“–you think it, blades become it, sharp, cuts through steel like hot steak knife through warm butter–”
Sharper then my blades? Doubt it.
I took my throwing knife and tapped it against the side of the sword like blade. The CLING sound was just like tapping regular metal against metal. It was apparently solid. I put my knife under the sword and jerked it up with all my strength. The blades sparked as they collided.
Both blades were still intact. Minus the chips, that was. Each blade chipped the edge of the other. They were equally sharp.
No fair! My knives are supposed to be the sharpest in the world, dammit!
I drew the knife along the edge of the table, cutting off a sliver of metal just to make sure it was as sharp as it was supposed to be.
“–yes, sharp, good, sharp, look–”
Creator picked up the mechanical arm with great struggle. Then he swung it around until the blade coming from the hand connected with the metal table, cleaving it in two.
“–impressive, yes, now look, almost done, come look, you’ll like–”
He put the arm down on another table and waddled over to a coffin-looking chamber with hoses and wires coming out of it. It was something straight out of a sci-fi movie. I just knew that the monster was inside waiting to be woken so that it could slaughter us all. With a press of a button the lid began to cycle up. A smoke-like fog spilled out of the chamber. It took a few seconds for the fog to thin so I could see what was inside.
“It’s . . . ME!?!”
Chapter 2
“So, inside was a cyborg version of yourself. Most interesting,” Arkon bellowed.
The giant reddish-orange dragon couldn’t help it. He was so huge that his voice was just that loud, even when he whispered. I was sitting with my back against him picking at my hair as I listened to him breathing. Since I had first met Arkon, I’d visited him almost every day. He entertained me for hours at a time with recounting of the wars between medieval knights and the dragons of old. To me, he was my best non-humanoid friend, not that he had much competition. Vamps, shifters, and cyborgs may not be really human, but at least they looked like it. The dragon looked like a dragon, plain and simple. Of course he acted human most of the time. Right then, he was scanning through files on his oversized computer.
A giant, winged, fire-breathing lizard that is more computer literate than me. Is that scary, or just weird?
“Don’t act so innocently surprised. You know everything that goes on here. I know that, remember?” I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow as I talked.
“Yes, I did know about the cyborg Vixen ordered.”
“Arkon, tell me a story,” I tried to use that sweet little kid voice to get my way.
“HAHAHAHAHA!!! You remembered how to ask without asking. Good young one, alright a story I will tell. . . . Vixen had planned to leave the Global Centurion Protectorate shortly after the incident in Prague years ago. What had happened there made up her mind to leave. But, she knew the GCP wouldn’t easily give up one of their best hunters. She commissioned the cyborg just before the clone a few months ago. Her plan was to have her brain synthesized and surgically implanted in the cyborg version of herself. The combat modifications to that unit along with her psionics, would make her one of the most powerful beings in the world. Then she could leave with no one the wiser. The clone was intended as a red-herring, a distraction. Everyone was supposed to believe that the clone was simply another of the growing numbers of psionic mind wipe victims. No one expected Kevin to show up and make a deal with Dr. Grey, much less that the mind switch would actually work. Now Vixen has been forced to show her hand because of you, and she is no longer in a position to claim her cyborg self.”
“We can’t let her have it. She would be too powerful with it. No one could stop her.”
“Everything has a weakness, you but have to find it. You are however, quite insightful. It would be unfortunate if Vixen was to acquire her cyborg self. I will have it transferred here to my vault. It will be safe. Few people would dare challenge a dragon,” he jested with a chuckle that almost shoved me across the room.
“Thank you Arkon. Um . . . Arkon, can you tell me another story? One about people that aren’t human anymore.”
“You don’t want a story about vampires or lycanthropes, do you? No. No, you want a story about a man that is placed inside a doll. A doll that is not completely human, and not exactly something else. You are having doubts about your own humanity then? First you were a man, then a woman. Now you find out you are actually something else entirely. Tell me, do you feel human?”
It was a question I’d been pondering for weeks. A question to which I still didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.”
“Other than the obvious, do you feel different then when you were a man?”
“Yes. Things feel surreal. It’s like a dream. Not quite real. Like I’m being led around, and have no control over the events in my life anymore. I am so confused about everything.”
“Do you love?” he asked twisting his large head away from his screen, to look at me with those huge golden eyes that were each larger than I was tall.
“What do you mean?”
“Is there someone you love?”
“Well yea. I love Emmy and Cassie. They are my sisters now, of course I love them.”
“And your Vicki?”
I blushed a little. “Yea, I love her too, in a different way.”
“Tanaka?”
That one threw me. “What?! No! Well, not really. I mean . . . I don’t know. In a way I do, I guess.”
He huffed and returned to his screen. “That settles it then. You. Are. Human. Regardless of the packaging you are a human. Only humans can truly feel love.”
I decided not to push that issue any further. “Arkon, do you know any other stories about clones?”
“Many. What would you like to hear?”
“What about psionic clones? How do they get their powers?”
“Psionic abilities are caused by a formation in the brain at birth. In theory an exact duplicate clone that is supposed to copy the original would have the same brain formations. Thus, the clone would have the same powers as the original. Your powers are still growing stronger, are they not? Do not worry. Soon you will be even stronger then you were before. . . . I regret that we will have to continue our stories later. It would seem that your sister is looking for you. I believe for something important. She is in her new office.”
He pointed at the communications log on his screen. I stood up and stretched. Then smoothed out my skirt before hugging the dragon’s neck, as best as I could anyway. Then I gave him a kiss on the nose.
“Hahaha! You sure have turned into a female haven’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
I went for the door, stopping to pick up my jacket. The weight inside the jacket reminded me of the treat I had brought. I shot Arkon a look out of the corner of my eye.
“You’ve been drooling over this since I arrived, haven’t you?” I asked as I pulled out the three pound chocolate bar from the folds of my jacket.
“Actually, I could smell it as soon as you got off the elevator down the hall. But, it isn’t civilized to beg. Either you will give it to me in time, or I will hold it against you forever.”
I had to laugh. “Do you want me to unwrap it for you? Or, are you saving it for later?”
“Now would be wonderful.”
I tore open the wrapper and hefted the oversized chocolate bar. Arkon practically came out of his scales at the scent of the unwrapped chocolate. A dragon with a sweet tooth, go figure. He was licking his fangs in anticipation. I thought about teasing him with it a little, but that would’ve been mean. He opened his mouth when I stepped up to him. I tossed the chocolate onto his enormous tongue. His jaws slammed shut startling me a little. He was big enough to swallow me whole after all.
“Mmmmmm! Oh, mmmmmm! Pure plain milk chocolate, my favorite! It melts so marvelo
usly on the tongue.”
“Haha! Any chocolate is your favorite!”
“Yes, that is true. Mmmmm! Except dark chocolate. It’s too bitter. Mmmm! Oh that was heavenly.”
“Someday I’ll bring you a dragon sized chocolate bar that you have to bite into.”
“Oh you tease.”
* * *
Emmy was laying on the leather couch in her office, eyes closed, damp cloth on her head, rubbing her temples and neck.
“Migraine again?” I asked kneeling next to her.
“Yes. It will take me years to sort out the mess Doc left. There are over two hundred private little projects of his going on here and at other sites no one really knew about. Including this.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out an electric-blue plastic tipped bullet. I took it from her hand. The tip of the bullet was soft and spongy.
“What in the hell is this? It’s softer than a paint-ball. No way that it could make a good bullet.”
“It is called a “shockgel”. A bullet that works exactly like your pulse gun. The difference is that it can be fired from a regular gun. Upon impact the gel distributes an electric shock on a specific wavelength that shuts down the central nervous system temporarily, even though armor. They’re not as powerful as the pulse guns, on average it takes three shockgels to equal one standard pulse blast, but they work on individual body parts. The pulse guns affect the entire body as a whole regardless where the impact is. On the other hand, the shockgels will impact limited areas first, before the entire body. If the suspect is somewhat resistant to the shockgel, it will still shut down a limited part of the body. Shoot someone in the arm, the arm goes numb and stops responding. They even hit the body soft enough that there is no tissue damage from the impact. He beat me in developing my less-lethal alternative for the police.
“Doc did research and development here under contract for Ishikawa industries. They’re a major contributor to the GCP and the world leader in most technological developments. He started the shockgel project three years before I started the pulse gun research. He already advanced the shockgels to the practical application phase. On Friday – God, that’s tomorrow isn’t it? Shit. . . . Anyway, there will be a press conference in the morning announcing that the entire St. Carver Police Department is switching over to shockgel ammo for a special three-month trial. Only special investigations officers and SWAT will be allowed regular ammo. All other cops will be forced to use shockgels under penalty of indefinite suspension without pay. The police are getting a disgustingly large grant from the government to try the new ammo. If they prove themselves in the field during the next few months, then every law enforcement agency in the country will switch to them. That reminds me. Give me your wrist.”
Emmy sat up grabbing my outstretched wrist. Before I could question, she pressed what looked like a penlight against my wrist. WHOOSH! I felt the injection. It was like forcing ice water through a sponge, and I was the sponge. It stung like a bitch.
“What the hell was that?” I asked taking my arm back and cradling it to will away the pain.
“Resistance vaccination.”
“Right, explain please? And what type of needle was that?”
“It’s an osmotic injector. It forces the serum into the system at a sub-cellular level. Nothing that fancy, a lot of places use them. Stings a little, cold as hell, but nothing as bad as a regular needle. When Doc created the shockgels, he also had an antidote for them created. Since the bullets work on a specific wavelength, the resistance vaccination will make you immune to the effects of them. All they will do is feel like getting hit with a shot from a weak paint-ball gun. I just gave you the vaccine”
“Uh, why create an antidote?”
“I have been wracking my brain with that same question. The only thing I can think of is Jacob. We now know that Doc is working with Jacob, but we have no idea for how long. Perhaps this was a plan of theirs. Get the police to switch to ammo that is completely ineffective against vampires and shifters, and at the same time give your few human followers the antidote. Then you can run amuck through the city without worrying about regular police intervention. Regardless of why, the cops are doing it. Come Monday all the police officers in St. Carver will be exclusively carrying shockgel ammo.”
That thought created a gentle nagging in the back of my mind. Like it was the start of something that was going to go horribly wrong. “What about Ren?”
“She won’t have to change. She’s the lead Detective in her department. That gives her a choice of what ammo she uses. I’m sure that they will pressure her to use the shockgels like everyone else though. Take a look at the desk there. Another of Doc’s pet projects,” she said pointing at the corner of the desk a second before dropping her head into her hands.
“Do you want a painkiller?”
“No thank you. Right now I just want to revel in my misery,” she grumbled into her hands.
I shrugged and went to the desk.
If she wants to suffer, who am I to interfere?
On the desk were three bullets. One of them was one of the explosive silver bullets Yuric the Master Vampire gave me for my custom made Walther’s. The next one looked like a pointed version of the same thing, only with weird swirling marks on it. Third was the same pointed bullet, but the swirls had folded out like the fins on a broad-head arrowhead.
“Doc stole a sample and reverse engineered the ammo from Yuric. Then he improved it. He called them “rippers”. It flies faster, straighter, and hits with almost double the impact then the ones from Yuric. The fins are beyond razor sharp and will tear right through most body armor and tissues. They have a high silver content and act as additional shrapnel when the round detonates. They remain folded until the primer is activated, then they react like memory metal and begin to fold out. By adding special groves in the rifling of the barrel of your guns the fins will act as stabilizers and an added form of propellant. The bullets also have depleted uranium tips that allow them to burn into targets deeper, and to add to the explosion. The number of spheres inside has been doubled. They are smaller, but still hold the same amount of poisons and explosive.
“Look. Long story short, more than twice as powerful as the original bullets. They embed themselves deeper into the tissues of your target before exploding an enhanced detonation. Much bigger holes in bad guys. Oh, and the recoil has increased immensely. And you will be pleased to know that because of their design, they also work equally well underwater as they do on land. Regardless of whether you are firing into the water, or are fully submerged. I’ve already had all of your other guns updated to handle the rippers except the ones you’re wearing. There are two updated Walther pistols, and an updated derringer in the top right drawer of the desk.”
She was still cradling her head in her hands as I rounded the desk. Inside the drawer were the Walther pistols, and the derringer, and a different looking pulse gun. I picked up the guns and laid them out on the desk.
“You want me to leave these others with you here?”
“Sure, why not,” Emmy grumbled with a dismissing wave of her hand.
“What’s with the spare pulse gun? It looks different.”
She lifted her head with a confused look that soon faded. “Oh shit! I completely forgot. That was the whole reason I called you here today. I meant to give you that first thing this morning. It is a pulse gun Mark II.”
“Mark II?”
“Yea, pulse gun 2.0 sounded too much like an internet provider. I had my people change them after that fiasco at Christmas. It took too long to shoot the werewolves each three times or more. When we got jumped at Christmas, even with three of us firing we were overpowered too quickly because of the weak guns. The blasts are now equal to five of the old gun’s blasts. That should take down most shifters and vamps in a single shot, as well as humans. Let’s see them do that with those shockgels. The impact didn’t increase, but the recoil did a little. Because of the increased charge, the new battery
cores only hold twenty shots each, with the same recharge rate. Cassie’s gun now only holds eight shots. It should be enough though. Just don’t miss.”
“Let’s hope we never have to use them. Are you sure you don’t want a painkiller?” I had to ask when I saw her wince from the pain again.
“Funny thing about that. I took one a few minutes before you showed up. I think I’m becoming immune to them. They just don’t work anymore. I called Vicki. We agreed to meet at your place later. She’s going to try to help me get some sleep. I hope it’s okay to crash over tonight.”
“No problem. Let me know what else I can do for you.”
“Right now, just kill the lights on the way out.”
Chapter 3
“What’s up Tanaka?” I asked knocking on the wall next to his head.
He looked like he had fallen asleep in the motor pool again while working on one of his various cars, but I knew he didn’t sleep. As a fully synthetic cyborg, he did not have to sleep. He was just resting out of habit. His eyes squinted to look up at me.
“Kieran? What are you doing here? Emmy was looking for you.”
“Already been. Look, Cassie is out with Mary registering her for college, Ren and Vicki are working, and Emmy is… indisposed. I have time to kill, and I was wondering if you wanted to go to lunch or something?”
“You’re asking me out?” He leered at me with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“As a friend. You left the day after Christmas, and I haven’t got to talk to you since. I thought we might catch up some.”
He gave me a look of disbelief. Then shrugged and stood up instantly wide-awake.
Immortal Death (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter Book 3) Page 2