Talon of Scorpio

by G T Almasi

  I see blood pour across my face as I collapse to the ground. Behind me, through the thickening smoke from gunfire and burning bushes, Talon retreats into the woods. My competitor runs doubled over, her slick-stained fingers jammed tightly against her hip. Her other hand awkwardly clutches both of her weapons. After a few steps she sways unsteadily, recovers her balance, and lurches into the leafy murk.

  Patrick’s view moves to my supine form. Even with me unconscious, my pistols remain stuck to my WeaponSynch pads. He rolls me over and gently lifts my head off the ground. A gruesome crease is gashed across the crown of my head. Out of sight, he opens his X-bag and rapidly extracts his miniature emergency room.

  He cleans my wound with antibiotics and swirls a bandage around my head. My skin looks very pale, even for me. Patrick’s view displays my vital signs, which suddenly turn bright red to indicate my heart has stopped beating.

  My partner is still touching me when he activates my onboard defibrillator. His point of view becomes one big hand smacking himself in the face, and then all I see is the same sky I woke up to.

  I disconnect from my partner’s Day Loop and refrain from making fun of him for doing something so stupid. He was saving my life, after all.

  I slowly sit up and wrap my arms around my legs. My head feels like a dinosaur dance floor. I rest my forehead on my drawn-up knees.

  Palls of smoke billow from the university campus. Men’s voices bounce off the large, stately buildings, but the street is deserted.

  Our Russian gun-buddy still lies on his back.

  “Hector!” I shout. “Wake up, you godless pinko!”

  No answer.

  “Darwin, you’d better check him out.”

  Brando stands and jogs over to Hector. The man’s eyes are closed and his arms splay out at his sides. My partner kneels over the injured palooski and rests his fingers on Hector’s neck.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Patrick comms back. “He’s hit, but his Nerve Jet pumped him full of CoAgs, so his bleeding isn’t critical.”

  “Well, roust him.” I gently roll myself onto all fours. “I’m not dragging his Tatar ass over to Pepé.”

  Patrick runs his fingers under Hector’s protective vest. The big Russian Level groans and twitches away from the contact.

  “What are you doin’?” I ask. “Tase the sum-bitch and let’s get outta here.”

  “Scarlet, I can’t hit someone with a defibrillator just ’cause they’re knocked out,” Brando says.

  Whatever.

  I slowly get to my feet. Pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea all race to win the Defibrillation Derby.

  Here they come: Pain, Shortness of Breath, Dizziness, and Nausea charge out of the corner, still tightly grouped. Nausea challenges the leaders, but Dizziness, Shortness of Breath, and Pain respond with their own surges. The field streaks down the final straightaway. Nausea moves up on the inside! Nausea, Pain, Shortness of Breath, and Dizziness roar into the final lengths. Nausea speeds to the front! At the wire—

  I loudly puke all over the grass.

  —Nausea by a nose!

  “Pwah!” I spit, then wipe my mouth on my sleeve. “Darwin, let’s go!”

  “Hang in there, Scarlet.” Patrick leaves Hector and dashes down the road to our car. A few moments later, he’s parked the Porsche directly beside our KO’d Cossack. My partner hops out and ignores the hail of daggers my eyes shoot at him.

  “Help me get him inside.”

  So much for not dragging leaden Tatar asses around.

  I can’t see straight, so my partner has to aim our Russian guide into the car. I shove at Hector’s floppy bulk until he blobs into the backseat.

  Brando helps me into the passenger-side front seat. Moments later we drive away from the smoking university and onto highway N85.

  “Hector’s heavy,” Brando comms.

  “No shit.” I scratch at my bandage.

  “Stop that.”

  I drop my hand into my lap and look into the backseat. “How is he?” I comm to my partner.

  “The shot didn’t penetrate. More broken bones, at least. Sternum, maybe.”

  “How about his vital signs?”

  “His heartbeat is irregular, his respiration is marginal, and God only knows about everything else.”

  I turn to face front again. “Lucky he’s not dead.”

  “Even so, he’s in rough shape. We’ve got to get him a doctor.” We approach the back end of a slower-moving Citroën. Brando checks the rearview mirror then moves into the passing lane.

  I ask, “Do we know where to find a hospital?”

  Patrick accelerates to over a hundred. “I’m working on it.”

  I flip the visor down and turn on the lighted vanity mirror. My big head-wrap looks like a lumpy turban. My nose and lips are colorless, while my neck is mottled red. I move my head from side to side. Flaking tracks of dried blood show behind my ears. There are bruises developing under both of my eyes.

  Gorgeous!

  I close the mirror and press myself into the black leather seat. I bring up our Job Number in my Eyes-Up display. Next stop, Dachau. If we don’t find Fredericks there, I’m not sure where we go. Munich, I suppose.

  “Hey,” I ask my partner, “what if we strike out in Dachau?”

  “Hang on,” he says tersely. “I’m almost done.”

  “Who’re you talking to?” He can’t be comming. I try to patch into whatever it is he’s doing, but I get bounced for lack of clearance.

  What the…?

  “Hey!” I jab his shoulder.

  “Hang on! I’m looking for a House.”

  I cross my arms and stare straight ahead.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’m back.”

  “Forget it, I don’t care anymore.”

  “Fine,” he growls. Clenched jaw. White knuckles.

  “Okay, okay.” I sniff. “Where’re we going?”

  “ExOps has a House in Stuttgart.”

  “How’d you find that? We’re disconnected from—”

  “I brought local copies of FED and CID.”

  Wow. Of course my datageek partner carries the Federal Employee Database and Competitor Information Database around. This violates Info’s security protocols because we’re carrying off-mission classified data in the field, but obviously Patrick doesn’t care. Neither do I. We didn’t survive Operation ANGEL by following the rules.

  The thing is, the FED alone is like a zillion hooziebytes. Even IOs don’t have infinite storage.

  “Whadja do,” I joke, “erase your childhood?”

  “Ho ho, very funny.” Brando grins despite himself.

  I glance back at Hector. “How about a Med-Tech for His Highness?”

  “We’ll have to ask the House to find us medical help.”

  “Who’s the House?”

  “Her name is Frau Krebs.”

  Full immersion in Greater Germany has me thinking and dreaming in German, so it takes me a moment to translate this into English.

  “Wait,” I say. “Her name is Mrs. Crab?”

  “Yeah.” Patrick nods. “Maybe it’s not her real name.”

  I look out the car window. We’ve left the smoky haze of Karlsruhe behind. The bright midday sun contrasts with the tense murk filling our car. “Any thoughts about ExOps?”

  “No.” Patrick steers with his left hand so he can gnaw the fingernail on his right pinkie finger.

  We quietly drive through the passing scenery. Patrick inhales deeply and lets his breath out slowly, his throat fluttering like a bird holding in a scream. He depletes the anxiety-relieving capacity of his right pinkie finger and moves on to his ring finger, his digits passing in front of his teeth like a little typewriter.

  Chikka-chik-chik.
r />   My mind runs from one worst case to another. Has ExOps told Cleo? It’d be like them to send a fucking memo. FYI, your FEMKID has gone AWOL and we’ve AAD’ed a HOP to SOAK her ASAP.

  Out of nowhere I remember watching my mother make stuffed peppers, the Hamburger Helper box on the counter next to her wineglass.

  Jesus, I’m crying.

  I wipe my cheek. The highway’s hum reminds me of riding around with my mom. Dad had been missing for years. She’d be driving me to a gymnastics meet in our little old Dodge, one hand holding a cigarette out the window. When she and I were having a good day we’d talk about the upcoming competition or something we’d seen on TV. On bad days we’d barely speak and she’d go through twice as many smokes.

  I’d give anything for even a bad day with Mom right now.

  —DARE: HIGHLORD—

  9 SEP 1981

  New York Post

  AMERICA SAVES!

  The United States and Greater Germany are temporarily joining their navies to transport an American expeditionary force to Europe. Accompanying the troops are thousands of ground vehicles and mountains of supplies.

  The expedition’s flood of men and matériel has completely overwhelmed the seaports’ operational capacities. Barely controlled chaos shakes both military and commercial harbors up and down the East Coast. The work will go on all day and all night.

  Officials from the New York Port Authority confirmed that some regiments shipped out so rapidly, they nearly ceased to exist as an organization.

  “It was like flinging clothes from the window of a burning building,” said one port administrator. “The commanding officers will spend the entire voyage untangling everything.”

  One seasoned dockworker commented on the frantic scramble. “I’ve never seen anything like this kind of confusion. You could make off with a whole ship and nobody would notice for months.”

  20

  LATER, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 3:00 P.M. CEST

  APPROACHING STUTTGART, GREATER GERMANY

  FRAU KREBS’S HOUSE

  We’re still a few miles from Stuttgart when Hector comes around. It takes him several minutes to achieve anything resembling lucidity. The big Russian has absorbed a real beating during his short time with us. He tries to sit up, winces, then flops back down with a curse.

  “Hey, ugly American.”

  I assume he means me. “Yes?” I say.

  “Every time we meet I come closer to death.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “Yours.” He sucks in his breath. “Everything is America’s fault.”

  “Uh-huh. Read your history, bub.”

  “Fuck history.” This actually comes out as Fook heest’ry, but I get the idea. Hector shuts his eyes. “How long until we find me a doctor? Or do you again plan on letting me die?”

  “Toughen up, buttercup. We’re almost there. Any news on the wire?”

  “What?”

  “Anything on the comm-net?”

  “Ah,” he grunts. “One moment, pain-in-ass.”

  I comm to Brando, “Somebody is a Grumpy Guski when they wake up.” My partner glances at me, then back to the road. He smiles.

  Hector raises his eyebrows. “Is your lucky day, uglies. I have ex-KGB friend at DOJ. He tells me of a missing VIP.”

  “Who’s missing?”

  “I give you a hint, Scarlet. You and I know him personally.”

  Winter.

  The Department of Justice is where ExOps stashed the primary witness in our case against Fredericks, a man known as Winter. Because of the bombing, the federal prosecutors may not need Winter’s testimony to win in court, but with it their case is airtight.

  Until a few weeks ago, the most likely explanation for Winter’s disappearance would have been that Fredericks had him killed. But right now Jakob’s ability to physically project his will has been reduced to a single agent, Talon, whom we know is in Europe.

  Winter may have simply needed a break; full-time federal protection is really boring. I once heard about a high-profile witness who went so stir-crazy she shimmied down a storm drain and walked to the nearest cinema. Protectors ran all over hell looking for her until she calmly walked in the front door carrying a half-full box of Milk Duds. A year under federal protection would make anyone go a little bonzo, even Winter.

  The man’s real name is Imad Badr. He was the leader of the terrorist organization Blades of Persia until I forcibly extradited him to the States moments before all those kids were killed by a cruise missile. The repercussions from that mess led to Germany’s plan to side with Russia and China. CIA’s response was Operation ANGEL, during which we incited Europe’s Jewish slaves to rebel. The Rising quickly metastasized into the current war in Europe. These progressively more critical situations are why Winter’s residency at Justice has been longer than we anticipated.

  What also takes longer than anticipated is finding the damn Stuttgart House. Patrick follows the FED’s convoluted directions through downtown Stuttgart until we enter a small residential neighborhood near the city’s American consulate.

  We finally park Pepé Le Porsche in front of #154 Alexanderstrasse, a thick-set five-story apartment house with a light stone façade. I get out to stretch while Patrick checks Hector’s injuries and dressings. The three of us could be in one of those heroic war paintings, where all the soldiers have grubby red bandannas around their heads but they still march in perfect order and fire their blunderbii from the hip.

  It’s the middle of the afternoon. The road and house are quiet. A small delivery van passes down the street and turns onto the main road. From around the same corner appear two young men. Twentysomething. Caucasian. The short one is a sharp-faced kid with straight blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses. The tall one is also blond but his hair is wavier and he’s built like a tank.

  The two strangers walk up the sidewalk toward us. They both favor grays and blacks for their duds. Shorty wears black shoes and pants under a bulky gray jacket. The bulk might be from SoftArmor. Tally wears black boots and blue jeans under a long wool overcoat. It makes him look very dramatic. The difference in their heights gives them a sort of Mutt-and-Jeff look.

  I scan the approaching dudes with millimeter-wave radar. They’ve got hard-edged green outlines all over their bodies.

  Mods.

  I reach under my jacket. “Darwin,” I comm. “Two Levels, coming up the street.”

  Brando follows my eyes. “Okay, one sec,” he comms. My partner buttons up Hector’s SoftArmor and climbs out of the car.

  Shorty tugs on his fellow’s arm. They both stop walking and stare at me. Tally cautiously eyes my hands. A comm-voice enters our conversation. “Easy does it, Scarlet.”

  I close my fingers around both of my pistol grips. Unplanned meetings between Levels can get nasty very quickly, and I want to make sure I’m on the trigger-pulling end of things. I edge myself in front of Brando.

  “Identify yourselves,” my partner comms.

  The shorter one comms, “I’m Doska, Info and Med-Tech. This is Krysta, Level 6 Infiltrator.”

  “What section?”

  “Russian. Our Front Desk is Francis Bell.”

  Mr. Bell is the guy I dragged from under his door after Talon’s bomb brought down his office ceiling.

  Brando squints. “We’re pretty far from Russia, Doska.”

  “No kidding,” Doska comms. “But our entire section has been temporarily attached to yours. Yesterday morning we received orders to report to the House in Stuttgart and await further instructions.”

  “And?”

  “Well, we made it here, but now we can’t communicate with HQ.”

  “Since what time?”

  Doska looks at Krysta. “When did we try to check in last night? Eight?”

  K
rysta, still warily watching me, says, “More like eight thirty.”

  “Okay,” says Doska. “Eight thirty. Almost twenty hours ago.”

  Twenty hours. I count backward. “Darwin,” I whisper. “That’s when we lost contact.”

  My partner nods but doesn’t answer. His eyes are slightly unfocused. I takes me a moment to figure he’s speed-reading his copy of the FED.

  He says, “Okay, Scarlet, they check out.”

  I slightly relax my grasp on my guns. “You sure they aren’t Malefactors?”

  “If they were”—Brando speaks from the corner of his mouth—“we’d be dead already.” He approaches the two agents. “Doska, I’m Darwin, Info Operator. This is Scarlet, Level 10 Interceptor.”

  I click my pistols off my WeaponSynch pads so I can greet our new comrades.

  Krysta asks, “Where’d you get the Porsche?”

  I say. “It was a gift from the people of…Darwin, where’d we find Pepé?”

  Patrick smiles. “Antwerp.”

  Doska glances at Krysta, who thoughtfully rubs the two-day growth on his chin. “Antwerp, eh? Was it from the Kreigsmarine?”

  “You mean is it stolen?”

  “Of course it’s stolen. I mean…never mind.” Doska shrugs at his friend. “I guess they weren’t the ones.”

  Before I can ask Doska what he’s talking about, he turns back to me. “Okay, Scarlet,” he says. “What should we do now?”

  I blink at him. “Why’re you asking me?”

  “Because we can’t call home and you’re the senior Level.”

  My asshole compadres look at me with very serious expressions.

  By the four balls of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. These dopes actually expect a fucking answer.