Jones opened his eyes. “Madam Shih was telling the truth; Geneicide has put a bounty on us, and they’re using some quaint terminology: dead or alive. As if anyone is going to take us alive.”
“What do you mean they’ve put a bounty on us?” asked Veraldi. “You mean for Ivanovich? Or is it all four of us?”
“Not just for the four of us, but for Andrea, Jonathan, and Thomas as well. The images they sent out appear to have been taken from the security camera inside the train just prior to the bombing.”
Vincenzo turned towards him. “Just prior to the bombing?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I know what you’re thinking, chief. It’s weird.”
I broke into the conversation. “Would a low-level syndicate like Geneicide have people inside StateSec to feed that kind of information to them?”
Andrew shrugged. “It isn’t likely, no. But given the evidence, we can’t exactly rule it out.”
Vincenzo sat down across from him. “One way or the other it means we’re burned; our pictures are out there. That includes Ivanovich, and someone will already have noticed that. Everything is about to get a lot harder.”
Ivanovich stood up and started slowly backing away, looking toward the rear of the car. His eyes were now wide with fear. This was a man who complained incessantly, but also never seemed to be scared of anything, other than possibly heights. I followed his gaze and saw movement through the windows.
There was something on the outside of the train staring in at us. Vaguely humanoid and vaguely feminine, it had what looked like a crown of metallic horns standing up from the sides of its featureless head and large metal claws stretching out from the backs of its hands. Its body seemed to be armored with something like a nanosuit but more solid, with serrated plates of a material that looked both organic and metallic at the same time, broken by black fissures of glistening subsurface. It moved with the sinuous grace of a large predator as it crawled slowly along the train car.
Andrew cried out in surprise. Vincenzo stood up again, clawing for his weapon. Sasha Ivanovich was still backing up, as if he wanted to start running but didn’t dare make any sudden move. That made sense to me. When you run from a hunter, you only trigger its hunting instinct.
A second figure crawled into view. This one didn’t look human at all. Like the cyborg I’d fought in the basement of the safehouse back on Earth, its body was vaguely doglike or similar to a crouching baboon. It was hard to say which it resembled more, because it had so many protruding blades and other random but deadly looking facets all over its body. Its tail, like a whip made of exposed and sharpened vertebrae, trailed menacingly through the air as it moved.
I drew my weapon, fighting the urge to immediately start shooting through the window at the monsters on the outside of the train. “Depleted uranium rounds,” I said with grim satisfaction.
Vincenzo nodded. “You were right.”
I tilted my head toward Ivanovich. “Sasha, get down and stay low. There’s nowhere to run.”
He laughed, a panicky barking sound. “Nowhere to run? There’s no way to fight them either! I know that better than any of you.”
“Just get down!”
He crouched behind a row of seats near the door at the front of the car. The cyborgs regarded us with what looked like a kind of cold curiosity. When they finally burst into movement and ripped the emergency exit hatch right off the side of the train, the blur of action was so fast I didn’t even have time to respond. The exit hatch flew away, a huge chunk of metal spinning like a child’s toy and disappearing into the city as the train sped on.
The humanoid cyborg stuck its head through the hole first, and I took a shot. It pulled back just as quickly, and when I saw the rain of embers from a passing billboard as the round struck it, I realized the creature had actually managed to dodge a bullet.
It dodged the goddamn bullet.
The cyborg burst through into the cabin in a screech of rending metal. There was a flurry of shots as Veraldi and I tried to take it down while Jones fiddled with his new weapon. None of our rounds even seemed to hit the thing. It didn’t move like you’d expect, slipping beneath a row of seats in one moment then bouncing up and crawling along the ceiling in the next. There was just no way to draw a bead on the thing, and all the while it was getting closer.
It perched on top of a seat back one row in front of us and took a swipe with its claws, nearly slicing Andrew’s head clean off. He stumbled backward, still struggling with the gun he’d bought that morning. Vincenzo leveled his weapon at the creature’s head and fired, hitting nothing but air even at close range. The humanoid arched its body into a back bridge to dodge the shot then gracefully, almost mockingly, walked over on its hands to land standing in the aisle.
During all of this, I saw that the animalistic cyborg had crawled into the car. It had a featureless face just like the humanoid one, but its head was turned square toward Sasha. It leaped over the seats two rows at a time, barreling at him with the singular focus of a predator on the hunt. I was only able to prevent it from jumping over my head and getting behind me by firing multiple suppressing shots at the ceiling. It broke stride and leapt to the right, landing in the aisle behind the humanoid.
So now there were two of them, and even though our weapons might be capable of penetrating their armor, we couldn’t even hit them.
Jones suddenly called, “Aha!” and clicked something into place, then he let loose with a stream of fire so rapid it sounded like a single, endless roar. The humanoid cyborg stumbled back under his fire, but the rounds didn’t look like they were punching through its armor. Veraldi flicked a switch on his weapon then aimed a short burst of flame at the animalistic cyborg. It reared back slightly, but if there was any damage, I couldn’t see it. Our weapons weren’t harming them, but the heat and noise made them cautious and that was at least something.
“Tycho!” yelled Veraldi. “Take your shot!”
I aimed directly at the humanoid cyborg’s head, but despite the distraction of Andrew’s barrage, it twitched to the side just before I pulled the trigger. My depleted uranium bullet went through the side of the car, flying off into the city.
“Shit!”
“Keep shooting!” called Jones, but I knew we needed a different solution. Between the flames and the gunfire, we were holding them back, but it wouldn’t last forever, and it wouldn’t save our lives. If we couldn’t kill these things, that meant we had to get away.
“Sasha, get—”
Before I could say anything else, the world suddenly spun, and I found myself hitting the wall with a crack. I slumped down, stunned, not knowing what had just happened. Something had flashed by my eyes, but I had barely seen it. The animal cyborg’s tail?
Jones was stumbling, holding onto his belly. Veraldi was still fighting, but only for a moment. The animal cyborg jumped on him, knocking him backward over a seat and onto the floor.
As disoriented as I was, I still knew it could kill him in half a second if it had the chance. I had lost my weapon, but Veraldi had landed next to me. I grabbed his collar and yanked him sideways as its talons punched through the train floor half an inch from his face.
The thing tried to pull its arm back, but the blades were stuck. The creature shook its head violently back and forth as it attempted to free itself. I noticed my gun lying nearby and scooped it up. Jones had recovered to an extent, and though he was still doubled over, he was firing his weapon, which seemed effective at pinning the humanoid cyborg down even though it couldn’t stop it.
Veraldi drew a knife and deftly cut something behind one of the beast’s knees. It slumped, losing control of the damaged leg, but wasn’t out of the fight. I aimed carefully, and even though it still tried to dodge sideways at the last moment, I finally landed a hit. My bullet entered its body, and it jumped away from me so violently that it finally managed to pull its arm out of the floor.
It jumped left and then right, and finally bounded back behind the hum
anoid cyborg like a dog hiding behind its owner. I struggled to get my feet underneath me before they recovered and attacked again. Veraldi found his weapon, rose to a kneel, and fired a burst of flame.
The cyborgs reacted and this time I saw what they were doing. The humanoid cyborg spun, arms wide, its claws tearing through the pole in the aisle. The beast lashed out, tearing apart the nearby seats with its tail. These attacks weren’t really aimed at anything, but they happened so quickly and so violently that they were hard to dodge or even see. It had been one of those attacks that had sent me flying and wounded Andrew.
They did it again, driving all of us back with a fierce burst of movement. Jones was bleeding, although I couldn’t tell how bad it was. I was barely standing, but I knew it was time for us to get out while we still could.
“Get to the next car, Sasha! The next car!”
“What?” he called out.
“THE NEXT CAR!”
Veraldi seemed to understand what I was thinking. “We’ll hold them here! Jones, fighting retreat to the door behind Barrett!”
I broke off from the fight, grabbed Sasha by his jacket, and yanked him up. The door stuck a little, but I jerked it open with desperate strength and pushed him through. The connecting platform between the two cars veered back and forth as the train turned, but I somehow managed to keep Ivanovich on his feet and force him across. He pulled the other door open on his own, eager to get to the relative safety of the other train car.
“Don’t stop! Keep going!”
I waved him forward, indicating the door at the other end of the car. There were a few people on this one, and when they saw what was behind me, they all jumped up and fled. This seemed to give Sasha the focus he needed, because he followed them across to the end of the car and out the door. The crowd wasn't as fast as I would have liked, and I felt a growing sense of panic.
I didn’t know when the train was going to stop again, but if I didn’t do what I was planning before then, I wouldn’t get the chance. The train would come to a halt to take on passengers, then the cyborgs would kill anyone between them and us, and they’d finish by killing us too.
As Sasha made the crossing to the car ahead, Jones and Veraldi finally joined me. We ran for the door, and the humanoid cyborg entered the car just as we were leaving it. It seemed unharmed, but the fact that the beast was no longer with it implied that we had at least managed to do some real damage to that one.
“We can’t run forever.” Andrew Jones was panting, looking back through the window at the humanoid cyborg. It was moving toward us through the train car at a deliberate pace, watching us cautiously the whole time. It was still behaving like a dangerous animal rather than a human being. It wanted to kill us but wasn’t sure what we might do.
“We don’t have to,” I replied. “Get ready to jump.”
“Wait, what?” said Jones, balanced precariously on the platform between the cars. Blood was welling up from beneath his shirt in three long lines. He must have noticed that I was looking at the car coupler, because he was staring at it with his mouth hanging open.
“There’s no choice,” Veraldi said. “Just do it, Tycho!”
I disconnected the coupler just as the cyborg put a fist through the glass of the door behind us. We jumped across to the car in front as the creature tore the door off its hinges. Now that they were no longer being pulled, the cars behind us started to slow and fall behind. The cyborg didn’t try to make the jump across the rapidly increasing distance between the cars. Instead it just watched us with its featureless face, looking for all the world like it was merely curious. As it receded into the distance, I caught a glimpse of the beast coming up behind it and jumping against the window. So, they were both still in action, even if the beast was now moving a little bit slower.
“This will buy us some time,” said Veraldi. “But that’s all.”
Jones nodded glumly, and we went in search of Ivanovich, the man all of this was for. I could only hope he was worth it.
11
I was afraid Ivanovich might have wandered off, but there wasn’t really anywhere for the man to go. The other passengers had continued on into the lead car, but Ivanovich had stopped in the adjacent one. We found him sitting with his legs stretched out, looking as pleased as I had ever seen him look. “What’s so funny, Ivanovich?” asked Jones. “You do realize we almost died there?”
Sasha shrugged. “Of course. I am thankful for the protection of such… highly trained professionals.” He waved his hand in a wide sweep through the air as he said it and we all just looked at him, unsure of whether he was mocking us somehow or not.
I concluded that he was just happy he had someone else to do his fighting for him. Or his dying, if it came to that.
“Never mind him.” I turned to Jones and Veraldi. “What was that all about? There’s no way a low-rent outfit like Geneicide has the resources for that.”
Vincenzo was staring out the window, looking for the next threat. “I agree. That wasn’t Geneicide. That wasn’t any syndicate. As powerful as they are here, they just don’t have the ability to create anything like that. And they don’t have the money to buy it either.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense.” Andrew Jones was examining his wound, which turned out to not be as serious as it had initially looked despite producing a lot of blood. Even so, the front of his shirt was wet and sticky, and there was blood running down his body and pooling on the floor at his feet. He winced as he examined the shallow cuts. “My guts aren’t going to fall out on the floor anytime soon. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m a fucking mess.”
Veraldi turned and saw what he was doing. “We need a first aid kit, but for now we’ll have to get some more clothes somehow and tear off strips to bind that up.” He turned back to the window as the train crossed a bridge, looking down on the rooftops below. “To me, the nanosuits and augments suggest a government-backed unit. You don’t get that kind of money from crime. You get it from taxes.”
Ivanovich laughed. “And the difference is?”
Veraldi scowled at him. “So, you’re one of those. I should have guessed.”
“Well, Sasha?” I asked. “What about it? Were those cyborgs from Ares Terrestrial, or weren’t they?”
“Oh, they’re definitely from the company. I built them.”
Jones frowned at him. “Explain.”
“The two cyborgs we just saw were created in my Nursery. In a way, they are my children. Of course, these children have no sense of gratitude. They’d probably take special delight in tearing me apart.”
“Then why do you look so goddamn happy about it?” asked Jones. “For a creepy guy, you’re acting outright unhinged.”
“I suppose in a way it’s just hysteria, a reaction to the fact that I’m still alive. Whatever. There’s some pride in knowing that my creations are every bit as formidable as I intended them to be.”
“I’m not even going to touch that part,” said Jones. “So, if they were created in your Nursery, who controls them now?”
“They are members of a special StateSec unit. They call them The Erinyes. Their usual work is syndicate counter-operations.”
“Meaning they don’t do anything at all?” I asked.
Sasha shook his head. “You’re not being fair. Just because Ares Terrestrial takes a hands-off approach doesn’t mean we have no resources for dealing with syndicate scum if they get out of hand.”
“We?” asked Veraldi.
Sasha sighed. “Fair enough. They. I know you assume that Ares Terrestrial is just incompetent, or hopelessly corrupt, but there’s more to it than that. The thing with the syndicates is that they play an important role in the system the company has established here in East Hellas.”
That reminded me of something they taught us back at the Arbiter Academy. Organized crime is not a rebellion against the system; it can only function within the system. It makes the system run smoother, which is why all governments tolerate it unles
s it gets out of hand.
“What important role?” asked Jones.
“Self-regulation of the citizens of Hellas. The company runs the city for a profit, and it’s more profitable to let the gangs run the streets than to do it ourselves.”
He was back to identifying himself with the company again. He’d have to come to terms with the facts at some point, or he wouldn’t make it. “So, where do the Erinyes come in?”
He shrugged again, a man of the world explaining obvious facts to naïve gunmen. “Every now and then, one of the syndicates causes a problem. They do something that upsets the balance of power, or maybe they do something that hurts Ares Terrestrial, by which I mean our bottom line. That’s what the Erinyes are for. We send them to punish the syndicates when they step out of line.”
“Wonderful.” Veraldi shook his head. “So, we’re being pursued by the company’s own top-shelf hit team.”
Sasha’s explanation confused me a little. “I don’t get it, Ivanovich. You told Andrea Capanelli that the company was involved in illegal animal cloning, but one of those Erinyes looked human.”
“Well, I didn’t explain every detail. There’s a lot going on. You can’t expect me to remember it all in one conversation.” I certainly believed him when he said that there was a lot going on, but I didn’t believe for one second that he’d forgotten anything. Like most informants, he was probably trying to pick and choose what he wanted to tell us and what he didn’t.
“Who were the Erinyes after?” Veraldi mused. “If that picture from the train is what’s being shared around, they might believe we were behind the bombing.”
Ivanovich shook his head. “I guarantee you not a single person at Ares Terrestrial lost a moment of sleep last night over the death of Bensouda Hafidi.”
Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 58