Ash Ock

by Christopher Hinz

  So obvious, thought Gillian. How could I have not seen it? But that question had an even simpler answer. Empedocles prevented me from seeing the truth. He knew I would not surrender to such a fate.

  Catharine’s eyes pleaded with him. Empedocles begged: It is the only way, Gillian. Your long years of torment will end. At last, you will know inner peace. We will be together always. We will transcend.

  “No!” he screamed, hurtling out of his chair, jerking his arm forward, slamming his fist toward Cochise’s jugular.

  An instant of time, slashed open. Cochise’s face erupting into a wild continuum of emotion: shock, delight, fury. And then the tway was wrenching sideways and Gillian’s fist was meeting empty air.

  Gillian clamped his jaw shut, igniting his crescent web just in time. Cochise’s right boot slashed upward, aiming for Gillian’s kidney. The energy field turned the blow. The tway’s foot, still in motion, arched up across the protective barrier, then slid down the other side. The action put Cochise off balance.

  Gillian slammed his open palm up under the tway’s jaw. The Rob’n’hood archer’s cap flew from Cochise’s head as he stumbled and fell backward across the bench.

  Gillian dove after him, crashed down on top of the tway, his knee thrust forward into Cochise’s groin for the crippling blow. But there was no sensation of hard contact. Instead, it felt as if Gillian had just rammed his knee into a thick soft pillow.

  Squash armor! Cochise wore micro energy webs, protecting his vital organs.

  Gillian still had the advantage. He continued his forward motion and brought his left elbow down onto the tway’s face. But Cochise saw it coming and twisted his neck. Gillian’s forearm glanced off the tway’s cheek.

  For a fraction of an instant, their eyes locked. Gillian saw the hatred, heard the virgin hiss of a creature who had never before experienced such punishment.

  And suddenly—unnaturally—a heavy glistening sweat was pouring off of Cochise’s body, as if the tway was actually oozing oil from his pores. Gillian found himself sliding across Cocnise’s chest and onto the floor.

  Son of a bitch! Off balance, Gillian nailed the carpet with his right knee, feeling that portion of his web compress. He waited until his weight was centered, then used his knee as a pivot point and pirouetted one hundred and eighty degrees, roaring to his feet in a low crouch, crescent web arched forward, ruefully aware that he was now on the defensive, that this lone tway was no easy foe.

  Cochise was retreating toward the far wall. On his hands and knees, the tway slithered madly across the floor, his whole body oozing the slippery fluid, leaving a shiny trail across the carpet like some bizarre human slug. Gillian’s hyperalert consciousness analyzed the tway’s defense, concluding that the pore oil trick had to be a one-shot gambit, utilized for precisely the reason that Cochise had activated it: to escape a hand-to-hand combat situation where the tway lacked tactical advantage.

  Gillian hesitated. And out of that hesitation, Catharine reappeared, her shadow presence floating in the air directly above Cochise’s snaking form. She gazed at Gillian, her eyes shining brightly, lovingly—each eye a tiny pool of gold surrounded by an ocean of dark water. Her mouth opened. Empedocles spoke.

  The whelm, Gillian! Release yourself. Release me! Together we can take him!

  Twin electric currents—desire and fear—tore through Gillian.

  Bring us together! screamed Empedocles. Bring us together before this tway destroys you!

  “No!” Gillian shouted, using all the energies at his command to hinder the whelm, to fight the raging inner streams that sought coalescence.

  Cochise, sliding out of control in his own fluids, crashed into the bare wall. In one twisting motion, the tway vaulted upright, showering the office in a spray of the thick pore oil. Dripping palms slapped against the wall, fingers madly seeking.

  Gillian’s first thought was that the tway sought escape, that his writhing hands searched for the opening controls to a hidden door. But no portal appeared. Instead, Cochise’s palms suddenly made contact with hidden switches. Two small serving platters popped out of the wall, one of each side of him. The tway’s eyes lit up with murderous delight.

  The whelm! shrieked Empedocles. Do it now!

  Slimy hands grabbed a small knife from each platter. Weird cartoon images flickered madly—twin maelstroms of unstable color and form. Gillian recognized the weapons, though he had not actually seen such blades since his training with Meridian, ages ago.

  Flash daggers. Cochise was the tway known as Slasher.

  The assassin lunged forward, whipping the erratic shafts of light through the air like ancient scythes across a field of wheat. To Slasher’s right, the shadow image of Catharine kept pace, coming at Gillian with the same intensity as the killer, her elfin face swelling with desire.

  Gillian gritted his teeth with newfound determination. No, Em-pedocles—you may not arise. Go away or I swear to you—I’ll let him kill me!

  Slasher twisted sideways. The right-handed blade plunged forward. For just an instant, Empedocles seemed to teeter on the edge of Gillian’s will, a mad and frustrated presence. And then the image of Catharine dissolved. Empedocles withdrew back into the deepest reaches of Gillian’s being.

  Slasher’s blade, abruptly doubling in length, slashed at the exposed left portal of Gillian’s web. Gillian twisted sideways. Flash dagger met energy screen and a volley of hissing red sparks exploded across the office as the dueling fields came together.

  The words of his former teacher rushed through Gillian’s awareness. Constantly analyze your opponent’s tactics, Meridian would say, during those endless days and nights of combat training. Don’t waste valuable micromoments between parries and thrusts. During every step of the battle, allow your enemy to instruct you.

  Gillian analyzed. Slasher is wearing squash armor and boasts two flash daggers. But he wears no crescent web or else it would have been ignited at the moment of my attack. I have no offensive armaments, but I do have the most powerful defensive body-screen ever devised.

  Slasher leaped backward and to the right, seeking a new position. Then he lunged forward again, his left blade thrusting at Gillian’s unprotected hip. Gillian perceived the trickery. He waited until the last possible moment, then jerked his right hip out of the way. Cartoon knife and invisible web again met in a torrent of red tracers. Slasher’s right-handed dagger—the real threat—came whipping down at Gillian’s other flank.

  Gillian leaped sideways. The tip of the pulsating flash dagger missed his exposed left hip by inches.

  That was too close. I can’t survive a long assault. Sooner or later, one of his blades will get through my web. Gillian acknowledged another concern. Right now, it’s one on one. But Slasher’s other tways could be racing toward this office right now. Time is on his side as well.

  Slasher, as if suddenly becoming cognizant that he had the advantage, backed away from the combat arena. His face blurred into a wicked smile and his hands dropped to his sides. Flash daggers contracted to their normal length—sizzling barrels of light aimed at the floor. The tway laughed.

  “They told me you were dangerous,” he mocked.

  “You should listen to your Ash Ock masters,” parried Gillian, thinking: He’s stalling. Is another tway—or tways—coming?

  “They call you the traitor. But most of us are amused when we hear the tales of your petty exploits. They say: Kascht moniken keenish.”

  Gillian felt Empedocles stir, as if those strange words meant something to him.

  Slasher paused, watching him carefully. Then he laughed. “You should have died a long time ago. But better late than never.”

  A faint shiver went through Gillian—combat fear. And he thought: I have to act now. I have to take this bastard down—and quickly—before his other tways arrive.

  With a deliberate grimace of panic showing on his face, Gillian turned and ran toward the featureless wall where the entrance portal lay hidden. Scraping his finger
s desperately across the soundproofing fabric, he pretended to be searching for the hidden door controls. He closed his eyes and recalled the words of his teacher.

  Listen with your entire being, Meridian would urge. Learn to fight without actually seeing your enemy. Eyesight is a potent mechanism, but with training, your ears and other senses can grow just as powerful.

  In the silence of Cochise’s office, Gillian listened. He heard the faint patter of Slasher’s boots, the shortened lapses between footfalls, and he knew that the tway was accelerating across the office, coming at him from the rear. Raw data translated into an image of the assassin—a concrete gestalt. He waited until the tway was almost on top of him, and then he compressed his upper body against the wall and lashed out with his right foot.

  The heel of his boot caught Slasher in the chest, and the force of the blow stopped him in midcharge. The assassin grunted. Arms flailed wildly; cartoon knives ripped at the air—icons of frustrated energy, unable to reach their prey. The tway fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

  If I’m lucky, he’s got a collapsed lung. Gillian did not wait to find out. He raced over to the twin red benches and ran his hands beneath them, hoping that he had guessed correctly.

  He had. Door controls were mounted beneath both seats. Gillian pressed a relay and the portal entrance reappeared. He took one last look at Slasher—on his knees, eyes bright with pain, flash daggers still whipping back and forth—and then Gillian was racing out into the hallway. Behind him, the door snapped automatically shut.

  The secretary’s eyes widened with surprise as Gillian dashed up to her desk. “What’s wrong—”

  He grabbed her wrist and yanked her out of her chair. She screamed. Martha and Jocko appeared in the still-open door of the convator.

  “Jocko, we’re leaving!” yelled Gillian, dragging the secretary past them and into the CV. “Get us to ground floor! Quickly!”

  Jocko just stood there, gaping. Buff appeared behind him.

  “Let’s go,” Gillian snapped. ‘Pretend the building’s on fire.”

  Buff went into action. She grabbed Jocko’s arms, wrenched them behind his back, and marched him toward the control room.

  Jocko squirmed painfully. “I can’t move this CV without permission—”

  He howled as Buff twisted his arm. “Jocko,” the Costeau warned pleasantly, “if you don’t get this convator moving real quick, I’m going to take off your helmet—with your head still in it.”

  Gillian grabbed the secretary by the back of the neck. “Did you trigger any security alerts?”

  The young woman began to cry. Gillian shook her. “Answer me! Did you trip any alarms?”

  “No,” she sobbed. “Don’t hurt me—please!”

  “Martha, tie her up and stick her in the lavatory.”

  Martha grabbed the secretary and led her away. The CV docking door slammed shut. A moment later, Gillian was almost knocked off his feet as the convator jerked violently to the left.

  “Christ!” yelled Martha.

  “Sorry,” came Buff’s voice from the control room. “You want speed, you get a rough ride.” She emerged, leading Jocko by the elbow. The escort looked pale.

  “How long?” asked Gillian.

  “Forty seconds till we dock with the lobby,” said Buff. “I had Jocko program the emergency exit routine.”

  The CV tilted to the left. Gillian gripped the table for balance. “Jocko, an exit routine, that will send a signal to security?”

  The escort gave a nervous nod. “I . . . think so.”

  “Buff, put him in the lavatory, too.” Gillian leaped onto the conference table and shifted his left leg through the weak side portal of his still-active crescent web. One of the mounted refreshment stations was in his way. He gave the unit three sharp kicks and it ripped loose from its mooring, tumbling away from the table in a spray of electrical sparks. A broken hose blasted a liquid stream ten feet across the room, soaking a two-foot-square patch of brown-pelt neurofab. Organic tissue parted, began slithering away from the wet spot.

  Gillian moved to the end of the table furthest from the docking door. He crouched low, in a sprinter’s position. Martha and Buff finished locking their captives in the lavatory.

  Gillian pointed to the door: “Security people—or worse—will be waiting for us. Follow me through as fast as you can. Get to the security desk and get your weapons.”

  “The Lion is not going to like this,” muttered Buff.

  “Less than ten seconds,” said Martha calmly.

  The CV abruptly dropped down and to the right. Gillian felt his stomach rise in response to the wild motion. Then came a final sharp twist to the left and the convator jerked to a sudden halt. Gillian stared at the door.

  At the instant the pressure seal parted, he lunged forward, sprinting the length of the table in four quick strides. He dove off the end and hurtled out into Venus Cluster’s lobby, his arms and legs tucked inside the web, a flying sphere of compressed energy.

  Two security men, bearing pistols. The guards barely had time to open their mouths in astonishment before Gillian slammed into them. Their three bodies tumbled wildly out into the lobby.

  Gillian slid to a stop six feet in front of the central security desk, slightly bruised but essentially unhurt. He stood up. From somewhere behind him, he heard a series of shouts; pedestrians, scattered throughout the hall, were dashing around in panic. But right now, Gillian’s most important concern was the gray-haired security guard, who was nervously aiming a thruster pistol at Gillian from behind his console.

  “Don’t move!” ordered the guard, apparently failing to notice that Gillian wore an active crescent web.

  Gillian drew a couple of needed breaths, noting out of the corner of his eye that the other two security men were still on the deck, one unconscious, the other on his back, writhing in pain. Martha and Buff were twenty feet away, racing toward them.

  Gillian asked the guard: “What about my friends?” and then pointed his arm at the rapidly approaching Costeaus.

  The security man turned his head. Gillian lunged forward, snatched the thruster from his hand, and punched him in the mouth. Eyes glazed over and the guard fell back into his seat.

  “Neat trick,” said Buff, grimacing with exertion.

  Martha vaulted over the security console and retrieved their weapons. Buff stuffed the throwing knives inside her jacket and handed her thruster to Gillian. She placed the odd-looking projectile weapon in her left hand and balanced the sandram in her right.

  Gillian, feeling better now that he was armed, scanned the lobby. The floating holo display—naked man and woman—was just dissolving out of the far wall to embark on yet another choreographed dance across the tiles. The remainder of living pedestrians were frantically dashing toward the front and side exits.

  “Let’s go,” Gillian urged, pointing to one of the lateral doors.

  But just as he was about to move, one of the regular elevators dumped another pair of armed security men into the lobby. And from the main entrance, four E-Tech Security officers—two male and two female—dashed into the building. Faint red auras, glistening around their crisp blue uniforms, advertised crescent webs. All four carried thrusters.

  “You are under arrest!” shouted their leader, a female lieutenant. “Do not move. Drop your weapons and deactivate your webs. Put your hands on top of your heads.”

  From their right flank, the two Security men from the elevator, also armed with thrusters, approached warily.

  “Well, Mr. De Fevre?” asked Buff softly. “What now?”

  Behind the security console, Martha began to hum a melody. A faint smile touched Buff’s lips. Gillian understood. Martha had attached to her PAL box, was utilizing a personalized combination of natural tonal patterns to realign the gun trigger with her nervous system.

  “I’m ready,” whispered Martha.

  “Sing!” ordered Gillian, diving across the floor, firing at the closest E-Tech officer. From the
corner of his eye he saw Martha’s arm snap straight out, gun wailing, the triple-tube thruster a blur of motion as it swiveled back and forth in her palm, direct-drive neural trigger firing on multiple targets, scoring hits with uncanny accuracy. The E-Tech officers, protected by their webs, were nonetheless buffeted like saplings in the throes of a raging storm.

  Buff’s projectile weapon barked once and a blinding sheet of white light spilled into the front of the lobby. A floor-hugging sheet of transparent flame, eight feet wide and seemingly with a life of its own, began leaping from one E-Tech officer to the next—a fiery pencil trying to connect the dots. As the unnatural flame touched each crescent web, the outlines of the energy fields glistened brightly, like sickle-shaped vases wetted by soapy water.

  The transparent flame quickly died away, but as it did, the four E-Tech officers began hopping madly, as if their feet were on fire. Gillian had never before seen anything like it.

  Buff let loose a triumphant shout as the E-Tech squad—en masse—raced out of the building.

  Gillian pivoted right at the same instant as Martha, their weapons seeking fresh targets. But the two security men had had enough, and were running back toward the safety of the elevators. Obviously, dealing with crazed combatants and high-tech weaponry fell outside their job descriptions.

  “The side exit,” Gillian urged. “Quickly!”

  The three of them hid their weapons and raced out onto the bright and narrow Irryan street, slowing to a brisk walk as they melted into a dense lunchtime crowd. This was a pedestrian thoroughfare, free of cars: just fast-moving throngs of humanity, intertwining as they struggled toward their various destinations.

  Gillian heard distant sirens, but he knew they were still far enough away to be no threat. The E-Tech Security people who had confronted them in the lobby must have been relatively close to have arrived so quickly. Their misfortune.

  “Jesus, Gillian,” whispered Buff, “this is crazy. What in the hell is going on?”