The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Unfortunately, that meant that a lot of the guys working with him? They were fucking morons.

  Mullens ended up night supervisor within two months, after the last guy got fired for “use of force” applied to a landing light. The guy before that sold his stinger for reza. Last night, Johnson had zapped a damned fox and claimed it “came right at him”. These idiots were straight of dronetown. Most of them probably couldn’t even read. The Lieutenant stared at him like he was a fucking prodigy when he turned in a typed report - with complete sentences - after his first shift in dispatch, and he’d been bumped up to Corporal right then and there. At first, it had been awesome, being the absolute best at something. After a couple months, it had turned into a slow-motion clusterfuck. He’d stopped editing his reports weeks ago, and just ended most nights’ duty logs with the statement, “… and Officer Johnson is still an idiot.” That he hadn’t been reprimanded only showed that no one read the damned things. It was a miracle that payroll still processed.

  He could have gotten out of this hole. There were plenty of jobs in the city for an experienced dispatcher. Good pay, too. As far as Teddy Mullens was concerned, though, those jobs could go right stuff themselves. He was just fine with not getting stabbed, shot, and bombed, thank you. He could deal with babysitting an unused tarmac and writing reports on the everyday failures of a bunch of useless jackoffs. He could piss his nights away watching the viewer. He could deal with that piece-of-shit vending machine on the second floor. He could, and would, deal with all of that, every day, if it meant one more day of not being in the meat grinder of dronetown.

  One of his buddies from the security company, Kelly, got an espo beat, black shirt and badge. Good pay, benefits. Then, one week in, Kelly tried to stop a doper with a Blade inhaler, and the leadhead went feral. Kelly got stabbed fourteen times in the chest, had his face bit off, and they couldn’t even open the casket. What the fuck good would it do anyone for Teddy Mullens to go get eaten by some zombie junkie? At most, it would give a constable another body to tag off on a midnight shift. Maybe they’d catch the addict, throw another ate-up body in a too-full prison?

  Fuck that noise.

  Mullens was just fine with enjoying the chill of early spring air. He could take his smoke break outside the terminal, stand with his back to the lights, watch the rain, and pretend that everything was a-okay.

  All of this put him on the midnight shift, at a shuttered airstrip, just outside the city edge, on a night like any other.

  It was two minutes to midnight, but if Mullens had looked at the clock, he wouldn’t have known how important that time was.

  He wouldn’t have known that it was twenty minutes since Brigadier Jonathon Harper stepped into the heart of the inferno. He wouldn’t have known that it was two months since Miranda Owens learned her truth. He wouldn’t have known that it was seven months since Brian Clausen was tried for a crime he didn’t commit. He wouldn’t have known that it was eight months since twelve hundred people died with the Airship Plymouth, while Daniel Crawford watched. He wouldn’t have known that it was one year since a team had been assembled for William Halstead's final ride. That it was two years since Antonius Berenson and Michael Raschel had faced-off over a prisoner table. That it was ten years since the Authority had crushed the Faction. That it was twelve years since Antonius and Tiberius Berenson devised their ultimate contest over a friendly game of Go. That it was eighteen years since the last of the Path forces had been routed into the DMZ. That it was twenty eight years since the Titan Five project yielded two living specimens. That it was thirty years since the Durandal device tore the sky asunder, and a young Niklaus Draco birthed a conspiracy that would define the Authority. That it was thirty years since Ishtan Radek watched his world burn, and swore revenge. That it was thirty years since the first game-piece was placed on the board, and then forgotten. That it was thirty years, and the payment was due.

  He couldn't have known that right now, Karl Vonner was logging in a marathon shift at a monitoring post, manning a sinking ship. He couldn’t have known that Jackie Carter tended the latest in a string of the dying, in an overfull hospital and tried to pretend the world was fine, while Daniel Crawford patched up a wounded espo in a dronetown clinic and fought off his daily hangover. He couldn't have known that somewhere in the heart of the Waste, Striker – né Tiberius Berenson – watched his endgame unfold, and rubbed a Go stone between his fingers, and awaited the counter-stroke.

  What Mullens did know, that Johnson was late for his radio check.

  “Unit Thirty-Two, check in.” He ordered into his shoulder mic, speaking clearly to cut through the radio fuzz.

  There was no answer.

  “Unit Thirty-Two, check in.”

  Nothing.

  “Dumb arse, check in.” Mullens rolled his chair over the tile floor, gliding over the black and white checkers with ease. He skidded to a stop next to the camera panel, and flipped through the feeds. Last time Johnson had been on screen, he’d been out near hangar eighteen. Johnson, you stupid fuck. That was a private hangar. None of his guards should be in there. The guys liked to joke that it was some drug warehouse, but rules were rules. Mullens toggled his radio, again, “Unit nine, I think Johnson's turned off his radio. Can you head over to hangar eighteen and check?”

  Static.

  Had his radio broken? He toggled the secondary unit, and ordered, “Dispatch to all units, radio check, over.”

  Static.

  A slight bit of fear wormed into the back of Mullen's mind. He'd seen these movies, he'd played these games. This was the part where the alien zombie terrorists showed up and killed him. He pushed that thought back down. He was a rational man. Those stupid fantasies were just that: stupid. This was just a system failure. He could see his guards just fine, all around the base.

  He pulled out his soft-jack. If the radio was down, he'd call them. He could problem-solve. That's why he was the supervisor.

  No signal.

  Mullens had just enough time to reconsider his alien-zombie-terrorist theory, before the door smashed in. He felt the crash before he heard it. He spun, to see the door twist from its hinges, topple into the room.

  In the shadows beyond, a figure loomed, rifle leveled.

  Mullens didn’t think. Not then. He reacted. Just like he’d trained.

  He bolted from his chair, and snatched up his stinger, with a battle cry of, “Fucking hell!” To his credit, he nearly got it clear of the holster before the electrolaser blasted him.

  There was a crackling-snap, like a flashbulb and breaking twigs. Mullens felt the heat blossom over his chest. Lightning arced from the rifle, crashed over him in waves, rode down invisible UV beams and columns of ionized air.

  The world dissolved into agony. The seizures had him, and he flopped back, into his chair. He flailed, writhed, and screamed, and crashed from the chair to the desk, then the floor. He shook, like a demented marionette, as purple and white stars blazed in his vision. He shook, until his muscles couldn’t give any more, and he fell still on the ground. The cold -blissfully cold - ground.

  Everything went black.

  He could feel his hands first, the way they trembled like an old man. Next, he tasted the smoke in his mouth. He felt the tingle on his arms, as it turned from a tickle to stabbing waves of pain, like beds of needles rolling over his skin and piercing down to the bone. He couldn’t move. Every muscle ached like it had been sanded away, like he'd run a marathon while pumping iron and swallowing tacks.

  A moan escaped his lips, and his head fell to the side. He'd been tazed before. Hit with stingers. He'd had to, for training. Those were nothing like this. Electrolaser. PulseMag. He'd heard of them. He'd seen videos. He'd used them in games. He’d never truly comprehended how much they hurt. He could hear the ad playing in his head, from the tactical sites he liked to browse. The PulseMag 4000 renders subject compliant with less-than-lethal force. He half wished they would’ve just shot him.

  “You okay
?” The voice broke the darkness, carried with a flat, drawled accent.

  His eyes opened. Light poured over him, like cold water. He blinked, and the world came into focus.

  He was bound into the chair. He hadn’t even felt the zipties on his wrists. He tried to struggle, but nothing moved. The searing pain of sleeping muscles washed over him.

  “You okay?” The voice repeated.

  Mullens glanced up, to the man who stood over him. Who the fuck? The attacker wore adaptive camo, the kind that blended with the shadows when he moved. The electrolaser was slung over his shoulder, and a duffel bag was open at his feet.

  “Hey! You hear me?” The soldier demanded, brow furrowed over grease-painted face.

  “Yeah.” Mullens managed to cough out. His chest was on fire.

  “Good. You prob’ly hurt like hell.” The soldier shrugged, and pointed to the desk, where a single metal cylinder rested on the dispatch computer. “Don’t worry about that. Just an EMP, for the drives. Don’t touch it, you’ll be fine.” He thumbed over his shoulder, to the wastebin by the door. “Your stinger is buried in there. You can get it later.”

  “You’re not gonna kill me?” Mullens asked, as he tried to keep his fear bottled.

  “Am I gonna- fuck, no.” The soldier exclaimed. “We’re the fucking good guys, dipshit.”

  “You shot me.”

  “Point.” He shrugged, again, and added, “Nice stinger, by the way. Genuine Armatech. If I were you, I'd ditch that triple retention holster, go with a class two. That slowed down your draw. Coulda gotten you dead.”

  Everything was foggy. Was this nutter giving him gun advice?

  His attacker touched his left ear, and said, in a radio voice, “Sarge, Reaper, objective secure.”

  “Roger that, scrag the drives and get down to the E-Z.”

  “Moving. Out.” The attacker took another glance to Mullens' restraints. “You comfortable?”

  “Yeah... I think...”

  “Good. Don't worry, none of your guys are dead, just hurting. We're going now, so you can go ahead and try to get out. I put a straw in your cup over there, and you're on wheels, so you can get a drink while you wait for the cops.”

  “Who the fuck are- no, don't answer.” Mullens said. He remembered the rule about anonymity and hostages. Knowing names was a death sentence. He’d watched enough movies to know that.

  The soldier grinned, a wide, childlike smile, and asked, “Who am I? I’m fucking Santa Claus!” He raised his left hand, to produce a stem-like detonator. With a dramatic flourish, he “clacked” the toggle, and the lights went out.

  When Mullens’ watery eyes adjusted, the man was gone.

  With every ounce of his strength, every bit of his concentration, Mullens pushed his chair away from the dispatch board, towards the windows overlooking the tarmac. Inch be inch, he worked his chair, until he could crane his neck over the ledge of the glass. Below, in the dim emergency lighting, he could see the yawning gulf of the opened hangar eighteen. On the runway, he saw the sleek, crow-like shape of the vertol, its cockpit drooped menacingly. Gunship. Stealth. Mother of God.

  The vertol's engines pitched, swung, and opened their blue-white throats. The ship rose with grace unbecoming its brutish angles, until it pushed over the tops of the buildings. It blurred, blended, and was gone. There was a roar, and then nothing.

  Teddy Mullens stared, for a long moment, jaw slack and stupid. When he remembered to blink, the horrible realization of what had just happened began to dawn on him. Frantically, he set to sawing at his bindings. He needed a plan. The g-men were going to show up, and they were going to be pissed that he’d lost their little toy. He needed to think, and fast, how he was going to answer some very pointed questions.

  If he lived, though, he was getting a new holster.

  Iteration 0110

  The water struck Reyna Velasquez in her face. Her hands followed. Liquid cold, solid warmth. Eyes closed, she let the darkness keep her, for a moment.

  Her hands fell away, and the water with them. She opened her eyes, and stared into the mirror. Her cheeks were streaked with eyeliner, her pupils dilated. Keep it cool. Her hands shook. There was a tear in her suit, blood around the ragged edges. Just a graze. Crimson ran down her arm, streaked through the gray wool. The gel on the wound numbed the pain. The compress, bright white over deep red, held back the flows.

  She reeked of gunpowder. There were burns on her fingertips. Her pistol rested on the side of the sink. She swore she could still see the traces of smoke leak from the barrel. That’s impossible. Get it together. She forced herself to turn from the mirror.

  The bathroom was pristine. White porcelain fixtures were rimmed in gold. Flecks of red were in the sink, more lined her footprints.

  Eyes forward, Rey. She stared at her hand, willed it to stop shaking. It obeyed. She turned to the other. You’ve got this. She picked up her weapon, slid it into her holster. It’s over. The building was secure. It was time to face the aftermath.

  She grabbed another hand-cup of water, and washed her face clean. Another glance in the mirror. Her hair was pulled back, now. Why did I have to dress up for this? She forced a smile. She forced a scowl. Game face. She looked pissed. She looked in command. She spun, cleanly, on her heel, and strode back onto the killing floor.

  As soon as she opened bathroom door, the gusts tore at her. The penthouse was a wind-tunnel. Fifty stories of air waited outside the man-sized hole in the window, howling like breath over an empty bottle.

  On the floor, between chic tables and plush chairs, the first two bodies were wrapped in blue tarps. Their guns were bagged beside them. On the steps to the loft, a woman’s corpse left a crimson trail over slat stairs. She’d ended in a broken heap at the bottom, her scattergun awkwardly plopped into a potted plant on the half-story. Behind her was the whistling gap in the wall, where the last suspect had taken his leave.

  Thick black smoke rose from outside the kitchen windows. The smoldering ruin of the lift car hung, precariously, from the landing pad. Crews clambered over it, winched it back onto solid ground, where the waiting crime techs could swarm it. The whole building crawled with Agency men, technicians and cleaners who buzzed from fireplace to balcony. They snapped pictures and took samples. They cut carpet and rolled it up. They tarped bodies and tagged off weapons.

  She stepped back into the arena, and tried to make sense of it.

  Across the room, by the howling chasm, Raschel met her eyes, and he shrugged, as if to say, ‘what a fucking mess’. She could hear it in his grim smile, read it in the way he dragged down his cigarette, pinching it tight and sucked down the smoke.

  One of the analysts confronted her. He held up an invisible keyboard, the lights in his glasses hinting at the data-center only he could see. “Ma’am?” He asked. “Could you please record a statement on the use of force?”

  She grimaced, and tried to think up a satisfactory reply.

  Even from across the howling room, she could hear the sigh. “Statement?!” Raschel demanded. He took one last drag on his cigarette, and then hurled the glowing remains into the roaring void beyond. “You want a fucking statement?!”

  “Sir-” the technician started.

  “Fuck you, 'sir'!” Raschel snapped, as he crossed the room. “No god damn reports! Christ, is this fucking amateur hour? I want this shit buried!”

  “Sir, we've got three bodies in here-”

  “There are about to be four.” Raschel stated. “Unless you'd rather take the express elevator?” He motioned to the window.

  The tech paled, and fell silent.

  Velasquez interceded, before the poor rookie choked to death, “Demadi and his Mistress had a spat. She was sleeping with Mister Holland, and when Demadi confronted them, it turned violent. The butler was just collateral.”

  “And what about Agent Simmons?” The tech asked, with a shaky glance to the wreck being pulled onto the car pad.

  “Never here.” Velasquez answered. �
�Put him in a car crash, somewhere out of town.”

  “The ballistics won't-”

  “Lie!” Raschel snapped. “You write the reports! Make up something good! And send me both copies, tonight!”

  “Both-” the tech tried to ask.

  “The fake one and the real one, Goddamnit!” The Section Chief hollered. He lit a new cigarette, took a pull, and then asked, calmly, “Reyna, tell me? Are we surrounded by idiots, or are these clowns fucking with me?”

  “They're just trying to do their job.” She said. “They're not Operations. This is... not normal.” This is insane.

  The Chief turned away, glanced back to the blackened car on the pad. He said, “Poor Percy. He was a good kid. A good agent.”

  “Didn’t you think he was a traitor?” Velasquez asked.

  “I think this,” Raschel said, and pointed to the charred scraps of metal jammed into the skyscraper walls, “is decent evidence to the contrary. Not proof, mind you, but decent evidence. Poor fucker.” He took another puff on his cigarette. “Who the fuck uses a putty gun, anyway?”

  “The Faction.” Velasquez deadpanned.

  “Apparently.” Raschel agreed. He squatted down next to the fat corpse, pulled the blue plastic back, and stared into Marco Demadi’s glossy eyes. Softly, Raschel asked, “What the fuck did he have on you, Marco?” His cigarette flared brighter. Raschel flashed his hand down, grabbed the corpse by the throat, and turned the dead man to face him, eye to eye. He snarled, “What the fuck did he have on you, you stupid son of a bitch?! You were supposed to be a fucking professional!”

  Several of the techs froze. They stared, aghast, as Raschel turned the head, side to side, exposing the red and gray tunnel that carved through the folds of fat on Demadi’s skull. Raschel snapped, “Now look at you! Fucking dead! Stupid!”