At the other end of the gateway to the long, thin yard that led to the DAYP’s warehouse, the other guard was turning to face her when the top of his head came off, and he left a red smear on the wall behind him as he fell over. She carefully lowered the guard she’d killed to the ground. The other guard had been shot from a nearby rooftop that overlooked the warehouse just off Massachusetts Avenue. Du Bois’s suppressed, bolt-action Purdey had sounded deafening to her augmented hearing on the quiet street.
Her first trip to America and she had come to a broken and burning Boston, dotted with plane crashes. As they had flown in she had seen a coastguard cutter sailing out of the mouth of the burning Boston River. A US Navy battleship, flying a black flag, had fired on them before continuing to shell the city, apparently at random. Du Bois had taken the Harrier down among the broken towers of the city to evade the anti-aircraft fire. Flying just over deserted ruined streets, through the smoke in Northend, she saw the golden dome of the State House, her neuralware providing the tourist information. Someone had written the word Patriotism in red across the building. Someone else had crossed out the second I and the M, and written the word Redsox underneath it.
They had taken small arms fire over Boston Common, where people dressed as Washington’s blue-coated Continental Army, carrying modern military weapons, were lynching others in business suits. Du Bois gained altitude over the Back Bay area. The Central Artery Tunnels running under Boston had been blockaded with piles of stacked cars. Beth had caught a glimpse of movement in the tunnels. It looked like people were living down there. Du Bois banked right, heading north over Fenway Park. The huge baseball stadium looked packed for some sort of gladiatorial combat. Beth had felt as though she wanted to be sick but her modified body wouldn’t let her. She knew this had been done to humanity but she couldn’t help but wonder how much humanity had wanted it, whether this had always been lying beneath the surface, waiting for an excuse. She wondered about those who hadn’t been on the internet, watching TV, or hadn’t answered their phones. What chance did they have?
The DAYP’s base of operations was an old book warehouse in an otherwise residential part of Cambridge in Boston’s greater metropolitan area. It was only a few blocks from the strangely intact-looking MIT campus. Du Bois had landed the Harrier in Pacific Street Park, hopefully far enough away from the warehouse so the DAYP wouldn’t immediately connect the Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft to them, but close enough to make a quick getaway if need be.
Du Bois had wanted to go in but Beth had pointed out that as the most experienced shooter he would be better off providing overwatch. Du Bois had been unconvinced but had finally agreed. Beth wondered if she was trying to prove something to the centuries-old soldier.
Du Bois had taken the Model 0 light machine gun, and she had taken the SA58 FAL carbine with the underslung M320 grenade launcher. They had swapped over the modular ammo pouches on their webbing for the weapons as well.
Beth had tried to ignore the dead people with dogs gnawing at their carcasses as they moved through the streets towards the warehouse.
Now she moved to the other side of the gate, glancing up at the CCTV camera. She could see clearly in the darkness now, so she magnified her sight and saw where the lenses of the cameras had been spray painted over. The sophisticated card and keypad lock on the razor-wire-topped gate had been blown by what looked like an entry charge, according to her newfound knowledge.
Like du Bois and herself, the gunmen guarding the warehouse couldn’t risk comms infected by the alien madness. They still might not know they were being attacked.
She had no idea what she was doing. Why she was helping du Bois. Why she was killing people in the streets of America. She should have stayed in the castle. There was no need to do this. Besides, if what Azmodeus had said was true, and du Bois seemed to agree, it was pointless anyway. Like pissing into a burning building. As she adjusted her grip on the SA58, at once familiar and completely alien, she wondered how much of this stemmed from the feeling of power her newfound abilities and all the weapons provided.
She had to find calm. Blank her mind, concentrate on the task at hand, no matter how insane.
She could hear movement inside the yard. It sounded furtive. She didn’t think the alarm had been sounded yet. She heard another subsonic round in the air. Someone hit the ground on the other side of the gate. Beth wrenched the sliding gate open enough to allow her entry.
Beth stepped through the gate, the SA58 carbine snug against her shoulder, eyes piercing the dark, looking for more guards. She saw a pair of boots lying between two of the four black SUVs parked against the wall on the left-hand side of the yard.
She found herself looking down the barrel of a carbine. The gunman’s goateed face seemed to cave in on itself and turn red as he collapsed to the ground when du Bois shot him.
There were two more guards further down the yard, backing away from the gate, presumably to warn more gunmen inside. They wore civilian clothes under body armour and military webbing. She fired three subsonic rounds and the first gunman went down. She knew the other was going to have time to fire but the top of his head came off as du Bois shot him from above and behind her.
Beth moved quickly down the yard, checking above, between the SUVs, glancing at the bodies, making sure they were dead. As she got closer to the safety door she could see a hole in it from another breaching charge, like the gate. The gunmen did not work for the DAYP. She wished she had radio contact with du Bois.
The sky lit up behind her. The report from the massive .50 calibre rifle would have startled her once. She heard masonry explode as the huge bullet turned it to powder with its passage. Her augmented hearing had worked out a rough area for the source of the noise. Another sniper had overwatch on the warehouse and was firing, presumably at du Bois. Her best analysis suggested he didn’t have the angle to hit her. They knew she was here, though.
Flickering muzzle flashes from the rooftop behind her backlit her final approach to the warehouse’s door. She heard the flat staccato crack of du Bois firing the LMG, presumably in a bid to suppress the sniper. The returning fire from the .50 calibre sounded like thunder as it rolled across the Cambridge rooftops.
Beth reached the door and pulled it open as she stepped to one side. Nothing. She risked glancing in. To her left she could see a collection of expensive looking customised cars, trucks and vans. She checked to the right but saw only the wall of a short corridor that branched out into a wider area. Nobody fired. Carbine up, she moved in. She immediately began taking fire from the far corner of the garage. She couldn’t be sure but she thought that one of the shooters had his penis out.
Is he wanking over a car? A bullet hit her in the chest. Her clothing hardened. She couldn’t breathe but she was still moving. She went down on one knee and fired the carbine’s grenade launcher. The 40mm high-explosive, armour-piercing grenade punched through the side and rear of a van and exploded inside the pickup truck the two shooters were crouched behind. The force of the explosion sent the pickup truck tumbling back into the corner of the warehouse. She didn’t know if the shooters were dead but they had stopped firing. Her diaphragm allowed her lungs to inflate again. She was up and moving along the short wall, rapidly ejecting the spent grenade casing in the launcher and replacing it with a flechette grenade.
She came wide around the corner into the open space, the central part of the warehouse. The corner was suddenly chewed up by gunfire. She had a moment to take in the situation. The open space was cluttered with various toys, from gym equipment to sex swings. There was a mezzanine floor with lots of monitors and computer equipment. On the ground underneath the raised platform were a number of servers that she guessed were full of alien madness now. Oddest of all, between where she stood and the mezzanine floor was a cage which looked like it had a big dead cat in it, though the shape of the animal was all wrong.
There were two shooters, one with a squad automatic weapon, the other with a carb
ine, firing at her from the mezzanine floor. They had fired on the corner as soon as they had seen movement, which was why she had gone wide. There were another two gunmen running for a heavy sliding door just past the platform. The sliding door was open a crack and she could see moving images on the wall in the next room.
She fired at the gunmen on the mezzanine, the carbine twitching between them. A three-round burst for each. But they had ducked down and the bullets just sparked off the metal framework. She risked a burst at the two fleeing gunmen, targeting graphics overlaid in her vision to show her where to aim. A round caught one of them in the body armour on his back; he stumbled and fell face-first through the doorway. Then her carbine jammed. It was a common problem with cold loads. Because of the cartridge’s reduced powder charge the gun didn’t cycle properly. Beth was using her left hand to sweep the carbine out of the way as she drew the Colt OHWS pistol from the holster at her hip, firing one-handed as she moved for cover. Both gunmen on the mezzanine were back up now. A third was firing through the crack in the sliding door.
It felt like she was being beaten in the chest with hammers. Something hot tried to tear the side of her face off. Her watch hat was torn from her head as she hit the ground behind a sturdy looking weight machine. The Colt was empty. She reloaded it quickly and hunkered down, part of her mind panicking, the other part assessing the shitty situation. Christ, there are a lot of them. She had been hit in the head but her hardened skull had deflected the 5.56mm round. Her body was utilising her fat reserves to create new matter to help with the wound.
Beth holstered the .45 and rolled out from behind the weight machine. Almost immediately she was hit again. She fired the flechette grenade from the carbine’s grenade launcher. Effectively she had turned the weapon into a massive needle-firing shotgun. The SAW gunner disappeared from view. She swept the carbine to one side again as she re-drew her pistol. The other gunner on the mezzanine floor was staggering back. She knew she hadn’t hit him. It looked like he had some sort of spike sticking out of his face but she only caught a glimpse as she fired at the gunner through the sliding door. The gunman ducked back out of sight. The slide locked back on the Colt, the weapon was empty again. She jammed it awkwardly back into its holster and grabbed for a stun grenade from one of the pouches on the front of her webbing. Pin pulled, the spoon flipped out, everything seemed to be happening slowly, the gunman reappeared, she threw the grenade, he disappeared from sight again, shouting a warning. Beth drew the Benelli M4 NFA from its back sheath, extending the stock with her left hand as she brought it over her shoulder. She turned her head and closed her eyes. Her audio filters made her deaf for a while to protect her from the explosion. The flash leaked through her eyelids, but again the tech dealt with it. She could still see fine when she opened her eyes again. She was up on her feet and moving forwards now. Beth glanced up at the mezzanine floor. Blood was dripping down onto the servers but there was no movement. She knew she wasn’t doing this properly. She should have confirmed her kills, but then one person wasn’t supposed to clear a building this size with so many bad guys in it.
She was through the crack in the sliding door. It looked like a man cave. Sofas everywhere, junk food, empty bottles, and it was snowing cocaine. The projector was hanging off its bracket but still projecting images.
The first gunman had blood coming from his ears. He was still blinking as he tried to bring his weapon to bear. The shotgun pellets removed his face as Beth shot him at near point-blank range. The other gunman, the one she had shot, was clawing at the holster for his sidearm with his left arm. Beth had thought she had hit his body armour, but it looked like the bullet had hit him in the upper right arm.
‘Don’t do it!’ she shouted at him, overriding her instinct to fire. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hear her, he would just see her mouth move, but he had to realise that she would kill him if he drew his sidearm. Beth wanted to know who they were, what they were doing here.
‘Fucking bitch!’ he screamed. His voice had the warped quality of someone who couldn’t hear what they were saying. His face was red with hate. He wrenched his sidearm awkwardly out of its holster. Beth shot him in the face, moving forwards, and firing again before his body had hit the ground.
‘Wanker!’ She wasn’t sure if she was angry at him, or herself for the things she’d done. She turned around and shot the other gunman a second time in the face. Working quickly, she collapsed the shotgun’s stock and slid it into the back sheath. She reloaded and re-holstered the Colt, all the while keeping an eye on the sliding door, though she couldn’t hear anything outside.
She removed the suppressor from the SA58 carbine, cleared the jam, checked the weapon, and then reloaded it with a clip of armour-piercing rounds. The images from the projector appeared to be the graphics of some military simulation first-person shooter game. It was like a horrible mirror. That thought had come from the borderline-hysterical part of her partitioned mind. The DAYP clearly had all the toys.
As she checked her weapons she tried to work through a few things that hadn’t quite made sense. Her internal systems had identified a couple of the gunners. One was an ex-Ranger, the other an ex-Marine, both of whom had worked as civilian military contractors. They had still seemed able to work coherently as a team, yet one of them had possibly been masturbating over a car and she suspected that the two in here had been doing coke and playing computer games, which didn’t seem normal. The one she had tried to get to surrender had obviously been overwhelmed with hate, enough so that any sense of self-preservation had abandoned him. All of which could be explained by a significant lapse in military discipline in the civilian world, compounded with drug use, but it still seemed a little odd to her.
She heard a noise outside. It sounded like a whimpering moan. She glanced out through the partially open sliding door. She couldn’t see anyone moving out there. Carbine at the ready, she moved swiftly out, heading up the stairs to the mezzanine floor. She went to the SAW gunner first. His face reminded her, queasily, of raw hamburger. She stood over him and put two in his head to be sure.
The other gunman, the one with the carbine, the one she hadn’t hit with the flechette grenade, also looked dead. The spike had hit him in the jaw, gone through his head, and the point had burst out of the top of his skull. It looked like a huge insect sting. She looked down over the open area. She saw the big cat again. She realised why it looked strange. Big cats didn’t have bat-like wings. There was blood dripping from the cage. There were shell casings and what looked like bloody pitchforks scattered around it. Judging by its wounds the creature had been extensively tortured. It had a segmented, chitinous looking tail that ended in multiple stings like the one embedded in the gunman’s skull. The creature had a human face. The face of an attractive woman. Its chest moved.
She double-checked and then double-tapped the contractors’ bodies in the garage. One of them had indeed had his cock out. On a whim she had flipped open her Balisong knife and cut him, making sure there was some of his blood on the blade before folding it away again.
Now she was standing in front of the manticore’s cage, because it was a manticore, a creature from Persian myth. Except this didn’t look something from a medieval bestiary – few of those had bat wings. This looked like something from a role-playing game. Someone had done this with human and animal flesh to mimic a fucking computer game. Then the soldiers had come here and tortured the thing near to death. She still staggered back and nearly killed the thing when it spoke.
‘Kill me …’ it managed weakly. The pained woman’s face had rows of shark-like teeth.
‘Shit,’ Beth hissed. She couldn’t believe they had left it sentient, still able to talk.
‘Please …’ the creature begged.
Beth raised the carbine. The DAYP weren’t here. This had all been for nothing.
‘Who were … are you?’ she asked.
‘My name was Elizabeth,’ the manticore said. Despite the pain etched on her face, d
espite the abomination that was her body, Beth could see that she had once been beautiful. This had been an act of spite.
‘My name’s Elizabeth as well,’ Beth said quietly. Beth was somehow appalled when she saw the other woman smile.
‘What are the chances …’ According to her neuralware the accent was from New York.
‘What happened?’ Beth asked.
‘Will you kill me?’ Elizabeth asked. Beth nodded and the manticore continued. ‘Oh, y’know, it’s the usual story: girl meets alpha male wannabe, girl rejects said man-child, girl gets turned into a monster.’
‘This was because you said no to him?’ Beth asked incredulously. Elizabeth’s answering laughter was bitter. ‘Who?’
‘He calls himself King Jeremy. There’s four of them. Jeremy, Dracimus and Inflictor Doorstep.’
Beth raised an eyebrow at the name. ‘You said four.’
‘I think one of them got killed in England.’
‘That was us.’
‘Good.’ The manticore was already in a great deal of pain. Beth didn’t wish to draw it out but there were things she had to know. She glanced about, checking her surroundings. There was no gunfire coming from outside. Given du Bois’s capabilities she assumed it was because he had killed the other sniper.
‘Elizabeth, do you know where they’ve gone?’
The manticore’s eyes closed as she took several ragged breaths. Beth was sure she was going to die right there.
‘I think they’ve gone to LA,’ Elizabeth told her. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Outside. My family …’
The Beauty of Destruction Page 21