Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  It took much longer than I would have liked, because I had to move in a huge circle. I had no way of knowing whether they had guessed my objective, but it was safer to assume that they had. I went up and around, hoping to flank any traps they might have set.

  When I think back on that run, all I get is a series of images: a blacked-out restaurant called Norman’s, with a special on clam chowder or something textured to resemble it. An abandoned art-show, with paintings of the Venusian living towers framed by colorful sunsets or wreathed in clouds. A bank with most of the windows shattered, and dead bodies impaled on huge shards of broken glass.

  It felt like hours, because I had to move like a frightened animal in a world of predators—going from hiding place to hiding place, as silently as possible, with no one to cover me if I should happen to be spotted.

  But I wasn’t spotted. Arbiter escape and evasion training is the best available, or so I thought—and beyond the training, I had Gabriel’s memory with me. When I crossed an open space, I heard his voice telling me to move quickly and quietly. When I looked up and down a street, scanning the options for potential hiding places, I would hear his voice again. See that recycling unit over there? You could fade into the shadows behind it. But that fire escape is even better, there isn’t a hint of light under there.

  I slipped through the dead city without being seen and worked my way around by degrees until I was near my goal. Just a few blocks away from the staircase, I found them still searching for me. A squad of android proxies had the intersection barricaded, and Nightwatch officers were going door to door.

  I was in the doorway of a small apartment complex, so I dropped back into the building and headed upward. On the second floor, I found the aftermath of another massacre. No one in the building had made it out, as far as I could tell from the tangled bodies. Old ladies, young couples, little children… gunned down and left where they fell.

  I stepped over the bodies, but it was more of the same throughout the building. Between there and the roof, every floor was choked with the dead. By the time I was done, I had stopped even trying to avoid stepping on the bodies.

  When I reached the rooftop, I slid the coilgun off my shoulder and took aim at the androids on the barricade. There were six of them down there, but none of them were heavy weapon droids. As soon as I started shooting, they’d be able to calculate my last location. To take down all six of them before they could muster an effective response, I would have to shoot fast and straight.

  The first one fell silently, dropping to its knees and then flat on its face. The other five turned together, but before they responded I took the second one. They zeroed in on me quickly, but I killed the third as it raised its weapon. The other two started shooting, and I felt the impact of bullets against my armor. I killed the fourth and fifth a moment later, and the sixth one started running in my direction. I took that one on the street.

  As if on cue, Nightwatch officers started pouring out from the nearby buildings. I killed three of them from my rooftop vantage point, then ran and jumped. Just like what had happened on Level 250, the gap in the enemy lines was small and shrinking. I crossed from one roof to another until I reached that intersection, then ran down the fire escape. As I was nearing the bottom, a Nightwatch officer appeared at the corner. I expected gunfire, but instead a round black object came flying through the air—he had thrown a grenade.

  The thing exploded with a blinding flash and a deafening roar. The fire escape collapsed underneath me. I tried to jump clear when I felt it buckle, but my ankle twisted when I hit the street. The coilgun skidded away from me, its barrel bent. As the Nightwatch officer primed another grenade, I aimed my own weapon at him and pulled the trigger. He collapsed in the street, and I covered my head as the grenade went off. It killed him instantly and after, as I tried to jump to my feet on an injured ankle, I was forced to limp from there to the intersection.

  As I finally reached the utility staircase, the Nightwatch officers were pouring into the area, responding to the ambush at the barricade. I ran over to the door in the wall as quickly as I could with through the stabbing pain, slid it open, and slammed it behind me. Staring up at the steep metal staircase it had cost me so much to reach, all I could think was that I had a long, long way to go.

  10

  A few hours later, with only seventeen hours to go until everyone died, and just like we’d anticipated, there was another riot control grenade boobytrap near the middle of the utility staircase—but only one. I successfully disabled it, then snuck out through an almost entirely abandoned level and made it back to the elevator shaft above the grenades that had stopped Gabriel and me from getting this far before now. Going up such a short distance had cost us dearly, but there was no point in thinking about that now.

  I put all the loss and regret behind me and finished climbing the rest of the way up to the living tower’s second highest level. There was no one waiting for me when I came out, which made me think that Marcenn must be badly distracted. The androids and Nightwatch officers down below had lost my trail. They were probably still looking for me down there in the dark.

  Much of this level was a shopping district for Tower 7’s elite, and I met quite a few Venusian bluebloods as I roamed around. I didn’t meet them at their best, though. Nobody I ran into was sipping a cocktail, or dancing to some artistically monotonous nightclub beat. They were all just lying there, having been lined up against the walls and executed some hours before. Their bodies looked pretty much the same as those I’d seen on the lower levels, despite the real Earth jewels and furs they wore. The sad look of surprise on most of the faces was exactly the same.

  From my hiding place in the abandoned clothing store on Level 299, I glanced out the window at the clouds of Venus. After so many hours in the dark center of Tower 7, the natural light near the external windows was both welcome and disorienting. I don’t know what I was expecting to see—blue skies and a soaring flock of birds maybe, although I certainly knew better.

  What I saw instead were clouds of poisonous gas, sparkling with raindrops of sulfuric acid. Somewhere far in the distance, a bolt of lighting forked through the whirling spirals of sulfur dioxide. When I looked down, the walls of the colossal living tower disappeared far below me in the cloudbanks.

  Off the top of my head, I didn’t know how high up we were—but it was a long way down, and a reminder of just how fragile life on Venus really was. In the colossal living towers that made life on this planet possible, the colonists were never far from the hell outside. I understood why people wanted natural light, but I did wonder why the people who lived here would ever just stand there looking out the window. Everything you could see out there would kill you horribly, and some of it would melt you down into something more like liquid than flesh.

  I turned away from the window and crept on the balls of my feet to the front of the store. This close to the center of whatever Marcenn was up to, everything was silent. As silent as if everyone in Tower 7 was already dead. The faintest sound would draw attention, and attention was something I couldn’t expect to survive for long.

  If I made a mistake, like knocking over a mannequin or kicking an empty bottle across the floor, they’d be all over me like a swarm of nanobots. And even if I survived that, it would only be a matter of time before everyone and everything in service to August Marcenn started heading rapidly in my direction.

  According to the brief glance I’d stolen at my scanners, there were two dozen men on the floors above and below. That wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what I’d already dealt with, but it wouldn’t be all I had to deal with if things went bad. Across all the inhabited floors of Tower 7, Marcenn could rely on tens of thousands of Nightwatch loyalists and android security guards. I was forty-nine levels above my nearest allies, with an enemy army between me and them. I had my armor and my weapons, and I had two other advantages: silence and speed. I didn’t know if all those things together would be enough to keep me alive long enou
gh to complete my mission. As for the possibility of living beyond that, it didn’t seem real enough to be worth thinking about.

  With the coilgun gone, I could no longer shoot and kill without making any sound. My rifle, as powerful as it was, was not the ideal choice under the circumstances. I needed something more agile, something I could use effectively while running. From the moment I took my shot, I would have to move and move quickly.

  I crouched down behind a perfume counter and eased my sidearm out of its holster, counting my breaths as I did so. I armed the weapon, and lights flashed along the side as it powered up. Breathing slowly and deeply, I prepared myself for the task at hand. To kill without warning and disappear without a trace.

  Vengeance for Gabriel Anderson? Only a little. Getting my hands on that dataspike was the real goal, and any price was worth paying if I could do it. Even so, I didn’t mind dedicating Marcenn’s death to Gabriel’s memory—even if Gabriel himself would say that the mission was the only thing that really mattered.

  How did I know that Marcenn was near? I’d already seen him once, making the rounds with a retinue of bodyguards. I didn’t know what he was doing, but his elegantly sinister face was exactly like I’d seen at the briefing before our jump. He still had the same look of predatory contempt, the same aristocratic disdain.

  I’d barely succeeded in staying hidden by ducking down behind a store display, but as soon as their footsteps faded, I snuck out and shadowed them quietly. When I saw an opportunity, I cut across a few streets and slipped out ahead of them so I could set up my ambush.

  In the quiet stillness of that store, the click of footsteps stood out clearly. The target was approaching. Nightwatch Commander August Marcenn, flanked by four heavily armed bodyguards. Just like the heavy-weapon androids I’d destroyed down below, the guards were carrying military hardware. Any one of them could kill me, but I didn’t intend to give them the chance.

  My plan was simple. I’d let the group pass my hiding place, then pop up like a jack-in-the-box and open fire from behind. With any luck, I’d take out Marcenn and all four of his lackeys without any of them getting a shot off or sounding an alarm.

  If I could even do it, that would be the easy part. Getting away again afterward would be a little more challenging.

  The sound of footsteps came closer. Marcenn and his guards were walking slowly and deliberately, and no words exchanged between them—not even small talk. On a day like this one, the shopping district would normally have been swarmed with people. The silence was eerie here, and the footsteps echoed. I visualized the approaching group, trying to get a sense of where they were without exposing my presence. As far as I could tell, they were directly in front of me—and that’s where they stopped, waiting for no apparent reason.

  Did they know I was here? How could they possibly tell? My heart started pounding, and I was tempted to just come out shooting. They would have killed me immediately, but anything was better than just waiting to be hunted.

  The footsteps resumed, and a moment later they were past the storefront. From prey to predator, just like that. I slipped out from behind the perfume counter, darted through the front door, and raised my weapon.

  They heard my footsteps and were already turning when I opened fire. The two bodyguards in the rear were the first to drop. The first guard stumbled, then dropped to the floor with his arms splayed out. The second guard gasped, and his right hand flew up to his throat as his eyes opened wide. Blood poured out between his fingers, and he dropped to his knees before hitting the floor face-first.

  Marcenn was turning, drawing his own weapon. We had never even exchanged a single word, but I had the strangest feeling when he turned and looked at me. He smiled just a little, this smug little grin, and it was as though he’d known me my whole life—and that he had never been impressed. Something about him seemed almost ageless, and as cold and remorseless as a black hole. I had planned to kill him since we made the decision, but that moment was when I actually wanted it.

  I aimed at the Commander’s sternum and pulled the trigger twice, and the man grunted and stumbled back a little. He must have been wearing an armored jacket, but the impact still stunned him long enough to give me another chance to complete the mission.

  The two guards in front were returning fire, but I held my ground just long enough to aim directly at the Commander’s face. The man opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, and the shot took him in the jaw. A spray of blood and shattered teeth, and August Marcenn was forever silenced. I was sure of it.

  That’s for you, Gabe.

  Marcenn was dead, but I wasn’t able to get to his dataspike right away. The guards were running at me, and unlike most of the Nightwatch they were carrying weapons powerful enough to pierce my armor. My only chance was to run, draw them away from Marcenn, then circle back.

  I took off running in the other direction in a zig-zag pattern, hoping to avoid return fire. The two surviving bodyguards were close behind, determined on vengeance. They hit a plate-glass storefront with one of their shots, and shards exploded in all directions.

  I had to get under cover and do it quickly, or these two would get me from behind eventually if only by chance—they weren’t accurate shots, but they were nothing if not enthusiastic.

  I turned a corner and ducked into a store that sold exotic Earth products. My eyes scanned briefly across the room, but I didn’t take in what I was looking at. It all seemed alien and a bit ridiculous—aged cheddar cheese and “Genuine Cola,” more colonial nostalgia for things that were long gone and almost forgotten. The out-of-context fragments of a completely different way of life.

  The guards cleared the corner and fanned out, scanning the area in every direction. Up until that moment, I had not heard a Nightwatch Loyalist make a single sound. Even when they were hunting, they coordinated their actions without ever speaking. Now one of them finally spoke, and when I heard the voice it sounded horribly familiar.

  “You haven’t killed me. No more than a teacup can hold the ocean.”

  My skin crawled when I heard that voice. It was August Marcenn, or a voice so similar as to make no difference. I recognized it from the briefing, when he’d been ranting on about dying with dignity. The pacing was the same, the hint of a patrician accent…

  And he wasn’t saying, “You haven’t killed my boss,” or “you haven’t killed our movement,” or any of the things you might have expected him to say. “You haven’t killed me,” that’s what he was saying, and from the sound of it, “me” was August Marcenn.

  What the hell was this? I knew I had killed Marcenn. That was beyond any doubt. So, what was going on here? A body double?

  No time to think about it. No time for anything, other than the simple logic of kill or be killed. I would think about it later, with a cigar and a brandy, when I was somewhere safe and private and there was no one trying to kill me. When I had time to wonder and time to mourn.

  One of the guards came through the door, still speaking as if he was Marcenn. “You haven’t killed me…”

  I shot him in the stomach twice, and the man doubled over. Then I grabbed him by the back of the neck and stuck the gun up under his chin, intending to make sure with a shot to the brain from below. No more channeling dead men for this Nightwatch officer. Before I could pull the trigger, the store exploded with gunfire, as the second guard came in at me shooting. The light fixture in the ceiling exploded, and the guard I was about to shoot took at least two heavy rounds through the body, leaving gaping exit wounds as they flew past me on each side. I let the wounded man fall, knowing that no one could survive what had just happened to him.

  The other guard was across the courtyard, running in my direction. I aimed quickly and fired but my shots went a little low, shattering the man’s right kneecap. The guard’s leg twisted out from under him and he fell with a snarl, dropping his weapon on the floor. I jumped over the body of the guard in the store, then ran over and kicked the gun away before my
wounded opponent could scoop it up.

  The man sneered up at me, and I aimed down at his head to finish the fight. Before I could pull the trigger, the guard opened his mouth to speak. At the exact same moment, the guard I’d shot in the stomach spoke from behind me.

  “You haven’t killed me,” they said as they died, speaking as if with one voice. “You cannot kill me. We are legion.”

  I pulled the trigger until the gun was empty. The man’s face was gone, reduced to something more liquid than solid. I didn’t know what I was thinking, I probably just wanted to get that voice out of my head. But it didn’t work. They were no longer speaking, but their words hung in the air like a cobweb.

  I started to ask myself the obvious questions—how had they done that, speaking the exact same words at the exact same pace? How had they imitated Marcenn’s voice? What did they mean about being “legion,” something you couldn’t kill?

  My mind shied away from it, like a hand jerking back from a hot surface. When it came right down to it, I didn’t want to know.

  I turned away mechanically, changed magazines in my sidearm, and slipped it back into its holster. I swung my rifle down off my shoulder and walked back toward Marcenn’s body. There it was, my first assassination—and I fervently wanted it to be my last. This was not what I signed up for, but you do whatever you have to do.

  Gabriel had died so Marcenn could die, so a lot of people I didn’t know would have a chance at life. Now all I needed to do was get that dataspike, find this cyber warfare expert Emmet had told me about, and get the lights back on. One thing I didn’t need to do was to think too much, to work out what was going on. I was done with all that. Behind that door, there was nothing that made any sense to me.