Ure Infectus

by Caleb Wachter

  “If you’re certain you can make that determination before the weapon has spread outside your containment zone, fine,” Jericho said in a commanding tone, knowing full well what his order meant. “But if you can’t get confirmation, you cook off the atmosphere around the city—do you understand me?”

  “Jericho,” Charles said hesitantly, “there are over six hundred thousand people in Abaca who will either burn to death or suffocate if we’re wrong.”

  “And if we’re right there are two and a half million people outside the city who will die if we let that weapon spread,” Jericho retorted harshly. “You only abort the launch if you can prove the weapon hasn’t been deployed, am I clear?”

  Silence greeted his ears for several long, tense seconds. Just as Jericho was about to remind his cousin of his orders, Captain Charles replied, “I understand…and for what it’s worth, I’m afraid it’s the right move.”

  “I have no idea if it’s right or not,” Jericho said grimly, “but I do know that we can’t be paralyzed by fear of being wrong. Update me every two minutes via point-to-point tactical packets.”

  “You’ve got it,” the other man said crisply, “Charles out.”

  Jericho studied the Tyson’s instrumentation to confirm everything was as it should be. Nearly every single system was redlined, with the engines well past their recommended operating ranges and nearing their rated failure points.

  As the Neil deGrasse Tyson tore through Philippa’s atmosphere, Jericho wondered whether he would have called off the Adjustment in that moment if he was able. Doing so very possibly would save six hundred thousand lives, and to Jericho those people were not merely statistics—he fully understood that each of them was a parent, a child, a sibling, a mentor, a student, or even a future leader of humanity.

  The answer, when he finally arrived at it, made even his blood turn cold.

  Chapter XXVIII: The Blurred Line between Victory and Defeat

  Masozi crouched in the corner of the secure dressing room as she awaited the Governor’s concert to reach intermission. The audacity of a sitting government official—especially one of Governor Keno’s public stature—participating in such a gross display of indulgence was simply mind-blowing.

  It wasn’t enough of a reason to kill the woman…but it was enough that Masozi genuinely thought she might consider the matter if she had been one of the Governor’s constituents.

  The real reason the Governor deserved to die was that she had knowingly wrought havoc on her people’s livelihoods. Life in the Capitol City of Abaca was more or less like that in any of Virgin’s cities. The streets were clean, there were plentiful public amenities, and the structures seemed to be well-maintained.

  But the outlying areas—some of which Masozi had seen personally—were atrociously serviced. It was as if there were two separate worlds on Philippa: one for the rich and the other for the poor. The image of St. Murray’s patrons with their radiation poisoning had been burned into Masozi’s mind, and she knew that anyone who willfully encouraged such conditions among the very populace who depended on them to serve and protect deserved to be punished.

  Masozi understood that not all people could have equal access to the finer conveniences in life, and that a person needs to earn their way on his or her own merits. But Governor Keno, and her family, had purposefully denied their populace an already-functioning method by which they could better themselves—and they had done it with the clear intent of privately profiting off the very opportunity they had just stolen from the people who depended on them.

  As the cheers reached a crescendo in the coliseum above her, Masozi felt her spine stiffen at the Governor’s conduct. She was literally profiting from her people’s misery, and her unwitting public was cheering her for her efforts!

  Philippa’s most active generation had been raised in the very circumstances which the Timent Electorum had been founded to prevent. As she heard the intermission call echo through the coliseum above her, Masozi knew that, more than at any other point in her life, what she had come to do was not only palatable—it was necessary.

  If people like Governor Keno were allowed to continue abusing their populace then life in the Virgin System would soon devolve into a caste-based society with the privileged aristocracy sitting at the top—the very system of ‘government’ which the Sector had been freed from when the wormhole had collapsed two hundred years earlier.

  The minutes passed by at a maddeningly slow pace, until finally she heard the Governor’s entourage near the door to the room.

  “Showtime, babe,” Eve said, cracking her virtual knuckles for emphasis. “As soon as the door’s closed, you give her hell—don’t hold anything back. If we’re lucky we can take her before she even realizes we’re here. Just hit her with everything you’ve got; I’ll transfer power from the stealth systems to the suit’s other mods if we don’t get her with the first shot.”

  As the door opened, Masozi held her breath when she saw a handful of heavily-armed guards standing outside the room. The Governor—a huge woman who had apparently not opted for any kind of skeletal reduction during her gender change operation—entered the room.

  As she entered the room, one of her male handlers said in a piercing, effeminate voice, “The Governor requires her rest before the show may resume. Please take this opportunity to—“

  The door closed, cutting off the man’s words mid-sentence. The Governor drew a breath, which she released as a sigh while rolling her neck around as the mag-locks engaged on the door.

  Masozi knew this would be her best chance so she drew her left fist back in anticipation. After drawing a deep breath, she launched herself at the Governor with a vicious, overhand punch aimed squarely at the woman’s muscular neck.

  Just before her gauntleted fist connected with the flesh of the Governor’s neck, the Governor brought her forearm up in an inhumanly fast gesture, blocking Masozi’s blow just enough that it was deflected off target and struck Keno in the shoulder.

  The impact when Masozi’s armored forearm connected with Keno’s unarmored one was jarring, and unlike anything Masozi had expected to feel.

  “She’s augmented, all right,” Eve said grimly just before the Governor launched a counterattack. Keno punched low and then brought her knee up into Masozi’s midsection and shockingly sent her flying into the far wall. She impacted there with enough force to send a web of cracks radiating from the point of impact on the thick, concrete-and-steel wall.

  Masozi regained her feet just in time to launch a counterattack as the Governor brought her foot up in a roundhouse kick aimed at Masozi’s head. Diving inside the Governor’s guard, Masozi hammered an uppercut into the woman’s surprisingly hard ribcage. Even with the added strength from the suit behind the blow, Masozi barely managed to elicit more than a grunt as the Governor grabbed her wrist and head before trying to throw Masozi onto her back.

  Their combined bulk crashed into the nearby sofa and its thin, metal frame snapped as the piece of furniture collapsed. Masozi only then realized that her stealth systems were compromised when she saw that her gauntlet was flickering between visibility and invisibility.

  Governor Keno grabbed Masozi’s armored neck with her left hand, then postured up and cocked her right fist in preparation for a crushing blow to Masozi’s head—but Masozi had no intention of waiting for it to arrive. She grabbed the Governor’s left wrist with both of her hands and pivoted her hips and shoulders such that she isolated Governor Keno’s left arm between her armored legs and pulled Keno’s thick wrist against her armored chest.

  She barely managed to avoid the incoming deathblow by doing so, and Keno’s free fist struck the concrete beneath the ruined sofa with a sharp, cracking sound. Before the Governor could recover, Masozi had strained with everything her suit-powered strength could muster as she fought to break the Governor’s arm.

  She felt the arm give at the elbow, but Governor Keno barely seemed to notice as she had already regained her feet. As s
he did so, Masozi was turned nearly upside down and the Governor stomped down into Masozi’s armored chin once—twice—three times before Masozi finally let go of Keno’s ruined arm and pushed away in an effort to create some much-needed space.

  But Governor Keno pursued and snapped another, brutal kick into Masozi’s armor—this one into her left thigh—just before Masozi was able to get her feet beneath herself.

  “Nice armor,” the Governor growled as she pivoted on her front, right foot. She spun her body around faster than Masozi had ever seen—even during kickboxing competition—and planted her right foot squarely in Masozi’s gut. The impact was easily lethal had she been unarmored, and a series of red icons began to flash on her helmet’s HUD as she sailed through the air from the power of the kick.

  Masozi crashed into the far wall and collapsed to her knees just as the Governor planted a hellacious knee into her chest. Another round of alarms went off in the suit’s systems and Masozi heard Eve say, “We can’t take much more of this; work your way toward the door!”

  The Governor followed the knee strike up with a pair of crushing, overhand punches delivered to Masozi’s armored head. The displays in her helmet briefly flickered off before returning, and just as the Governor reached down with her right arm to grip behind Masozi’s neck—thankfully Keno’s left arm now hung uselessly at her side—Masozi put everything she had into a rising uppercut aimed at the Governor’s chin.

  Keno’s own strike was driven off-target by Masozi’s powerful punch, and the blow literally lifted the Governor a foot off the floor and sent her body in a ponderous arc through the air. The Governor’s arm and legs flailed uselessly as Masozi reached up with both of her hands and grasped the other woman by the waist mid-air.

  Keno reached down with her one good arm in a blind attempt to break Masozi’s grip, but Masozi grasped her opponent’s waist tightly and drove her body across the small room until they slammed into the still-locked door.

  They crashed into the door with enough force to visibly deform it, and Keno’s body briefly went limp. “Grab that conduit—quick!” Eve said, and a section of conduit which apparently fed the door’s mag-locks lit up in the helmet’s display.

  Without even thinking why Eve would want her to do it, Masozi leapt up and grabbed the conduit with her left hand. It broke free from its moorings as her body fell down on top of the Governor’s, and Masozi hammered a pair of punches into the Governor’s head with her right hand—which, for Masozi, was her off-hand—and Keno went limp for a fraction of a second from the repeated, concussive impacts.

  Masozi now understood Eve’s intended use for the power conduit, so she grabbed Keno’s chin in her right hand and tore as much of the flexible power conduit free from its brackets as she could. Once she had done so—and with her own body straddling the Governor’s—she rammed the open end of the conduit into the side of the Governor’s head.

  The lights dimmed in the room as the electricity in the conduit coursed through Keno’s body. The surge was cut off after just two seconds—along with the lights—but that was enough of a jolt for Keno’s body to go through a series of violent convulsions.

  Masozi knew almost nothing about augments—often referred to as ‘cybernetics’ in popular fiction—but she did know that her own suit was already damaged and that it couldn’t withstand an indefinite amount of damage before it became little more than a shapely, expensive tomb.

  She reached down and isolated the Governor’s right arm using a maneuver she had seen in holo-vids, but never actually attempted. She locked her left hand on Keno’s right wrist, and then snaked her right arm around the Governor’s right elbow before gripping her own, armored forearm with her gauntleted hand. She then stood and wrenched on Governor Keno’s right arm with everything she had, forcing it to rotate up behind her opponent's back. It was more than slightly alarming that the joint didn’t simply pop out with the initial movement, but Masozi had the advantage and she knew she needed to press it.

  She redoubled her efforts just as the Governor gathered her feet beneath herself sluggishly and attempted to use her ruined, left arm to grasp Masozi’s waist. Masozi heaved and strained with every fiber of muscle she had, but the Governor’s shoulder simply would not surrender.

  “Fucking…bitch,” Governor Keno slurred just as she regained her feet, and Masozi knew that this would be her last chance to neutralize the Governor’s good arm. Somehow, even with one arm, Governor Keno had been Masozi’s suit-powered match—it was now or never.

  Masozi arched her back, wrenched the Governor’s arm up behind her opponent’s back, and screamed with effort as she saw the display in her helmet dim. Just as Keno managed to grasp around Masozi’s waist with her free, ruined arm, the Governor’s right shoulder was destroyed with the sound of a dozen pieces of metal shearing in unison.

  Governor Keno let out a brief cry of surprise, but Masozi continued to torque on the arm until she had rotated it so far it was nearly pointed forward. She spun the Governor’s body over using her newfound leverage, and landed on top of Keno before the Governor’s arm literally came off at the shoulder in a shower of blood and metallic fragments. Her helmet’s night vision was still fully functional, so she was able to maneuver herself into a dominant position as the now-disarmed Governor fell to the ground.

  “Wait, wait!” the Governor screamed as Masozi mounted her ruined body and cocked her left hand for what she hoped would be a killing blow. “I’ll give you ten times whatever you’re getting paid; I’m the richest woman in the System—maybe even the Sector! You can have everything, just don’t kill me. I have two children who need me!”

  Masozi had heard it all during her own examinations as an Investigator, and though Keno was a lifelong politician her words rung hollow in Masozi’s ears. “You betrayed your people, Governor,” Masozi said coldly, but for some reason she stayed her hand. She had never actually taken a life during her time as an Investigator, and had only ever fired a lethal weapon at another human twice.

  “Please,” the Governor pleaded, and even Masozi believed that the tears now streaming down her cheeks were genuine, “my people need me. They won’t know what to do if I’m gone—you’re not an assassin,” she added hastily as recognition seemed to dawn in her eyes and Masozi actually had to process the woman’s words. “A real assassin would have killed me already…”

  Masozi considered Keno’s suggestion that she wasn’t an assassin, and the truth was she had never fully considered that if she killed the Governor then that was precisely what she would be. She may have a sturdy legal leg to stand on if she acted in accordance to the Timent Electorum’s directives…but she had come to a line she had never even dreamed she would consider crossing.

  “I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement,” Governor Keno said, her eyes relaxing fractionally as though she was nearly out of danger, “I’ll make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams—just think of it! You can have your own starship, enough money to buy a moon like this one, and an army of people who will live and die at your whim!”

  It was in that moment that Masozi realized who, and what, the Governor really was—and, by extension what Masozi really was. The Governor and her ilk were solely motivated by their ability to exert power over others. Keno had let her people suffer and die from poverty while she basked in the glow of their adoration. Masozi knew that this woman would continue to deny the few opportunities for improvement which those people possessed each and every year she held office—or any other position of power over the people of Philippa.

  Masozi felt something strange and startlingly unfamiliar in that moment and it didn’t take her long to realize what it was: purpose. She had thought that working as an Investigator would give her life some measure of meaning, but the truth was she could have spent her entire life and solved each case that came across her desk in New Lincoln’s Investigative Unit and she would have never come close to correcting as much injustice as she might do in that moment.


  Apparently taking Masozi’s silence for some form of approval, Governor Keno reiterated, “By this time tomorrow you’ll be the richest woman in the Sector. I’ll give you everything you could ever want.” A nearly predatory look came over the Governor’s face, and in that moment Masozi steeled herself to what needed to be done.

  “You’ve got nothing I need,” Masozi bit out before sending her fist into the Governor’s face. Keno resisted the best she was able, but with two ruined arms there was little she could do to prevent the inevitable as Masozi’s armored gauntlets tore into the woman’s face with punch after brutal punch.

  Masozi thought of all the people who had died because of Keno, Stiglitz, and whoever else had been involved in the attempt to track her down and silence her. She still didn’t know why they had tried to kill her, but Masozi no longer cared.

  A single, resonant truth filled every corner of her consciousness in that moment, and it was a profound realization which she knew would re-shape her in ways she could only begin to wonder at:

  People who would do as Keno had done couldn’t be allowed to live.

  After several dozen punches, the Governor’s skin had been peeled back from her face to reveal a clearly cybernetic skull beneath. Masozi didn’t know much about augment technology, but she seriously doubted that what she was seeing was ‘normal’ augmentation.

  The Governor’s body went limp, and Masozi reached down to cradle her head in her hands and once she had done so, she gave an almighty twist and the Governor’s head came off entirely.

  Masozi stood as the Governor’s body went limp beneath her, and she numbly dropped Keno’s disembodied head to the floor. She stood there in silence for several seconds before Eve’s deadpan voice came over the helmet’s speakers, “How does my ass taste now…beeyotch?”

  In spite of the weight of what had just happened, Masozi couldn’t stifle a short laugh at Eve’s apparently indomitable attitude. “How do we get out of here?” she asked, having never asked the question before that moment.