The Age of Scorpio

by Gavin Smith

  ‘Run!’ du Bois shouted. Both .38s slid out of his sleeves, though he knew they would not be sufficient.

  ‘What? They’re just dancing,’ Beth said, more bemused than anything, and was then appalled when du Bois started firing both pistols as he backed off.

  ‘They’ve been slaved!’ du Bois shouted. Beth looked confused. Du Bois struggled to find something to say that would make her understand. ‘They’re zombies!’ he shouted as the crowd broke into a run at them. Beth finally seemed to get it and ran for the Range Rover.

  ‘Welcome to the douchepocalypse, motherfuckers!’ one of the clowns shouted from behind the van, and started firing. The sound of the automatic weapon was monstrously loud in the street, echoing back from the walls and across the water. Du Bois had a moment to wonder at someone using such a big-bore round in an automatic weapon when a shot caught him in the shoulder. His armoured coat hardened, his skin hardened, but the force of the .50 Beowulf bullet spun him round and he hit the ground, his shoulder almost certainly broken. The closest of the slaved tourists was reaching for him. Du Bois put the final two rounds from the right hand .38 into the slave’s legs. The man went sprawling across the ground.

  Beth reached the Range Rover. Its lights were blinking to suggest that the doors had been unlocked. It took her a moment to connect the sparks flying off the vehicle’s armoured body with the thunderous roar of gunfire. With that came the realisation that she was being shot at. Even then it seemed unreal, something so far removed from her experience as not to be taken seriously. Beyond the four-by-four she saw passers-by scattering, running towards the closest cover or even freezing.

  Hindered by Talia, Beth nevertheless managed to yank open one of the back doors. A burst of fire caught the door, which slammed shut. She felt something hot fly past her ear and instinctively she cowered away, but then she grabbed the door, pulling it open again.

  From his position on the ground, du Bois found himself surrounded. Slaved tourists reached down for him. He kicked out and scrabbled backwards as his shoulder healed painfully.

  ‘Cover! Cover! Beth, shoot them!’ They were snagging his clothes now, clawing at his exposed skin. It wouldn’t be difficult for them, en masse, to hold him down, augmented or not.

  Beth heard du Bois as she threw Talia onto the Range Rover’s back seat. More firing. The car was haloed by sparks, some of its bullet-resistant glass starting to crack under multiple impacts from heavy-calibre fire.

  She looked back to see him surrounded by ‘zombies’. Beth grabbed du Bois’s .45 from her jacket pocket, leaned across the bonnet of the Range Rover like she’d seen in films and tried to pull the trigger. Nothing happened.

  Lots more gunfire now, more than one shooter, perhaps as many as three or four. The slaved tourists were dying silently and uncomplaining, hydrostatic shock from heavy weapons blowing limbs off. They were shooting at him through the slaves.

  He kicked out at the knee of one of the tourists, grabbed his tanto and hamstrung another before managing to get to his feet and break free of them.

  As he sprinted for the Range Rover he saw Beth struggling with the .45.

  ‘The safety! The bloody safety!’ he all but screamed. Then he tried something. He sent her the knowledge of firearms imprinted on his neural nanonics. He had no idea if it would work.

  Beth had no idea what was happening. There was a strange feeling in her head like creeping warmth – it lasted a moment – then a shooting pain so intense that she collapsed to the ground behind the Range Rover. She could feel blood trickling from her eyes, nose and ears, but suddenly she knew how to use the cold piece of metal in her hand.

  From the ground she saw one of the clown-masked gunmen sprint from behind the van, heading for cover behind a car on the same side of the street as the Range Rover. Beth took aim.

  It’s fucking amazing, King Jeremy thought. The problem with shooting people for real was that it was never as spectacular as it was in the movies or games: there was never as much blood. So the four of them had overlaid VR graphics filters on their real vision. Everything happening in the real world they could see, but the filters added much more splatter and made it look as if they were living out their favourite first-person shooter. Him and Baron Albedo unloading at that guy the zombies were trying to bring down had looked awesome. The zombies had all but exploded in front of their eyes. You could even change the environment. He knew that Dracimus had placed himself in some environment where he was a supervillain mowing down superheroes, and he was pretty sure that Inflictor had simulated some sort of hell environment.

  Albedo’s dancing-zombies idea had been inspired as well. He would, however, have to talk to Dracimus about shouting ‘Welcome to the douchepocalypse’. Major uncoolness.

  King Jeremy aimed the AR-15 – converted to fire the massive .50 Beowulf rounds on full automatic – at the blond guy sprinting for the Range Rover. As he did so, Inflictor made a run for the opposite side of the street.

  Du Bois threw himself across the front of the Range Rover as Beth fired the .45 repeatedly from her position on the ground. The running gunman dived behind the car he was making for, though she was sure she had hit him.

  Du Bois rolled into a crouch, ignoring the painful jarring in his still-healing shoulder. He snatched the pouch clipped to his belt which contained four magazines for the .45 and slid it along the ground to Beth. He didn’t give her the nanite-tipped bullets.

  He spun, keeping low as the Range Rover rocked from hit after hit. He saw some of the slaved tourists running towards the back of the car. The .38 on his right arm slid out on its hopper at a thought. He flipped the cylinder open and emptied the spent cartridges, then, grabbing a speed loader from his pocket, slid the new rounds home and flipped the cylinder shut.

  On the opposite side of the road he saw one of the masked gunmen running towards cover behind a car. Du Bois made for the rear of the Range Rover. As he did, a fat tourist in a loud shirt came around the back of the vehicle. Du Bois shot him three times in the face at near point-blank range. Each round was a glaser, a hollow-point bullet filled with number-12 shotgun pellets. The pellets spread out inside the victim after impact. Du Bois strode around the back of the Range Rover, where another one of the slaved tourists charged him. He fired the suppressed revolver another three times and then with a thought the hopper slid the still-hot .38 back up into his sleeve.

  Du Bois yanked the rear door of the Range Rover open, catching another one of the slaved tourists under the chin. Yet another appeared. Du Bois pulled the tanto and cut him across the throat, bringing up his leg to front-kick him for good measure. It gave him a moment. He hit the quick release on the storage compartment in the floor of the Range Rover. The top slid back and he had time to grab the SA58 FAL carbine before four hands grabbed him from behind and wrenched him out of the car. He kicked back, sending all three of them to the ground. Over the road he saw the clown rise from behind the car and bring the massive barrel of the modified AR-15 to bear.

  Beth scuttled back, keeping low as round after round sparked off the armoured Range Rover. The gunman she was sure she had hit appeared over the roof of the car he’d dived behind and fired. Beth opened the front passenger door of the Range Rover and took cover behind it. More rounds sparked off it, battering the door into her. She fired three quick shots through the gap between the open door and the body of the vehicle. Instinctively she seemed to know just where to place the shots. She expected the guy to take cover. Instead she saw bits fly off his hood as he staggered back, and rather than falling over he just took aim again and fired.

  ‘Beth!’ du Bois shouted from the back of the Range Rover.

  With his left he battered at the slaved tourists clawing at him, with his right he loosed a long burst from the FAL carbine at the clown on the opposite side of the road. He walked the rounds down the body of the car, the armour-piercing tips punching through the vehicle’s body. There was a spray of blood, and the gunman jumped back from the car. He th
en disappeared behind it.

  Du Bois cried out as teeth bit into his ear. His skin hardened and the teeth broke, but not before drawing blood. Beth appeared over him, pointing his own .45 at him. She fired once, shifted the pistol and fired again, executing the two zombies attacking du Bois.

  ‘Get the shotgun,’ du Bois told her as he rolled to his feet. Using the back of the Range Rover as cover, he fired short bursts at the van, trying to suppress the clowns still using the van as cover. He was disappointed to see that the van seemed to be armoured as well. He was more pleased when a stray round killed the sound system.

  Shoving the .45 in her waistband, Beth grabbed the shotgun. Somehow she knew it was a Benelli M4 semi-automatic. She grabbed a bandolier of cartridges and slung them over her shoulder. Behind her, du Bois had retreated behind the Range Rover’s rear door as he changed magazines. Another slaved tourist rushed in. Beth fired under the door, taking the zombie’s legs out from under her. The zombie’s head bounced off the door before she hit the ground.

  Beth moved back around to the side of the Range Rover closest to the wall. There were zombies charging in from that direction as well.

  The slaved tourist whose legs Beth had blown off was grabbing at du Bois’s legs. It was annoying, and as he stamped down, breaking fingers, he knew he’d feel teeth biting into him soon.

  They needed some respite. He turned back to the rear of the Range Rover and grabbed the M320 grenade launcher. He opened it, removed the grenade inside and replaced it with another type. He stamped down again as he felt teeth bite into his leg.

  He moved around and fired the grenade at the remaining slaved tourists charging towards his side of the Range Rover. Flechettes filled the air briefly and turned the slaved tourists into so much meat. He would do penance for murdering the innocent later. It would not be the first time.

  ‘Awesome,’ King Jeremy whispered as, in his augmented vision, the blond guy’s grenade turned the zombies into a blood storm. Remembering himself, he pushed another magazine home. He was aiming, he told himself, but really he just liked firing the gun.

  The first zombie slammed the passenger door shut as they charged in. The shotgun blast took him in the stomach. He was still running, dead, when the one behind shoved him out of the way. Beth shot him. The third hurdled the bodies of the others and Beth shot him at point-blank range, taking most of his face off.

  The clown on their side of the road, behind the car, was firing with a clear line. Big-bore rounds tore through the other zombies charging Beth. She let the Benelli drop on its sling, grabbed the .45 from her waistband and walked forward, firing one-handed at charging zombies and then the gunman. She grabbed the front passenger door just as the .45’s magazine ran dry, and yanked it open to crouch behind it to reload as the clown behind the car fired on her again.

  Du Bois appeared next to her. At first she thought that he was holding some kind of huge pistol, but her new-found knowledge corrected her as he fired the grenade launcher.

  King Jeremy actually had the foresight and was quick enough to slow everything down. He watched the 40-millimetre high-explosive grenade fly from the launcher, hit the car that Inflictor was hiding behind and explode. The car was lifted into the air. Inflictor was flung back hard enough to dent the car he hit. He slumped to the ground.

  ‘Cool,’ King Jeremy said. He had to give the blond guy credit. He had skills.

  Despite knowing their own capabilities, even King Jeremy was surprised when Inflictor got to his feet. He watched his co-member of the DAYP throw away the AR-15 – the explosion had buckled the rifle – and draw his massive .50 Desert Eagle pistol.

  ‘Yes! You fucking mad man!’ Then he had to duck behind the van as bullets sparked off the armour all around him. At the other end of the van, Baron Albedo was firing at the Range Rover, laughing like a lunatic. What a fucking high, King Jeremy thought.

  Du Bois had returned to the rear corner of the Range Rover and was exchanging fire with the two clowns in cover at either end of the armoured van.

  Beth was mostly keeping her head down as neither the pistol nor the shotgun were ideal weapons for engaging the clowns at that range. She was using the time to reload the Benelli.

  He emerged out of the smoke and flame, running over the top of the car that du Bois had blown up, heading towards the Range Rover. Most of the clown mask was gone; underneath was some monstrous face out of a TV show but somehow rendered horribly real. He was coming straight at Beth. She levelled the .45 through the gap between the door and the car, the door battering into her legs with each impact from the running monster’s massive handgun. Beth fired the .45 rapidly, emptying the pistol into him. He staggered with every shot but kept coming.

  King Jeremy hunkered down behind the van as the blond guy fired at him. From his position he could see Dracimus cowering behind a car further along the road.

  ‘Get up and shoot!’ King Jeremy shouted over their internal link.

  ‘I’m shot!’ Dracimus answered.

  ‘Don’t be such a fucking pussy; it can’t kill you.’

  ‘You haven’t been shot. It really hurts!’

  King Jeremy turned to point the modified AR-15 at Dracimus.

  ‘Stand up and fucking shoot!’

  Inflictor barrelled into the door of the Range Rover, slamming it so hard into Beth that it knocked her insensible for a moment. He opened the door and grabbed her, turning as he threw her through the air. Beth hit the ground some eight feet away. Dazed for a moment, she was quickly scrabbling for the shotgun still on its sling.

  Du Bois turned to see the clown lift the massive Desert Eagle and point it at Beth.

  He moved wide to get a shot, bringing the FAL carbine to his shoulder. Behind him the gun clown who’d taken cover, the one du Bois was sure he’d shot, rose from behind the car. Too late du Bois realised his mistake and turned back to face him.

  Dracimus fired. His first shots were a long undisciplined burst, but then the skills they’d hard-wired into themselves kicked in. He brought the gun under control and fired a short burst and then another. He grinned as he made the blond guy – who in his augmented view of things was his most hated goody-two-shoes superhero – dance in the middle of huge explosions of blood.

  As the monstrous clown brought the Desert Eagle up, Beth knew that she’d never bring the shotgun to bear in time. The flame from the pistol’s muzzle looked enormous, and she actually saw its slide shoot back and the ejected cartridge fly out the side. Then again, but the slide stayed back this time. Good. He couldn’t shoot her any more.

  She was dead before her head hit the ground.

  King Jeremy and Baron Albedo moved across the street in a low crouch, weapons at the ready like they’d seen in films. King Jeremy went around the front of the Range Rover, Baron Albedo the back.

  King Jeremy found Inflictor standing over the woman’s body. There were two massive entry wounds in her chest.

  ‘That was fucking insane, man!’ King Jeremy said, checking she was dead and clapping his friend on the back. Inflictor turned to look at him. He’s probably seeing a fellow demon, King Jeremy thought.

  ‘Let’s hurt it,’ he said, meaning the dead woman.

  ‘Er . . . she’s dead, dude.’ King Jeremy could hear sirens now.

  ‘Did you see that?! Did you see me fucking kill him?!’ Dracimus said as he ran across the road. He stopped to stand over the blond guy’s body. ‘Oh yeah! He’s all kinds of fucked up!’

  King Jeremy resisted the urge to shoot Dracimus. He was pissed off that Dracimus, who’d been a pussy throughout the gunfight, had got the kill shot on the guy.

  ‘Check them for tech!’ King Jeremy barked.

  ‘Why, man?’ Dracimus said. Baron Albedo was already searching the blond guy.

  ‘Because I fucking said so. Inflictor? Inflictor!’

  The demon-faced boy turned to look at King Jeremy.

  ‘Get the girl out of the back of the car and put her in the van.’

&nbs
p; Inflictor nodded and went to do as he was bid.

  ‘King J?’ Baron Albedo said. He was holding up a small leather case. King Jeremy went over to look at it. Albedo had unzipped it by the time he got there. Inside were some vials, blood, a white fluid and some other bits and pieces that Jeremy didn’t immediately recognise. He shrugged but took the case.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not without looking harder.’

  ‘The sirens were getting louder. Across the road, Inflictor was tossing the heavy speakers of the sound system out of the van one-handed.

  ‘No time.’

  King Jeremy, Dracimus and Baron Albedo ran across the street back to the van.

  28

  A Long Time After the Loss

  The top of the arcology tree falling towards the planet had become so many burning meteorites. It was quite beautiful, Elite Scab thought as he watched the flaming matter crash through the inhabited branches far below. People who thought themselves good lied to themselves. When you’d seen it, done it, you could not deny the beauty of destruction on this scale, of mass murder, the music of screaming.

  He was keeping his systems stealthed. He wasn’t going to make it easy for them when his death came, but not too hard either. They would be able to find him if they looked.

  He felt calm, tranquil. He had always resisted the idea of fate. He liked to believe that he had made his own path, but he had been a slave too long, he now realised. He had thought that the inevitability of his death would feel like a trap, but it was quite the opposite. He felt liberated.

  He watched the ponderous yet somehow strangely balletic approach of the massive capital ship over the planetary horizon of Game. It didn’t eclipse the G-type sun but its outline obscured a significant part of the bright star.