched. “Turn right up here.”

  “Right?” I didn’t–

  “Riko, turn right!” When I was too slow, he hooked my arm – flesh arm, only one he could grab – and practically ripped what passed for a soul from my open wound. I didn’t dare scream; locked my jaw around it until I felt my back teeth crack in too many places.

  He’d been on point.

  The level dropped off abruptly, leaving a gap between this building and the next. We had no time to slow. No chance. “Shiva help us,” Indigo muttered. Didn’t have time to say or do anything else, but clench every muscle and sprint right up to the edge.

  And jump.

  Arms and legs flailed. My cheeks stung, sheer windforce as I slammed into the roof of the building, rolled and rolled. Graceless as balls. Bloody and covered in grit. Gouged to shit.

  “Riko!” Indigo, hoarse.

  Missing.

  I panted for breath, struggled to get to my feet. Stumbling, tripping over myself, I staggered to the edge. Grabbed Indigo’s clinging hand with my metal fingers. Tried so hard to be careful.

  He flinched anyway. “Pull!”

  That I could do. Bracing my knees firmly on the edge, toes planted into the graveled lot, I heaved him up. The muscles woven into my shoulder girdle clenched, pinged, but Indigo wasn’t all that heavy. Not compared to the usual shit I did with this arm. He came up, swinging from one arm, grabbing the small pistol he’d put in his boot.

  As I dragged him to the surface, he swung midair, sighted and put two bullets in two mercs rolling up fast. I threw myself back from it, carried Indigo with my momentum. We both hit the ground, far enough from the edge to provide cover. Too close to keep us safe for long.

  I gasped for air, every breath torture, as I looked up. Nothing but neon and bright lights, advertisements and promises and buy, buy, buy.

  No helo.

  No help.

  Indigo’s hand clenched around my ankle. “Riko.” A gritty rasp. “C’mere.”

  I didn’t want to. Couldn’t summon the energy, the will. Wasn’t even sure my battered meat would allow it. I choked on gasps of air, flinched as it burbled at my shoulder. My ribs.

  Tashi. Fidelity.

  Why?

  “Riko.”

  Groaning, shattered in so many ways, I rolled over. Dragged myself, fingers biting into the ground. Indigo’s hand grabbed mine and pulled until I made it to his side. He sucked in air. Spat out blood.

  Blackened.

  Thick.

  It spattered on his chest, already filthy. Gleamed in oily rivulets.

  My world went cold. Empty. Numb. “No,” I whispered raggedly.

  He couldn’t grab my hair, there was nothing left. He settled for seizing my chin, holding me still. I stared into his eyes – so blue, darker than Nanji’s, but ohfuckinggod, exactly the same. Right down to the irises going black. Bit by bit. Too fast.

  Too far.

  My head screamed – fuzzed, grayed. I refused. I would not lose them all.

  I smacked his hand away, grabbed his hair, jerked hard enough to pin his head down. Face to face. “Don’t you dare,” I snarled, on the ragged edge of collapse. “Don’t you fucking dare turn on me, you smug son of a bitch.”

  His smile, a caricature of his usual, rimmed black. Black in his teeth. On his tongue, flecking his lips. Something I recognized all too well swam under those deep blue eyes. Something dark and alien.

  “Too late,” he said thickly. He choked, grating and bloody. Straining every nano I had left, every stretched ligament and the last of my blood flow, I dragged him onto my lap. Cradled his head up so the nanos flooding his blood found a way out. He kept trying to talk. Kept trying to burble something.

  I flinched. “Come on,” I whispered. “Don’t do this to me. I just…” I just got you back.

  He grabbed the front of my shirt, bloodstained koala crumpling in his fist. “Riko, listen to me.” Guttural and low. He dragged me close. “The data… I found something wrong.” I shook my head; didn’t care. His fist tightened, teeth bared. “Listen to me. It’s big. Bigger th- than we thought.”

  I laughed, bitter and too much like a sob. “Obviously!”

  “Muerte,” he interrupted. “Need to…” He choked. Gagged. Managed, “Ask her.”

  “Ask her what?”

  A shout. I raised my head, caught sight of a head ducking behind cover. They’d wised up to the killbox we’d made of the area. But also to the trap we’d set up for ourselves. There was no way out.

  “Riko, listen,�
� Indigo said quietly, wet and ragged. “I’m not making it out of here.”

  “The tits you–”

  “Don’t.” He tugged on my shirt. I closed my eyes and let my head hang forward. Exhaustion. Anger. Terror.

  So much loss.

  “Find out,” he ordered. “It’s up to you. Find out before th- this goes v- viral.” He struggled to say the words. “She knows. Muerte. She kn…” It died on a gurgle. He heaved out a breath that bubbled, from lips and the hole in his meat. “I’m s- sorry.”

  Sad eyes and a sadder smile. I’m sorry, Nanji had mouthed, silent behind a thick pane of tempered, impenetrable glass.

  Brother and sister. Backbone of the team I’d made; the family I’d thought I’d found again.

  Indigo’s blood-smeared forehead bumped mine. “Never fucking look back.”

  “I hate you.” My voice shook. Hard.

  “Yeah.” And he smiled.

  The cunting bastard smiled.

  Manticore rounds weren’t made to be neat. Up close, they only got messier. The sound thundered in the narrow space between us, drowned out everything else but the screaming in my head. His eyes, a fierce ring of blue drowning in black, widened. Exploded outward, a wake of ruin. Warm, wet globules of flesh and brain splattered across my face. Thudded like rubber against my armor. His jaw shattered outward with the force of the bullet and I held his sagging, convulsing body up in my arms as the light faded from the eyes so much like his sister’s.

  I’d been here before.

  I’d seen it just like this.

  This time, I pulled the trigger myself.

  46

  As the shredded meat that had once been my linker – my best friend, the core of my whole fucking world – sank through my fingers, something inside me broke. This time, I felt it. My spine turned to ice. My body to stone. My heart stopped beating right the fuck there. I picked up his Manticore with raw, bloodied fingers and staggered, tottering, to my feet.

  A gun knocked against the back of my head. Right over my chipset.

  “You stupid cunting necrobitch,” Muerte rasped behind me. Her voice, always hoarse, cut the noise across the rooftops with jagged contempt. “All you had to do was leave the chipset there and this would never have happened.”

  My fist locked around the Manticore’s handle. “Muerte,” I spat. It bubbled. I couldn’t get a good breath.

  Ask her.

  Oh, Indigo. I didn’t have to. It came together in my head with a click I would have been ashamed of if I weren’t so. Shitting. Angry.

  Every muscle in my body locked. “You. I was right, wasn’t I? You’re the pendejo.”

  “I almost shit my pants when you said that,” she admitted. Her humor, always rough, darkened. “Figured you were too stupid. My bad.”

  My breath shook. “You set me up with the Shepherds. Why?”

  “Ugh. Carmichael,” she spat. “He was supposed to capture you alive.” Heathen cunt. Of course.

  I closed my eyes. My jaw ached from clenching it. My ribs were on fire. Every part of me wanted to collapse inward.

  I refused.

  “You,” I said thickly. “Did you set the Squad on me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you turned on them?”

  She shook her head faintly, sounding pleased. “Rictor and I cut a deal behind Dancer’s back.”

  I wanted to call her a tool, but couldn’t scrape it together. Dancer, I knew full well, would get her own back. So I swallowed the blood in my throat, spat what wouldn’t go down.

  The gun barrel dragged across my scalp, scoring a line of pain from chipset to ear. Then temple. Muerte wasn’t stupid enough to get in front of me. Or to choose my left side. “I’m glad we had this talk.” Aggravation littered her words. “It was getting embarrassing watching you, Riqa. I mean, I even slipped. That little twatwaffle wasn’t supposed to get my scouts.”

  Her scouts. Hers. They’d kept looking at Muerte.

  Because they worked for her.

  MetaCorp scouts and Muerte?

  Everything hurt too much to think through. Everything froze. Time had stopped for me. Even as blood leaked down my chin, as it pooled down my legs and joined Indigo’s spreading crimson stain, I stared straight ahead. Focused every iota of my attention on every tiny twitch she made in my peripheral.

  “Who?” I croaked.

  “Who what?”

  “Who paid you?”

  “Ai.” Slowly, she moved out a foot. Nudged Indigo’s body with her toes. Checking for necro, maybe.

  I’d solved that. There was nothing left of his chipset. Nothing left of him.

  Blind bloody rage filled me. More than I’d ever known, deeper than anything I had ever tasted. Like blood and raw meat and gristle torn to shreds. Like a black hole burning red at the center.

  And Muerte’s face in my sights.

  She smiled crookedly. “MetaCorp.”

  Right. My lips twisted. Bared bloody teeth. Pink foam spat from my mouth as I hissed, “Corporate tool.”

  “That’s funny, coming from you.” The CounterTech’s barrel dug so hard into my temple, skin broke beneath it. I clenched my eyes shut. Saw red and forced them open again. “A girl’s got to make creds.” A brittle smile. “It’s no different than bending over for Mantis. Except in this particular case, you were encroaching on my employer’s turf. Although I can’t blame you,” she added, chuckling with humor sharper than the moment deserved. “MetaCorp did try to fuck over your boss, too.”

  I tilted my head just enough to search her face. “If Knacklock was MetaCorp’s,” I managed through my teeth, “why the shit did you infiltrate it?”

  “Two reasons. One, we lost contact twenty-four hours ago.” She shrugged, glanced over when mercs across the way shouted. Four had popped up. Calmly, Muerte lifted the Insurgent held in her other hand and held the trigger down. She’d modified the clip.

  The mercs went down, but I couldn’t tell if they’d dropped or were bleeding out. The others stayed covered.

  “Protocols,” she added calmly, “sealed the vault. My job was to get in there and get the data before it fell into Mantis’ hands.”

  My breath shorted. My lungs wouldn’t fill. The whole right side of my body was beginning to sag. Even anger, violent and desperate, couldn’t keep me upright for much longer.

  “Two,” she continued, “you went and invited Malik fucking Reed as if he weren’t part of the problem. I had to protect the investment. Collect or destroy. Turns out the fucking thing destroyed itself, and only this asshole walked away with anything at all.”

  At my feet, Indigo’s blood mixed with mine.

  I stared at it. Racked my brain. “I don’t get it.”

  “Surprise.”

  Trails of dark black hair seeped into the crimson pool.

  “Why go through all this trouble?”

  “Because the job had always been to track you down.” Muerte reached around me. Tugged the Manticore from my grip. “I’d hoped isolating you would make it easier.” Her CounterTech II remained rock solid. She wasn’t a borderline splatter specialist for nothing.

  But then, I was so much more than borderline.

  “You’re worth more alive, but I’m under the same orders and I can’t risk taking you in now. All this bullshit has gone too fucking far.” Sighing, her voice softened just enough to piss me off even more. “If it’s any consolation, I’m not happy about it. You were a damn good runner until they fucked with you.”

  Fucked with me?

  I wanted to ask. My lungs wouldn’t give me enough air to try.

  “At least,” she continued, her dark eyes empty of laughter, “you got a second chance. I’m jealous, nena. I wish…”

  Whatever it was she wanted to wish, she let it out in a short, choppy exhale. It sounded too much like regret. Her wide mouth turned down. “I know,” she added without my saying anything. Like it all weighed on her. She didn’t have the right. “You are not my girlfriend. So just be q
uiet and let me have the chipsets.” Muerte cocked the CounterTech.

  A worthless power move.

  In the split second she took to swing her dick, I bent my skull into the barrel, turned and drove my frayed, bleeding elbow into her chest.

  Agony ripped through my flesh. My lung gave up entirely, filling my throat with blood. Muerte staggered, surprise clearly etched on her features. Replaced by determined anger.

  I watched it shift to fucking dread as my tech fist came around.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Fire dug talons into my pounding skull.

  With the same turn’s momentum, every joint cracking at me and every nerve screaming and screaming and screaming…

  No. That was me screaming. Burbling. Choking.

  And that was Muerte screaming, too, as my fist drove through her ribs. Bone cracked. Shifted. The numbers in my optics hit steel-bending digits and Muerte lost her footing. My meat flagged, but the arm Orchard had fixed up and the shoulder girdle she’d strengthened didn’t.

  Blood spewed from her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

  She hit the roof’s ground, rolled over and over and over until her boneless body collided with the walled ledge. Dust and grit floated in her wake, disturbed by her impact. The signs all around us flashed and flickered, meatspace neon that turned that trail of dust to a rainbow.

  Muerte didn’t move.

  Second chance.

  Slowly, as shouting spattered the makeshift cover, I turned around. Looked down at Indigo’s body. Something purple and rubbery had hit the ground. Bounced. A lung. Part of one. Heh.

  Spots floated in my eyes. Black. Heavy. I looked down at my arm.

  More black.

  My chest.

  Black, black. And a fucking big hole.

  Nanos dribbled from my wounds, thick and darker than blood. Thicker than Indigo’s or Tashi’s. Millions. Billions. It took so many to make rivulets like that.

  Never fucking look back.

  I don’t remember turning away from Indigo’s twisted corpse. But I must have. Because suddenly there was screaming coming from a skull I gripped in my metal hand and Indigo’s brains made friends across my cheek.