Joey struggled to pull himself up, screaming at the sight of the Russian’s red glowing eyes under the trailer. He swung down on a one-armed grip as the general charged; cackling as the concrete where his arm had just been broke into fragments and fell over him toward the city below.
Anatoly reared back to stomp Joey’s arm through the retaining wall when a line of melt holes streaked at him, making him leap away. A piece of mangled rebar protruding from the break Nemsky had so conveniently stomped into the barrier provided the handhold he needed, and Joey slithered up to the road.
To the outside observer, Joey appeared to be sprawled face down, but as far as Joey felt, he hugged solid ground.
Masaru ran up on the grinning Nemsky, dropping the S-19 onto its strap as he drew his katana. Metal blades snapped out of the general’s arms, filling the area with the unsettling hum of active vibro inducers. Joey rolled onto his side, unloading several more shots into Anatoly’s chest, two of which caused sparks.
Masaru leaned right, avoiding the Russian’s first attack. The vibro claws tore two gashes in the outer plate of the passenger side main wheel, cutting and melting as they went through. Continuing the spin, Masaru caught Nemsky in the lower back with a shallow slice. The feel of the strike told him he fought a doll, as if having the door thrown at him was not obvious enough.
The thought of crippling him and getting the hell out of there rattled through Masaru’s mind. Before he could act on it, Nemsky lunged at him. This time, Masaru sidestepped and slashed the incoming limb. The Nano katana hesitated for a fraction of a second as it met the plastisteel bone at the center of the forearm. The force of the punch sent the severed limb flying into the truck where it stuck like a dart, wreathed in electrical arcs for several seconds from whatever it pierced.
Anatoly staggered away. He had not anticipated Masaru’s speed, or the presence of a Nano sword. He had every thought of this being no more dangerous than squashing a pair of bugs. Rather than back down, he snarled and lunged again. Faking a strike with his still intact left arm, he kicked Masaru in the back as he turned to defend from the feint. The robotic kick launched him into a tongue-kiss with the cargo box. He bounced off in a drunken stagger, bringing his blade up to defend against a spinning world as best he could.
The general lined up for another attack at his stunned foe, but two slugs from Joey’s pistol in the back of the head diverted his attention. One bounced away with a ping, but the second knocked him forward a step as it lodged in a plastisteel skull. Blue light glowed from within, visible through a small crack, while blood oozed around the slug. Joey ran for the front of the truck, seeking distance from the edge.
With a loud growl, Nemsky grabbed Masaru and hurled him into Joey. Masaru held his blade away as the two men collided and slid in a heap for about ten meters into the metal road. Passing drivers swerved to avoid them, honking. The impact knocked the wind out of Joey, but Masaru’s armor spared him.
“Think there’s a little boy inside this one?” Joey tried to grin.
Masaru growled. “Not even close to funny.”
Nemsky came stomping over as Masaru flung himself upright. Blades clashed a half dozen times as they circled. The harsh buzz of vibro claws against Masaru’s sword reminded Joey of an old alarm clock. A speeding car interrupted their duel, forcing them to dive to either side away from the screeching horn.
After several exchanges, Nemsky again underestimated Masaru’s speed and left himself open. Masaru threw himself off his feet, combining an upswing with a backward roll. The katana severed the vibro claws just past the knuckle as Masaru slid under them, sending two white-hot blades twisting into the air. One wedged into the side of a passing car, the other stuck into the road between Joey’s knees, making him squeak. The younger Kurotai completed the maneuver standing, and lunged at his opponent.
The general was more agile than his body appeared, and leaned out of the way of several more swings with successive backward steps. Anticipating Masaru’s next stroke, he caught him by the forearm and hauled him into the air, around in a circle, and put him headfirst through the window of a passing car. The vehicle lost control and swerved into a support structure a short distance down the road.
Nemsky turned his attention to Joey and scowled. “Now, my friend, you will learn why I am called the Butcher.” He leaned on the end of his words with a grandiose flair.
Olive green liquid burbled from his severed arm, but it did not seem to slow him down. Joey sighed at his weapon; it felt almost pointless to shoot this thing. His little class 3 pistol could not do enough damage fast enough to a doll, and he had nowhere to run.
A gleam of inspiration hit him, and he aimed at the stalking monster. The Russian laughed at him, not even slowing down. When the aim point shifted without warning, Nemsky paused in confusion. Joey lit off a shot, savaging the right front tire of an approaching vehicle into a spray of rubber fragments. The car lurched in the direction of the lost tire―right into Nemsky. The car came to an abrupt halt while the general sailed into the air. Twenty meters away, Anatoly landed on his cheek and slid for several feet before going into a tumble. Plumes of smoke oozed around the huge dent in the hood of the car while luminous blue fluid froze over the front tires. Joey’s laughter stopped when Nemsky got back up, now with a half-metal face, and he took off running around the truck with the general on his heels.
After the second lap, Joey dropped into a knee slide as he rounded the corner. Anatoly thought he had slipped and prepared for the kill, but Joey had done the limbo under Masaru’s waiting blade. The general’s dodge was slow, and the katana scored on Nemsky’s right thigh, almost amputating the leg. Enough damage came from the hit that the Myofiber muscles failed, dumping Anatoly to the ground.
Masaru maneuvered for another strike when an unexpected punch to the shin caught him off guard. The leg offered no resistance to the metal fist. His armor splintered into black gleaming shards as his shin bent forward. The force of the hit blasted his legs out from under him, slamming him to the ground on his chest.
A scream of barbaric laughter erupted from the Russian. He raised his arm to crush Masaru’s skull. Joey fired again, sending four bullets into his chest and two into the side of the head. Bits of artificial skin and metal flew, but the large blue spark that flashed out of the side of the head did little to stop the downward fist.
Masaru twisted out from under the attack, leaving the doll pounding a dent in the road surface. Neuralware on, he rolled back as a blur, lancing the katana downward through Anatoly’s spine into the ground. The general strained to reach Masaru’s face; his fingers fell short. His one remaining hand clawed at the ground, but the mechanical body’s systems already experienced critical failure, and strength had gone. Synthetic fingernails scraped shreds of traction coating away from the metal road for several swipes, until the body fell limp; a pool of translucent green fluid expanded beneath him.
Both men lay in silence as Joey crept up on them.
Masaru sat up, arranging the noodle of his leg back into a human shape. Flicks of his eye navigated the armor’s control system and triggered the internal stim injectors, which surrounded him in a luminous green mist as they all fired at once. His pain changed to a sublime grin as the meds saturated his body and he fell flat on his back. The leg was still a mess; he would need an hour or two in a tank to repair the bone, but he would not bleed to death. He drew the katana from the vanquished doll, and sneered at him.
“Well, that was exciting.” Joey glanced at the inert machine and looked over his shoulder at the wrecked car from which his friend had crawled.
Masaru patted his armor. “Best three hundred grand I ever spent.”
They both cringed at a sudden roar. The general was in midair, screaming. He landed on Joey, driving him to the ground with an iron grip around his throat. A savage growl flowed through a manic grin. Sparks crackled over its half-metal face as the laughter broke into digitized chunks of sound. White neural memory fluid leaked
from every opening in his head, including several made by bullets.
The strength left the doll’s hand as Masaru’s katana sank inches into Nemsky’s side. Warm liquid drenched Joey’s chest. As sharp as the Nano blade was, the plastisteel spine and all the internal components had offered more resistance than his battered muscles could overcome. He jerked the sword out as Joey drew his legs up and shoved the heap of parts to the side.
A flash of clear synthetic diamond streaked past Joey’s face as the katana scored across Nemsky’s collarbone, stopping halfway through the torso. A second shower of olive liquid exploded out of the gashes; Nemsky’s roaring degenerated completely into electric warbles. Erratic twitching limbs froze in place and he fell headfirst into the road like a mannequin. Spasms tossed him about as the broken voice spouted random words in English as well as Russian. The babble reached a crescendo pitch, going higher and higher until it blurred into an electronic squeal before falling quiet. Joey lifted his gun, blinked once, and emptied the rest of his ammunition into the body―just to be sure.
Gasping for breath, Joey fumbled with his NetMini. The sound that came out of him when Nina’s holographic face appeared was more whisper than voice, but enough for her to make out his words. Sirens wailed in the distance as he smiled through blood.
“Nina… You’re not gonna believe who I just ran into.”
n elderly woman wrapped in a torn brown coat tottered along a street packed with rag-clad citizens. She hunched over a battered and sparking hover cart full of old bags and trash. Her scarf-wrapped face kept a cautious gaze behind a curtain of yellowing grey hair, as if afraid to make eye contact with any of the people around her. Passing clouds of steam and smoke glowed orange and pink from holographic characters spread above the building fronts; Cyrillic words shifted and played in the evening light. Tall women clad in skimpy garments made of light chatted up prospective clients at the opening of an alley, ignoring the little grandmother. In every direction, stretched brownish-grey concrete, green steel, and despair.
Four men in black suits spilled into the crowd from a building a few blocks down. With gleaming pistols in their hands, they battered their way through the crowd like farmers scything wheat. Bodies flew to both sides as they advanced. They disregarded men, but threw every woman to the ground and held her down long enough to run a portable scanner. All four stood tall at the same instant, shouting in Russian across the crowd; one pointed down the street and they charged.
The men in fancy suits shoved the old woman into her junk cart as they forced their way past her. The frictionless thing drifted into the road; the ancient one clutched her scarf and screamed. A man in a striped blue shirt abandoned a large duffel bag and leapt to grab it, saving it from the hail of passing cars that moved as blurs.
“Spasiba.” The old woman accepted the cart, bowing and nodding.
The man said a few things but she just smiled. He chuckled, taking her for senile and walking away after collecting his bag. Fearful of the chaos on the thoroughfare, the woman toddled off into an alley, leaving the gunmen to thrash the crowd.
Miniscule pieces of trash on the ground drew great shadows along the walls in the yellow light from the hover cart’s lifter. The nightmarish images warped and stretched as she moved. Vagrants paid her little heed as she passed among them as one of their own, too busy muttering in the dark to notice an old woman with a cart full of junk.
At the end of the block, she wandered into a vacant lot and smiled at the quiet isolation. Feeling secure, she picked through her bags. Trash, old purses, a pair of jeans, and a boot with a hole in it; it all moved out of the way until she saw light. Her hands, gnarled and shaking, dug deeper and seized an eight-inch square tile, an inch thick with a glowing surface. She drew it closer to her face, caressing the glassy surface. A man in a Russian military uniform smiled up at her, the color of his coat hidden behind a ridiculous amount of medals and awards.
The bleak sky behind him gave off light that underlined every wrinkle upon her cheeks with darkness. In the alley, the object shone like a star amid a sea of blackness. The whispering vagrants quieted, staring with greed in their eyes. Her lips pulled back from the few stalwart yellow teeth that still clung to dying gums in a grotesque, yet genuine, smile.
With a fearful glance at the alley, she buried the object in her basket and extinguished the light. The cart rattled and buzzed as she crept several blocks more, past the rusting hulk of an old truck and up the ramp to a tram station. People stared derisively at her, pulling their belongings close, leaving a bubble of empty space around her as she waited. When the transit shuttle arrived, she shambled through the doors.
The old woman let off a wheezing groan and settled into the seat with her back to the window. She kept her head down as other people shuffled past her. Eventually the crowd stopped, and the tram got underway. One wrinkled hand clutched the cart, keeping it near her as the shuttle jostled with the journey. Several stops later, only a handful of passengers remained. The train neared the border. She poked at the trash in the hover cart, checking to make sure that none of the glow from her precious object escaped.
Harsh lights flooded in through narrow windows as the tram slid to a halt. Half a dozen men in maroon armor with Cyrillic writing on the shoulders stormed through the doors and went from person to person. She kept her head down until they stopped in front of her and spoke in Russian.
The old woman rummaged through the torn leather purse dangling from her arm. Her decaying grey sweater kept getting in the way, making the soldiers grumble and shift about. One brandished a rifle at her and she cowered behind her hands. Another looked unhappy with his squad mate threatening a little old woman and they traded words.
When she found a clear plastic card, she flashed a grandmother’s smile and held it up to the men. A picture, thirty years younger, shimmered into view upon its surface. Yanina Simonova appeared in six languages under the image. The holographic pane that unfolded above it indicated she was on her way to Britain to visit her granddaughter, Nastaya. An official notice, with an executive seal, indicated the younger woman stayed there on a student visa.
The soldiers exchanged glances, edging away from the little grandmother. Not one of them made eye contact any more.
“Prosti, prosti, eto prosto protsedura.” The one who threatened her forced an uneasy smile.
Their sergeant covered her ID with his hand, gesturing at her to put it away.
She bowed her head in a pleasant nod. “Ya ponimayu. Spokoynoy nochi.”
‘Student visa’ was code for covert operative. The ACC almost never gave normal citizens permission to leave the ACC.
“Davay, davay.” The sergeant swatted the nearest man on the back, pushing him down the aisle toward the next person.
The soldiers cleared the car, leaving her alone in the car. Ten minutes later, she was the only one left on the entire tram.
Heavy metal clunks came in succession along the tram, the sound passing as doors slammed from back to front; when it stopped, the intense light faded. A minute later, the cabin lurched forward and the tram accelerated, hurtling across barren, scorched ground on a path that would take it out of ACC Europe. Enormous black and white faces faded in over the nothing; echoing voices spouted propaganda catch phrases. Something about being all “in this” together, hard work equals prosperity, and ‘we’re watching.’ The old woman closed her eyes, jostling about on the seat as the train raced toward an immense black wall on the horizon, stretching as far as visible in both directions. Covered with flashing lights and foreboding machinery, it grew into the sky as she neared. Dozens of stories tall, a circuit-like pattern of cyan light-paths crisscrossed its surface.
The tram plunged into the darkness of a tunnel, a needle into the side of a giant.
When light returned, the old woman was gone. In her place, a six foot two blonde clad head to toe in gloss black. She examined her breasts, and loosed a sound that melted from a vixen’s haughty laugh to the grave
ly chuckle of an aging man in a black western hat. The shape changed again; the Soviet secret agent became the dark cowboy.
A victorious smile bared his jagged teeth as he brushed his long black coat aside and pulled the glowing object into view to stare into the face of Anatoly Nemsky.
“Ya nashol tebya, tovarishch.” He saluted the data tile. “Bliad!”
He grumbled, picking at a screen that opened to his right. He grabbed a highlight on a line of Cyrillic characters and threw it up onto the word ‘English’.
“Ahh, there we go.”
Joey had found him, deep in an ACC file system. Knowing he had gotten in and out without being found kept a smug curl in his lip for the rest of the ride, enjoying his victory over the protocols that prevented netizens in ACC territories from changing their appearance in cyberspace.
“Those idiots are probably still looking for Natasha Bimbonova.”
With time to kill, he sifted through the data object.
The contents of the tile caused the coarse white streaks of steel wool he called eyebrows to lift. Surprise was not a common face for the dark cowboy; this would need to reach Nina.
The hour or two it took to ride was closer to five or six minutes in real time―longer still when entering ACC territory. The network blocked universal logouts, forcing anyone in cyberspace to exit through designated checkpoints or risk a fried brain. When he arrived back in the West City part of the net, his curiosity got the better of him. With Nemsky out of the way, he turned his attention to the Division 9 section of the police net.
Nina had been thrilled to see Nemsky dead, but her exuberance faded when she learned he was a doll. Joey wanted to know everything he could about her. At some point during their long conversation, she had slipped and mentioned the name of her boss. After finding him in the roster, the aged gunslinger morphed into the likeness of Harold Hardin. Spoofing an authorized user made network infiltration much easier, but this was still Division 9, and his deck was a pile of junk. Most would call him insane for even trying to get in there with a grade 3 deck. Joey looked at it as a harsher time limit before they found him. With a specific target in mind, he went right for the classified personnel files.
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