by Guillen, JM
Affirmative. I am personally seeing to the options. If a conduit should prove impossible, we will rely on more mundane means. Rest assured, however, extraction options are on the table.
Anya linked in. If I am axiomatically scanning as we advance, how am I to store and correlate that amount of data?
I am going to keep my Designate access link open with you, Preceptor. Skip deep telemetry and axiomatic weave analysis. Preceptor Stoyavich is online at Facility 17 and will handle the correlations. Simply patch the data as you receive it, through my link, and focus on getting good readings.
Understood. Anya’s brow furrowed. Am I to infer that all scan and patch activities are to continue, even if we encounter Irrational targets?
Correct. If you find another trigger, then we particularly want your scans to be accurate. If past experience proves true, the topias involved will involve violent and dangerous aberrations. It will be Asset Bishop and Guthrie who handle these targets; your objective is the data.
Wyatt looked at me and rolled his eyes. He mouthed the words “Oh, good.” I kicked the stone towards him, and kept walking.
I felt the click in my Crown as the Designate patched us the list of required injector stims. Just perusing it showed that she would have me use everything I had.
As a final notation, I would like to inform you that Preceptor Petrova’s spot analysis was correct. Those were indeed aberrant phage you were facing, of a subtype known as Vyriim. They are considered a level six threat, and you will all need to be retroscanned once the dossier is complete, to make certain you are not infected.
That was something I hadn’t considered. One of those creatures could be in Wyatt or Anya either one, biding their time—
Because of the nature of these creatures, the Designate continued, it becomes even more important to be cautious when meeting hostiles. Any of them could be an aberrant phage.
Wait. I actually stopped in place. I assumed that the Vyriim were just Irrational wildlife set in our path, like my incident at the airport.
Negative, Asset. I could feel how serious, almost stern the Designate was in my mind. The Vyriim are a hyper-intelligent species that is constantly seeking to create new colonies for themselves. Encountering them is never considered to be chance, as they are a highly invasive species. She paused, just a moment, before continuing. You should know that we are tracking a 92% likelihood that they are directly limed to the Irrational events you are investigating.
To what purpose, Designate? Anya was reading telemetry even as she linked, her fingers twitching. Do we have any more data regarding the spikes?
No, Preceptor. It’s simply a precaution based upon past encounters with the species. If there is anything new to report, you will be apprised. She paused. Do you have any other questions, Assets, Preceptor?
We didn't. It all seemed cut and dry. Make Locale One, collecting data the entire way. Avoid invisible snares. If we triggered any snares, destroy monstrous abominations, while protecting the Preceptor. Oh, and, by the way, anyone you meet could be a tentacled monster from beyond reality.
Don't die.
As the Designate pulled her link from my Crown, I felt the fading of the cool, soothing sensation.
As always, Asset, we wish you well in the days ahead.
14
It was getting close to dark. We were miles from anywhere, walking. Wyatt was burdened with his gear. Anya was all but crawling along so that she could get her data. Fortunately, I was practically high on viral mecha.
In fact, we were all feelin' fine.
Between Anya and me, we had enough injectors for each of us to get four stims. We each had different requirements, of course. Wyatt had received mecha that would augment the oxygen in his bloodstream, as well as repair worn muscles from our long hike. I had some of that myself, as well as a host of pain-killing VM and another injector to assist in knitting up the damage previously done to my back. By the time we reached Locale One, I should be almost whole physically.
Anya's injectors were vastly different.
The Preceptor-class viral mecha weren't as physical as ours were. Most involved upgrading her capability to process data in her Crown, or added extra memory capabilities in the mecha themselves. Whatever her cocktail was today, Anya was even more detached than typical, her blue eyes and head twitching as she processed what had to be a huge amount of Axiomatic data. As we walked along, she held her hands out, sometimes in front of her, sometimes to the side. Her fingers plucked at nothingness, as if the world was constructed of some great string instrument or perhaps a loom that only she could see.
We need to decrease speed twenty-seven percent. Her link felt clipped, robotic. Locale One is less than one-hundred yards away, and the area is not quite Rationality zero. I need to do some quick analysis.
You do what you need to, princess. Wyatt leaned against an outcropping. My dogs are barkin'. I don't mind sitting a spell.
Locale One was at the base of a mesa. We were around the other side of it. Briefly, I looked over the topographics in my Crown, while Anya worked. Her sudden link startled me.
I have a single male on my readings. He's patrolling the edge of the mesa, at north 38 degrees, fourteen tack 537, by west 88 degrees, eighteen tack 372. He is moving in our direction.
I drew the kinetic disruptors, keeping my gaze sharp. I'd like a marker on the Irrat, rather than Locale One, Anya. She said nothing, but the red marker faded, and another smaller green one appeared.
She was right. He was moving towards us.
Do we have an ID on the ‘rat? The tangler hummed as Wyatt geared up.
Live satellite feed has provided a clear profile. I will send the data to Facility— she cut herself off. I lost him.
She was right. The green marker had vanished from my visual. Of course, the marker had only approximated Anya's mark on the man. Without that we had nothing.
He is unmarked, both on my telemetry and on the satellite feed.
A long, tense moment passed. Then, as quickly as he had vanished, he appeared again.
I have him. Updating your Crowns. The updated location was well over a thousand yards south of where he had been.
I gave Wyatt a long look. Temporal displacement?
He shrugged. Mebbe. He started making adjustments to the tangler, and input a series of numbers on his crescent shaped keyboard.
As if toying with us, the marker vanished again. Anya didn't say anything, but I could feel her irritation over the link.
Then we saw the man.
He was lean, but quite tall. He had unruly, fiery hair and he wore thick, dark canvas pants. His shirt hung open, revealing a well-muscled physique and a holster on his chest. Another hung around his waist.
The man spit on the ground as he walked towards us. If he thought anything odd about our presence, or appearance, he didn't show it.
I had seen him before. Where?
“Yer not welcome here.” His grin was almost lurid. “Private property an' all.”
“We're here on official business.” I nodded towards him. “As I think you well know.”
“Official business,” the man muttered. He spat again. “We're a little outside your jurisdiction here, I think. It’ll prolly be better if you just stepped along. Maybe there's a psychic on the telly you can go harass, or some poor kid you can take from his fam.”
The man's words hit me like a bulldozer. Little Bill Iverson flashed through my mind. I focused, trying to remember where I knew him from.
Anya's words were crisp, succinct. “Officially, you are not outside our jurisdiction. According to Facility sanctions and guidelines, you are officially within Rational space, performing actions of disruption and malfeasance. We have—”
“Oh, Christ, won't you shut up?” The man gave us a condescending look. “Yer trespassin'. Leave.”
“You!” Wyatt practically bellowed the word. “You little shit-eater! What are you doing out here?”
That’s when I realized. It
was the man Wyatt had scrapped with in the bar.
“My own business,” the man grinned at Wyatt. “I wouldn’t go thinking that our past encounter has any merit here, cowboy. I didn’t try too awful hard earlier; I was just checking out the competition.”
My heart beat faster in my chest. How had he known where to find Wyatt? Then, my mind took the next step, and the icy fingers of fear trickled down my back.
What if this man was one of them, one of the body- stealing Vyriim? Wyatt wouldn’t have known who he was… could my friend have been infected? I remembered a certain woman, intimately in contact with him…
“Now,” the man took another step forward. “It’s time to leave.”
“Not happening.” My eyes were steel. I had my disruptors drawn, and his guns were still holstered. “I suggest you stand down and relinquish your weapons. The Facility shows leniency—”
“No.” The man enunciated the word, as if I were simple. “The Facility does no such thing. I know it. You know it.”
The tangler hummed louder, and at a higher pitch.
I glanced at Wyatt and Anya. After all, there were three of us and one of him. My voice was a thin whisper. “You know we can't do that. Stand down, or I'm afraid—”
The man was nonplussed. “You should be afraid.” That grin again. “If you'd like to go round up some friends, I'll allow it.”
I decided.
Quicker than breath, I drew down on the man. The Adept packet guided my every move. I was like quicksilver, faster than thought. Before he was even done speaking, I was moving, bringing both disruptors to bear on the man's face.
He was gone.
When Anya linked again, I felt the barest traces of satisfaction in her words. ID confirmed. Patching to you.
I felt the electric twitch in my Crown as the patch came in.
Suddenly, I knew the man.
I knew he had fought in conflicts on three continents, that he was renowned both as a decorated Soviet sniper and an Iraqi intelligence agent. I had data on his service record, both official and classified Facility data. He was a mercenary. An assassin.
He was Rudolfo Firenzei— Irrational 2187.
I knew everything about him. My Crown stored the data in my memory, as if I had hunted the man my entire life. I had dozens of pictures and sub-dossiers at my fingertips. It was as if every conflict a man had ever been in, every contract he had been known to take, I had been there.
Rudolfo Firenzi was deadly.
I switched on the Wraith packet, and felt the diaphanic emitter hum to life. I rolled to the side, kneeling at the same moment.
WHUF. Wyatt was already placing spikes.
Stasis fields. Wyatt's link had a hint of warning to it. I'll patch you both their location and radius. They're dangerous. They won't last long but they should stop him cold if he hits one. Might be our best chance.
What's the trigger, Wyatt? I kept peering across the horizon. Nothing was there. Yet. As Wyatt patched the location of his first spike, it blossomed as a yellow field on my visual.
More than one pound of matter that doesn't currently exist in the field, or matter traveling faster than 500 feet per second. That should handle it.
I grinned. That won't stop my disruptors. Good thinking.
I'm not tracking him. Anya seems distant. The moment I have him I will patch you—
A crack like thunder. Anya cried out, and fell.
I whirled in the direction of the shots and fired twice from each weapon. Nothing. I was literally firing into the desert's emptiness and darkness.
My left arm. I am still operational, however. I have no Crown or bioware damage.
Despite that, I could feel echoes of her pain through the link.
Stay low. I peered across the horizon, looking for the tiniest clue, for any indication at all.
Nothing. Only the desert wastes and the haunted wind.
WHUF. WHUF. WHUF. Wyatt was laying spikes all around us, which burst into yellow blossoms in the visual of my Crown. He kept as low as possible, but cover was hard to track when you didn't know what direction your assailant was coming from.
Then, three more gunshots sounded behind us. I swung the pistols around and fired, but there was nothing there. As I did, I saw one of Wyatt's fields brighten to a brilliant silver. This was actual color, not just in the visual field of my Crown.
That's a hit.
He was right. Wyatt's field had triggered the moment the bullets came within range, trapping them like amber. The field was partially reflective now, due to light and energy not being able to enter.
How long will it last? Being an asset meant that you had an education in physics. The moment that field fell, the bullets would carry on. Conservation of energy, and all that.
Fifteen minutes or so. I'll lay another behind it, just in case.
WHUF.
I could see ten separate spikes around us, in a rough circle. We were covered on all sides.
I have him. Anya returned the marker to my Crown. He's approximately two hundred fifty yards away, and stationary.
I grinned. He knows he should have hit us. The man is an expert. He can see the field he triggered, and is planning. Still, that's out of range for the disruptors.
If he's patient, he has us. Wyatt stopped and adjusted his settings. I can only keep so many spikes going at once, and temporal stasis is nasty business. You can't keep the emitter on forever. If he just waits us out, he wins.
He won't. I shook my head. The profile Anya had ported us said that much. Firenzei is impatient and cocky. He'll test our boundaries, and when he can't get through, he'll force things.
Let’s hope. Wyatt peered into the darkness. Anya, I'm placing a spike that augments the capability of the viral mecha for your injuries.
WHUF.
She moved within its range, staying low. Appreciated, Asset Guthrie.
I would do something about your pain process, but I know that Casper here is already a bit doped up. We can’t risk a field effect that he stumbles into.
The pain is nominal. My mecha have stopped the bleeding, and I am well within efficiency parame—
Three more shots, then a second set of three. The first set was due north, and the second slightly southwest. Almost instantly, two of Wyatt's fields burst silver.
Shit. Wyatt stepped closer and reset one of the spikes. Mere seconds after he did, it and another flared, as shots came from different directions.
He's pinning us in with the fields. Wyatt spat. I can either drop them, or we can sit behind a circular wall and wait for them to go down.
We could probably get down and then release them. I'm certain he was aiming for middle mass. I reached out and touched one of the triggered temporal fields. It was cold, and about as twice as tall as I was. Is this thing safe for me to climb up on?
If you can. Wyatt's link was wry. It'll give you a good view, but it's frictionless.
He was right. I struggled for a moment, but there was no way I could pull myself up over the smooth dome.
Anya suddenly linked in. I have a pattern on Fiernzei's leaps. It's not perfect, but I'm sending you a patch.
It was a large one, full of numerical analysis. My head twitched the slightest amount as it came in.
She was right.
It wasn't perfect, but it seemed that Firenzei's teleportation did follow a pattern of geometrical alignment. I couldn't believe it was something he had planned. More likely, his particular Irrationality made it ‘simpler’ to leap to certain locations, depending upon where he was. He was far out now, so the ‘shape’ he was leaping in was a large one. But if we fought him in close quarters, and if the form held true...
That was a lot of “ifs.”
Another shot, and another of Wyatt's fields triggered. We were now surrounded on several sides by active temporal fields, with only a few paths out.
Anya, have you done any analysis on the predictability—
Firenzei appeared, standing on one of Wyatt’s
fields. He wasn’t quite on top however; he was partially on one of the sloped sides. His guns were out in front of him, and the look on his face when he realized that he was sliding down the side was stunning. He fell and fired wildly. At the same moment, Anya ported a small packet to my Crown.
It was the place he would jump to, if his pattern held. I knew it like I knew my mother’s name. The geometric form was smaller, and there was no room for error…
I turned and fired and fired and fired.
When he appeared, three steps to the left of Wyatt, one of my kinetic blasts struck him square in his pinched, shit-eating, little face.
Duck, hoss! Get the fuck down!
Without thought, I dropped when I heard Wyatt’s link. Anya was already down, and I saw Wyatt hit the deck, his fingers flying on his keypad.
Every field released at once.
I saw the look on Fiernzei’s face as one of his own bullets caught him in the side. He was absolutely stunned. He caught my gaze for the tiniest moment, and then was gone.
He left blood on the ground where he had stood.
15
We waited, in the emptiness of the desert, to see if Firenzei would reappear. Wyatt laid a few more spikes just in case, but as twilight gave way to dusk gave way to darkness, it was apparent that we were alone.
I think it's time to move. I had long ago let the Wraith go inactive, and just lay low.
Anya was still distracted with her readings. 2187 is nowhere on my telemetry. His range would seem to indicate that we would have him on telemetry before he could target us. His displacement is proven to be trackable.
I’m up. Let’s get in, get out, and go home. Wyatt grinned at me.
I feel as if you neglected something. Anya’s link was a touch distant. That Irrational seemed to know you, Wyatt.
He was in the Booby Trap. I thought he was just some jackass. Wyatt spat into the dust. We got into a bit of a scrap; he didn’t pull anything Irrational, though. Asshole must have just been scoping me out.