NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire

by Jason Crutchfield

  I choked down painful screams and staggered back from the vicious momentum of Al's passing. Blood spewed from the gulch in my lateral muscles. His body slid to a stop several feet away before my spray of blood ever hit the ground, and seeing as I had spun to face him before the horrifying game of rip-my-skin-off, that placed him directly behind me.

  I watched over my shoulder as his feet buckled against the slobbering sediment in preparation for his next dash. I wholly abandoned any hope of precision, and as his figure surged toward my back I flipped the long daggers in my palms so the blades ran down my forearms and their points protruded beyond my elbows. At the same time, I simply thrust backward and spun with no precaution given to defense. If I was to be shredded either way, then I would make sure his attacks connected only with a hefty price paid. His physical speed baffled me, but in terms of reaction and mental processing speed, I was thus far unmatched.

  One of my blades connected, sinking deep into the tissue of his shoulder with enough force to skew the attack of his right arm. But his left set of claws found its mark against my chest, tearing away chunks of the ragged black shirt and bits of my favorite leather coat. More importantly, though, those claws hooked into a hunk of flesh just above my sternum; it locked us into place with our weapons crunching into skin and bone. We began grunting as our muscles shook from the strain of trying to overpower one another.

  Despite my earlier accusations regarding Al's lack of any physical prowess, the reality of the situation made itself apparent during our struggle. Like me, Al possessed a Supersoldier augment. With such a nanite, appearances meant little, because the Supersoldier nanite enhanced muscular strength to the zenith of one's potential. Granted, larger muscles still meant more power, but with our frame sizes relatively equivalent, I was in no position to scoff at Al's strength.

  After a few seconds, Al cackled and jerked back a few feet, the sick sound of his sinew popping as he tore his shoulder away from my dagger was joined by a rush of air as he twisted and dropped toward the ground. Placing either hand into the drenched mix of mud and loose rock, Al activated the implants in his legs just as he shifted his entire weight to his palms and bucked both legs outward in a kick much resembling a mule's.

  His boots' soles found their home flat against my rib cage just below my breast line. I felt a volcano erupt within my bosom. The thunderous crack and crunch of several bones popping in time to the vehement thud of his kick acted as the catalyst for what felt like molten rock bubbling up from my core. A smoky anguish choked the very air from my lungs like ash sucking the oxygen from the air, and the parting of my lips elicited an overpowering scream like the eruption itself as my entire body catapulted backward across the muddy terrain.

  The first time I bounced I could do little but gasp while my body contorted and careened further along the road. Several more of those bounces sent me in the direction of my former sniper nest. When I finally splashed to a halt in a two inch puddle of grimy water, I found myself unable to breathe, much less move. To my surprise, both daggers remained securely in my hands. The wind began refilling my lungs, and each painful inhalation brought with it the ache of splintering bones. But the pain served a purpose; it stirred me from my stupor.

  With quivering hands, I planted my daggers in the ground and used them to climb to my feet. I could feel Panacea working at full capacity. Already the fatal wound in my abdomen finished slurping shut, leaving behind only a faint scar. The wounds along my ribs and chest would be stitched next, after which Panacea would take care of my broken bones. I locked gazes with the drenched, slouching figure of the unimpressive crime lord as he stalked toward me, and for the first time, I got a clear look at his skull injury.

  My bullet blew the top corner of his skull apart, but his tirelessly working nanites slowly stitched it back together with each passing second. I was sure I aimed for the center of his forehead; it was hard to conceive that I missed at such range. As my confusion mounted he lifted the claws he used to impale me from behind and ran his tongue along the mix of water and blood dripping from their steel as a vicious taunt. The broken one glared at me: it was that claw!

  In his attempt to block my shot, Al sacrificed that center appendage to alter the trajectory of the bullet into a part of his brain Panacea could repair! I cursed under my breath and braced myself for his assault. Then I twitched as I considered the sluggish speed at which his nanites repaired his scalp. In the time it took his nanites to make notable progress on healing his wound, Panacea fully closed three grievous injuries of my own. Why?

  In the wastes, the ability to multitask was a pivotal difference between the living and the dead. I shifted my eyes back toward the darkened doorway of my former refuge. Synchronously, I began piecing together the potential reasons for his slower healing speed. I crossed my blades in front of my chest in an assumed defensive stance and decided to attempt a jab at his patience. “So Al, if your contact network is as weak as your legs I may have to go get information from your bodyguards over there," I scoffed condescendingly.

  “… My legs are stronger than anyone's. My speed is that of a god! With this prototype implant, I am uncatchable. The fastest in the world! And my information network is flawless!” My goading seemed to work, but Al's severe insanity onset by hyperaugmentation made it difficult to tell for certain. For all I knew he was talking to some other invisible entity that jeered him in a similar fashion. I braced myself for his inevitable charge; I was not disappointed.

  His body collided with mine as he tried to sink his claws into my torso, and that collision pushed us both into the caliginous domicile behind me. A grin slowly tugged at the corners of my lips. I realized two things almost simultaneously during the jarring impact of his frame against my own. First and foremost, my strategy was off to a successful, albeit boisterous, start. Within the small confines of the ruined abode, Al's quick bursts of speed would amount to far less than they would in the wide open battleground outside.

  As his charge crushed me into the wall on the far side of the room, I quickly threw a knee between his legs. In the inky blackness surrounding us, a satisfying crunch followed by a howl of pain trumpeted my successful blow to the most sensitive parts of the male body. No matter how far humanity advanced its fighting techniques, such a well-placed blow would, certainly, always drop a man to his knees.

  During my brief respite, I dashed up the flight of stairs to the next floor and spun to await my, likely enraged, aggressor. In the tenebrous confines, my sensory nanites enhanced visual and auditory perception to superhuman levels. I activated one more implant for good measure: my nightvision. Like a feline, my eyes gave off a soft, translucent glow as they pierced the pitch black corridor of the abandoned structure.

  It only took a moment for Al to ascend the staircase; his eyes, tainted by a black hypnotic swirl, glowed like mine. Al, too, possessed a nightvision implant. For a moment the two of us stared, waiting for the other to twitch too soon or demonstrate uncertainty or hesitation. The very smell of frustration and anxiety mingled with the dust and hovered in the chilly air like a cloud. Al made the first move; with a berserk screech, the vulture lurched forward in the darkness and began the dance which, for one of us, would be the final curtain call.

  Our weapons sang a beautiful opera only the two of us could truly appreciate. Sparks flashed at pivotal points when our weapons kissed a little too long in the darkness. In the confined space, our combat abilities were almost equal. Using the walls and ceiling, we performed a plethora of acrobatic and martial movements which boasted potent lethality against anyone untrained or unprepared. Our macabre dance carried us up two more flights of stairs over what felt like years of intensely engaging combat.

  When we finally stopped, the ragged breaths heaving from both our chests betrayed our fatigue. I stood in front of the very window from which I had shot him and his comrades only moments ago. Al stood on the opposite side of the room, glaring at me with intense hatred.

  “This is it, IHLI
A! This is where you… hehe… where you become a pathetic little stain of bloooood! Where you become a nothing! A smear on the footnotes of my epic history! You should feel honored… ahahaha!” During our ferocious dance on the floor below, we had occasionally bypassed one another's defenses and brought steel against flesh. Our bodies dripped with rivulets of blood from various wounds inflicted by those bypasses. It occurred to me that Al failed to realize his wounds were closing far slower than mine. That realization simply confirmed the second point I discovered in that jarring tackle on the first floor.

  “Sorry, Al. This is where you retire. You can't call yourself epic with such a glaring weakness.” I smirked, puffing out my chest in the most arrogant manner I could muster.

  “Weakness? I have no weakness!” Al spat in a furious rage. The seething contempt peppering his tone foreshadowed his attack. With a quick burst of nanite-empowered energy, Al slammed his feet into the far wall on the opposite side of the room. Using it as a platform for propulsion, Al rocketed across the room toward me with a malevolent caw. I lifted my daggers and braced for the impact of the Al Narljecht warhead. Like a missile, he rammed his body into my own, the force of which felt like the explosive force of a nuke.

  We both careened backward through the open window. The rain still fell in thick sheets against our mutilated bodies as we all but flew through the sky with the speed of a pair of shooting stars; as we descended I pushed away from him to brace for impact and tucked my body into a shape which I felt would be easy to roll with upon striking the semi-hard ground.

  Despite my preparation, the landing felt like someone lifted a building and began beating me senseless with it. Somewhere between the cracking of my left arm, the snapping of my collar bone on the left side, the cries of pain from my lips, and the mockery of rolling I made while bouncing and tumbling across the gravel, I finally skidded to a halt drenched in water and covered in rust-scented mud.

  With my vision blurred from the dull pain shooting through the entire left half of my body, I lifted my gaze to see Al slowly worming to his feet. It seemed he managed to land without shattering his… everything. It took several moments for the nanites to stitch my busted body together enough for me to rise to one knee. By that time, Al was hobbling toward me, coughing and sputtering with each step he took.

  “Al… you're absolutely insane. You could have killed us both!” I gasped as I forced myself to stand. My right hand gripped my left shoulder tightly; I felt that keeping it from moving might help keep it from protesting so loudly in my head.

  “Ahaha… hehehe. Well, I didn't… I'm just gonna… ugh, wha?” Al paused momentarily to look down. Embedded deep in the center of his chest, only slightly off center to the left, my daggers criss-crossed through the area which assuredly contained his heart. The flow of blood gushed from the new orifice like water from a cracked dam, and his eyes twitched with the realization of what happened.

  “That's right. I took the tackle on purpose so I could make sure those found their mark,” I grinned at him when he gripped the hilts of my daggers. Searing pain obviously shot through him the moment he touched them, because he winced and withdrew his hands with an audible yelp.

  “… And you called me crazy, hahaha! Looks like the jokes on you… I'm still alive,” he retorted.

  “Yes, but that's where that crippling weakness of yours comes into play. You're only barely alive because Panacea is working at one hundred percent just to maintain the functions of your heart. All your other wounds, unlike mine, won't be healing while those blades are shoved into your chest. And if you arbitrarily pull them out? You'll pull your heart out with them. There's a limit to what Panacea can do, so that's not advised.” The calmness in my breath gradually returned to me as my wounds rapidly healed. Al, on the other hand, looked quite horrible.

  “What's your point?” He quirked a brow as blood slowly trickled from the corner of his mouth; it was a clear sign of the blood filling his lungs.

  “It's your speed nanite. It only works in tandem with Panacea. Your speed nanite supercharges your fast twitch muscle fibers, boosting them to superhuman levels for short bursts of speed. This, however, would irreparably damage the muscle… if not for Panacea.” I took a step back and regained my posture.

  “So… my speed implant won't work until I get these blades out. Hehehe… clever girl. But I don't need speed at this point. I still have these claws, I could just as easily lop your head clean off with a slow swing. And you have no weapon to defend yourself.” He began hobbling forward; the drip-drop of blood cascading down the handles of my daggers left trails in the wake of his every step.

  “You're mistaken on two points, Al… First, I do have a weapon.” Call it luck, telepathy, or precise prediction, but my foot thudded softly against a wooden stock laying fortuitously against a random stone in the middle of the road. We were standing at the exact place where my rifle came to rest when Al kicked it from my hands. I quickly slammed my foot down on the butt of the gun, flipping it up off the ground and into my waiting hands like an impressive skateboarding trick; the muzzle came to rest theatrically between Al's eyes.

  “Secondly, no speed implant means you won't be dodging this, Al. Sorry buddy, nothing personal. Well… actually it kind of is,” I murmured disdainfully. Al's eyes widened in fear, his entire body drained of the bravado exhibited only seconds prior; he was literally shaking in his boots.

  “No… you can't do this! You just can't! My speed is legendary! I am legendary!” His protests rang out in perfect synchronization with the fulmination of my rifle's tip. The blood, skull bits, and brain matter were unable to pick a direction and spewed in a random assortment of patterns behind him. His body fell straight back onto the ground, and I shouldered my rifle.

  “It's weird. I normally don't chamber an extra round for theatrics like I did earlier. Lucky me, don't really think I had time to reload there,” I sighed softly, and as I began walking away, something gently tugged at my ankle. When I looked down, it was Al gripping the heel of my boot with pitiable desperation.

  “… There's a guy to the… west in Old Texas. He calls… himself Raze. If… anyone knows where… Harbinger is…” My bullet split Al's eyes across his face, and his right one had all but exploded within the socket. Still, I could feel the piercing madness of his remaining eye even as he shared that last bit of information with me.

  “Hey… I still… have a few moments… stay? It's… not everyday… you die,” he sputtered.

  “Why should I? I don't exactly have any inclination to bury your corpse when you do pass on.” I quirked a brow at him even as he twitched about uncontrollably. The nanites were an amazing blessing yet a terrible curse. In a situation where instant death would certainly be preferable to prolonged agony, the nanites still worked on what limited bioelectricity they received from destroyed brain tissue and attempted to tackle the impossible task of putting both the brain and their nano hub back together. Such drawn out deaths were not guaranteed but neither were they uncommon.

  “I… want to hear your… story. You're pretty damn… good, hehehe… for a girl. Why… do you want Harbinger dead… so bad?” Al's single eye blinked.

  “… Fine, I suppose a few minutes won't hurt. Consider it thanks for the information.” I sat down on a nearby rock, crossed my legs, and secured the strap of my rifle between my breasts. As I brushed my long obsidian hair, matted by the relentless storm, behind my ear, I looked toward the sky.

  “It all started on a stormy night like this one…”

  File 03: A Dark and Stormy Night

  “Born in an age when nanite implants were commonplace, I donned my surgical scar and received Panacea before I hit puberty. During my childhood, the Global Conflict was just beginning to ravage the world, and invading guerrilla forces targeting American coastal cities crept up in small raiding parties. They utilized advanced stealth transports to avoid detection in the dead of night; the threat posed was so severe that even parents did not dare use s
tories of invaders to scare their children to sleep.

  Despite the constant threat of invasion, my mother and father showed me the tender loving care expected of any responsible parent. I went to school, played with friends, and for all intents and purposes led a normal life… until that night. Adulthood knocked on my door early, when at age thirteen I witnessed two hyped super soldiers hold my father down and force him to watch as they had their way with my mother.

  Two memories forever burrowed into me that night as I peeked through the cracked door from inside the closet where my mother shoved me before the soldiers boisterously invited themselves into our abode. The first was beholding the torture on my parents' faces. My mother's agonized sobs and screams as they desecrated her body like their personal whore were rivaled only by the wails of my father, so full of rage and anguish that it brought me to my knees in tears.

  The sounds horrified me enough, but when they transformed to deathly gurgles as the brutish soldiers nonchalantly ripped my parents' throats out with their bare, calloused hands it took everything in me to choke back a terrified scream. The second thing I remember is the stars and stripes patched onto the sleeves of their bloody uniforms. They were American soldiers.

  In the middle of the night in Yordleton, my quaint little hometown in New Virginia fifteen miles from the east coast, a squad of European raiders from the Union snuck ashore intending to establish a forward base of operations in the center of my city. As though the audacious plans of our enemy didn't disregard the importance of our lives enough, my own country decided to send a response team of experimental hyperaugmented soldiers to repel Yordleton's invaders. Personally, I viewed the raiders as bogeymen shrouded in darkness that came to drag away everything I knew and loved and tear it to a bloody mess while they forced me to watch like a helpless invalid. Apparently, my countrymen viewed it as an opportunity to field test an unstable product.