by Bear Ross
Another four-being crew of Nines flowed past them, weapons pointed in different directions, clearing out the remaining rows of industrial shelving. A whistle sounded from the back, and Dodger and his battered team mates emerged from cover. The warehouse section was secure.
Shrill, inhuman screams and a muffled gunshot sounded upstairs. Quiet settled over the shattered structure. Hushed tones crackled over a radio from somewhere behind her, and an answer crackled back.
Dodger slumped over in the boxes, holding one hand over his ear's comm device, the other signaling to her the raid was over.
“Kramer. Target secured,” the Niner said, his tight, scarred face pulled into something resembling a smile. “Casualty assist. Prep extract.”
The bastard avoided a stream of gatling fire, she thought, lit off a demo charge at danger-close range, and didn't have a gate-damn scratch on him. No wonder they called him Dodger. And where the void did a Niner get a gold tooth?
“Come here and extract this damn piece of building off me, first, Rockrib,” she said, grinning back at him.
Dodger and another Nine rolled the dense slab of concrete foam off her. It was both a relief and curse. The blood flowed down her arm, and she hoped that hand was not going to be a factor in the next match. A Ninety-Nine medic spritzed her hand, numbing and immobilizing it, and slap-rolled a drug-laced clotting patch on her arm. Ow.
With one hand ineffective, she wasn't much good to the casualty evacuation effort. She pulled her carbine out from the rubble. A deep scratch was now etched into the buttstock's plastic, and the sheet metal ammo drum was crushed and dented. She slung it behind her, and watched Nolo and the medics zip their fallen comrades, or what was left of them, into body bags.
Jessica lent a shoulder to one of the limping, wounded Nines, helping him back to the transport. There, the Headhunter sat, still dormant. She regarded him for a moment, tried to flex her hand again to no avail, then turned to go back inside. She wanted to see upstairs, to see if that last scream had been from the Niff technician, Kitos.
Despite her protests, the Nines wouldn't let her back in the building. Like the previous targets, they were setting demolition charges. Unable to pass, she felt anger rising up in her, the drug aggressive effects surging once more to the forefront.
A chirping squawk came inside the lobby. At the top of the short stairs, a burned and mutilated Niff appeared, supported by two Nines. His swollen golden eyes locked with hers in recognition. It was Kitos. She tamped down the rage, her hands curling in a spasm as a shiver ran through her. Gate damn, this stuff was tricky.
The escaped Shasarr and his dead Skevvian friend had worked Kitos over, and hard. Welts and bruises appeared through rips in his blue fur, and fingers were missing from one of his mangled left hands.
“I-I am glad to... see you, Pilot. Grateful... grateful,” he said with a rasp. Jessica gave him a grim nod.
“I'm... happy to see you, too, Kitos,” she said, the words seeming the wrong fit for her mouth. “Now, go with the Nines, and wait for me in the transport. I'll be there in a minute.”
“I-I owe you my life,” the wounded Niff said. “Beliphres... he wanted credits... wanted info on you... tortured me. Wouldn't talk. I-I owe life-debt, pilot.”
“Easy, Niff, just relax, and get on the transport,” she said. “There wasn't any other choice. I had to come get you.”
She didn't say why, of course. The timing wasn't right, and she didn't want to upset the blue being; without him, she wouldn't get the answers she needed from the Judah module.
They loaded the dead and wounded into the transport. One last Niner trooper, the squad leader who first led the team out of the hatch, emerged from the building. He jumped in, a lumpy bag of severed heads over one shoulder. Twelve from this building alone, bringing the day's total to twenty-nine. Not a bad haul, and a few of those are mine, she thought with a hard grin.
The armored transport's grav pods glowed, bringing it to a hover, then it boosted away. A series of subsonic thumps rolled through the hull beneath them, marking the distant end of the target building. Collapsing, it joined the four other Beliphres properties in a bath of flame and smoke.
Scattered across the bleak and scorched Fifth Gate Zone, columns of black smoke spiraled into the gray skies of Junctionworld.
The signal was sent. The Headhunter’s War had begun.
Chapter Thirty-Six
SIXTH GATE ZONE
THE HEADHUNTER’S LAIR
Jessica’s dreams on the way back to the Headhunter's lair were troubled. In one, she was being carved to pieces by a giant combination of the Headhunter and Masamune Kyuzo, her flesh sliced bit by bit with a blazing plasma sword. Next, she was a bullet, flying through purple flesh and blood. The one that stuck out most in her memory was of her father, her brother, and Prath, all taking turns screaming at her.
Solomon and Jered Kramer were both horrid, re-animated corpses trying to push her off a cliff that loomed behind her. The bullet wound in her father's head gaped at her, the red light of Judah's indicator light flaring from the hole in his skull, and he kept saying, “bubelah,” over and over again.
Jered's body was charred and smashed, but he still continued to pour liquor through his mouth and out the bottom of his rib cage. Prath turned away from her, letting them do this to her, his disapproval billowing from his lips like smoke.
The three of them combined in a chaotic smear, and suddenly she was falling…
Jessica woke with a start, screaming, her arms up in front of her. Panicked, she looked around her in wide-eyed alarm. She was still strapped into the armored transport's jump seat. The Headhunter looked at her with black eyes, a smile on his face.
“Nasty dreams when that stuff finally filters out of your system,” the red cyborg said. “Ask me how I know.” A shiver ran through his weapon arms.
“It's not really tuned for you guys,” the Headhunter continued, ”but we Model Nines, for the most part, have the same basic biocode as humans. We started, somewhere out there, as replacements for you, you know. So, the autodoc put it in you to help with the leg wound. It's great for healing, and getting you through a fight. I always hated the come-down after, though.”
The two of them were alone in the transport. The gear was unloaded, but the gore from the dead and wounded was still there in puddles and bits of meat. The sack of heads sat at the base of the loading ramp, a small pool of blood congealing around the slumped base.
“You did well, today,” the Headhunter said, smiling. “You really shined, though, on that last target. Dodger and Coldeye both told me, you helped knock out that walker. I saw the gun-cam footage. You even protected Nolo and me from that purple punk gunning for the transport. Good stuff. Do you want to keep that last guy's head?” His claws flexed when he asked the last question.
“Thanks, that's the most tempting offer I've had all day,” Jessica said. “But... no. Which... which one is Coldeye?”
“The squad leader. First guy out of the hatch,” the Headhunter said. “He and I go way back.”
A look of concern crossed his face.
“You bagged four heads today,” he said. “How does that fit with you? Are you okay with that?”
Jessica nodded. She was woozy from the drugs, and her head ached in dull, throbbing pulses as the performance and healing enhancer left her system.
“I remember, now,” she said, pressing the side of her temple. “Gates, that combat drug makes things a nasty blur. No... I don't think taking out a few venters is going to be a problem.”
“That might be a problem, all in itself,” the Headhunter said.
“Nah. If you’re worried about some crisis of conscious, I had to do some shady stuff in back-alley matches to afford NoName. Life's cheap in Junctionworld, you know, and I've been around this stuff all my life. Doing it, up close, in person... it's different, but it's also kinda the same. Does that make any sense?”
“I'm twisted, like you, so... absolutely,” he s
aid, a sarcastic grin on his face. She smiled back, pecking at the scratch on the borrowed carbine's buttstock.
“So, now what?”
“So, now,” the Headhunter said, “you take your damaged Niff, and you take your damaged mech, and your damaged self, and you get back to Vervor's shot-up shop. Somehow, you mix all that stuff together, and you outfight some hitman the Gatekeepers have brought in to kill you. Then, you wait patiently for the next crisis to explode all around you.”
“Sounds simple, enough,” Jessica said. “Maybe I'll have time for a beer or two. Or seven.” She let out a small laugh.
“There's that fire. Ha!” the giant cyborg said, smiling back at her.
“I owe you for helping me get Kitos back,” she said. “I don't really know how to repay you.”
“Actually, Kramer, I owe you,” the Headhunter said, a small hint of embarrassment and regret on his face. “Vervor's shop shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have lost it, in front of you, either. So, to make it up to you, I'm fixing your Niff. They did a nasty bit of work on him, but he'll be fine. We'll hook him up with a new hand, and even put a new datalink into his cortex. He'll be able to talk to his test equipment directly, now.”
He pointed at the weapon still strapped across her chest.
“You like the LaRue? The 787? Bad little hammer, isn't it?” the red cyborg said. “You can keep that one, if you like, or I can have Nolo get you a fresh one from the armory. We got a crate of them in trade for a job, some time back.”
“No, I like this one, scratched buttstock and all,” she said. “It gives it some character. Thanks, though.”
“How's the hand?”
“I thought it was broken,” she answered. “It must just be sprained. I can move it, but it's stiff as void.”
She looked at him with a touch of alarm in her eyes.
“I don't want a replacement, if that's what you mean,” Jessica said.
“C'mon, 'better living through cybernetics,' Kramer,” he said, laughing. “Look how great it turned out for me.”
“Yeah, that's okay, Headhunter,” she said, a wry grin on her face. “I prefer to pilot mechs, not be one.”
“Suit yourself,” the cyborg said, lifting his lethal bulk up from his ready rack. “Oof... alright, time to get back to the main charging station. See Nolo on the way out, Pilot Kramer. He has something for you, and you'd better take it. No strings attached, I promise.”
The armored titan’s heavy steps echoed down the transport’s ramp. He picked up the bag of severed skulls with a small, secondary arm, and went into his throne room, out of sight.
Jessica watched him go, then picked up the Larue 787 carbine, examining its lethal lines. She ran a finger along the ragged groove carved into the buttstock, contemplating the day’s events.
I wish Prath were here, she thought.
“Nolo, Boss says have item for selfsame?” Jessica said.
The Ninety-Nine turned to face the feminine voice now speaking in clipped Nine verbiage. He shook his head when he saw it was her, a smirk on his otherwise-featureless face.
“Hang around Nines, possible lose higher speech functions, Pilot,” Nolo said, tapping the side of his head. “Unwell habit. Possible start cogging like Nines.”
“Aw, that wouldn't be so bad, Nolo,” Jessica replied. “The Recyke boys and I seemed to get along, slaying bodies and what not. I don't know if you and the other Rockribs were humoring me, but we kicked some major Gatekeeper butt out there, today, didn't we?”
“Just start of war, pilot,” Nolo said. “Just opening salvo. Demo few structures, take few skulls. Just small part of picture. Secure mental headspace for imminent conflict. Focus. ‘Headhunter is The Future, Headhunter is The Way,’ affirm, but not easy route to waypoint. Lot more heads roll, soon.”
The Headhunter’s chief of staff offered a credit stick to her. She pulled back, cocking her head to the side.
“The Headhunter told me I couldn't refuse it,” she said, skepticism in her voice, “and there were no strings attached. Is... is that true? Be honest, now.”
“Utmost true. Pilot Kramer earned this,” Nolo said. “Boss reinforced same. No strings. Extra, too. Pilot added four heads to Boss's wall. Bounty ten thousand each.” Jessica's eyes went wide when a numeric figure scrolled across the stick’s small screen.
“Two-hundred and forty-thousand credits? Gates, that's a lot of money,” Jessica said, taking the credit storage bauble. “This collecting skulls thing could become a habit.” She turned it over in her fingers, admiring it.
“Headhunting another unwell habit, Pilot,” the Ninety-Nine said. “Leave to professionals.” Nolo placed a hand over his earpiece as a muffled message came over his comm line.
“Pilot's Niff stabilized and enhancement calibrated. Outbound,” he said.
A door opened, and two Recyke Niner medics emerged, including the one who patched up her arm after the raids. They rolled Kitos out in a wheelchair. Unpowered? Where did they find that antique? She thought.
“Pilot, I-I am mended, thanks to kindness of Nines, the Niff said, waving his new prosthetic hand. “Upgrades, see?”
His large eyes were golden slits. Jessica wondered if it was the fatigue of the ordeal, or the after-effects of the anesthetic. Probably a little bit of both, poor, dumb thing, she thought.
“The Headhunter told me they had a compatible replacement,” Jessica said, “along with a cortex interface. That's a high-end mod, Niff.”
“Yes, I-I know, Pilot Kramer,” the blue-furred technician said. “I-I owe more than a few life-debts, now, I-I think. It is good thing Niffs believe in multiple reincarnations.”
Jessica shook her head as she examined the Niff's new composite and alloy hand. It was some nice work. The Headhunter’s operation had access to some top-notch parts.
“All this over a few bad bets on the back-alley matches, huh, Kitos?” she said, smirking. “What, you just couldn't pick the right mech-jockeys? Was the thrill of the wager worth it?”
The Niff looked ashamed, but unafraid.
“I-I am foolish gambler, Pilot, yes, but intent was honest,” Kitos said. “Not addict. Not compulsive. I-I was trying to finance existence fee of lifemate. I-I wanted to petition Honorable Mikralos, attempt to bring her here, to Junctionworld, from home dimension. I-I am sorry for all this. Feel responsible.”
“All this for a girl?” Jessica said. “C'mon, Niff, there's got to be more to it than that.”
“She is all reason I-I need,” the Niff answered. We are lifemates. Betrothed since—”
“Okay, okay, I get it, Kitos,” she said, holding up her hands and smiling. “Just, spare me the holo-drama mushiness, would you, please? Gates, all this for a love-sick Niff.”
“And I-I am eternally grateful, Pilot,” Kitos said.
“Well, you're in one piece,” she said, “but it's one smaller, hacked-on piece, so maybe we can prorate the 'eternal' part of that promise. 'Grateful' is nice, though, thanks.”
“We need to get you to the hospital,” she continued, “and run up the tab on Mikralos's medical bills. You know, just on general principle. Nolo, do you think you can give us a ride to the same place they're keeping Vervor?”
The Ninety-Nine nodded, and pointed towards the door. Jessica placed the credit stick in her jacket, next to her father's flask. She pushed Kitos’ antique wheelchair to the waiting hover sedan.
Two hundred and forty large. Not bad for one day's haul, she thought.
Another shiver ran through her. She dry-heaved, felt a cold sweat break out down her back, then dry-heaved again. That stuff must still be working itself out. Great, she thought.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
SIXTH GATE ZONE
UNITED GATECARE AUTOMATED MEDICAL FACILITY
Jessica Kramer pushed Kitos through the entrance doors to the medical facility, a small skip in her stride as she leaned on the wheelchair’s handles. Behind her, Nolo's grav-sedan disappeared into Junctionworld’s gray, flic
kering skies as soon as the ancient wheelchair touched the curb.
She could see a familiar Gatekeeper’s chassis through the Autodoc facility’s clear doors. As the doors opened, she had a wide, leering grin on her face.
“Why, Mikralos, what a wonderful surprise, seeing you here,” she said.
The two ornamental bodyguards Mikralos traveled with were absent. The floating overlord looked away from the slender med-bot doctor to whom he was talking, and turned his armored carapace to face her. Kitos's ears folded flat when he saw that Mikralos was at the medical facility.
“Pilot Kramer, we greet you in the Ways of the Old Code,” Mikralos said, “and are more than overjoyed to see you escaped harm during this horrific crime committed by—”
“Oh, I think we both know who it was committed by, Honored Mikralos,” she said, the false grin still on her face. “You Gatekeepers are supposed to be all-knowing, all-seeing when it comes to things happening in your little areas of control, right? No need to go any further into explanations or excuses. I think I understand.”
“We do not fathom your meaning,” the Gatekeeper said, puzzled, “but do not wish to aggravate you in your traumatized condition, and thus, will ignore your remark, for now. Perhaps you have suffered a head wound, and should seek medical attention. Regardless, the Nines of the local Enforcement Directorate barracks inform us that their investigation is underway, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice soon.”
“I'm sure they're hot on the case, Mikralos,” she said, sarcasm in her voice, “and the criminals will be held to the highest standards of Gatekeeper justice.”
The doc-bot scanned Kitos in the wheelchair. It seemed as attentive to the archaic rolling chair as to the wounded Niff.
Mikralos gestured with a claw towards the blue-furred technician.