Disintegration rushed across the floor, reducing the room—and the serpent head—to floating one-inch cubes. Mamoru fell, tumbling head over feet until he hit the ground like a meteor. Despite the explosive sound of his landing, he found himself standing and unharmed when the dust settled. The dragon’s great wings beat overhead as it fought its way higher in the air to the broken sky. Its massive reptilian form vanished into the starfield, which sealed off as shards of broken sky-glass unseated themselves from the earth and tumbled upward to mend the breach. The screams of scraping glass made his spine twist. Grass once again stirred in a wind that seemed real, bugs no longer hung motionless in midair.
The unnatural lag had gone.
“What just happened?” asked Milton, walking over with a hand on his blade.
Mamoru scowled at the distant castle. “We reached an accord.”
“You talked it down?” Davan the Skeptical quirked an eyebrow. “Wait, you have diplomacy? You actually wasted skill points on that?”
Mamoru sighed.
35
Cry Uncle
Kate
Dreamless sleep ended with a pleasant female voice intruding on silence. Kate’s blurry consciousness stripped all meaning from the sounds. When her eyes opened, a dark woman in a white coat hovered on the other side of a peach-hued miasma. The sensation of being trapped in a gel tube with a person in white staring at her brought a rush of panic. Kate’s eyes fixed on the black text above the woman’s coat pocket. “E. Chowdhury, MD.”
Alarms went off in the room outside her prison.
The woman had to stand on tiptoe to pound her fist onto something out of sight. Kate fanned her arms in the slime, trying to swim away. Mechanical noise permeated the substance, which drained away in seconds, lowering her weight onto her feet. Residue of the breathable gel wisped to steam, filling the tube with a haze of sweet-smelling smoke. The gurgling hiss of gel boiling out of her ears drowned out the alarm.
“Officer Solomon, please calm down.” The woman, eyes wide with concern, held her hands up in a comforting gesture. “I’m not sure what made the tank malfunction. We drained it as fast as we could, were you burned?”
Kate wiped her face. Doctor, not a scientist. Get a fucking grip, girl. You’re not seven. She opened her mouth to speak, but gel came out instead of words. She knocked on the tank wall and made a ‘down’ gesture. Dr. Chowdhury pushed her finger into the holo-panel at Kate’s left, and the clear barrier twisted a quarter turn and sank into the floor.
As soon as she had the room to move, Kate bent over and braced her hands on her knees. She opened her throat and let the liquid out of her lungs. Trails of slime drained from her nose and mouth, splattering over her feet for a little over a minute. Her first breath of smoky air made her choke. She hunkered down, head between her knees and gagged. When the convulsions subsided, she straightened up and wiped her face on the back of her arm.
“No, I’m fine. Sorry,” she croaked. “Bad memory.”
The doctor hesitated, clutching a white robe made from towel material. “You should learn to duck.”
“Huh?” Kate ran both hands over her chest, checking on where she remembered bruises. She felt stiff, but at least nothing hurt now. “What?”
“I don’t see many people so blasé about the transition between breathing gel and air. I assumed you are injured frequently.”
Overpowering light glaring down from the ceiling made the edges of everything in the immaculate white room fuzzy. Kate trudged past the doctor, ignoring the robe, and headed for the autoshower. She felt woozy and drained, as though she could fall asleep where she stood.
“It’s a long story, Doc.”
Kate rubbed her hands back and forth over the smooth, iridescent material covering her thighs. The one-of-a-kind Division 0 uniform looked either black or indigo depending on how the light hit it. David said they had it made from threads of indirium thinner than human hair. She’d heard of it before, a dense metal not found on Earth, but only in the context of armor-piercing bullets her gift may or may not be able to melt. According to him, they also used it for the skeletal structure of military cyborgs.
Division 0 command hoped this uniform would tolerate heat. Between the day she’d been having, and what she planned, it seemed her best choice of outfit.
Hey there.
David’s voice swept over her thoughts.
Her head snapped up a second before she leapt out of the chair next to his med tank. She didn’t care if embracing the tube made her look silly. David glanced around with an uneasy look.
What? Does something still hurt? Kate squeezed the transparent cylinder.
He forced a smile. No, I just hate this stuff. Feels like I’m drowning.
A medtech guided her away from the tank as another man hit the button to drain it. David choked and gagged, doubled over on the ground with gel spraying from his face for a few minutes. After a few deep, gurgling breaths, he coughed some more and spat out a few glops.
“You guys love this, don’t you?” he wheezed. “Next time, use the green stuff.”
“I’m sorry, Officer Ahmed. The bullet pierced your lung. We needed the nanobots to get in there.”
He accepted the bathrobe as well as help standing. Kate waited out in the hall while he showered off the remnants of the slippery gel. A short while later, she leapt up to embrace him as soon as he left the nanosurgery room, once again in his uniform.
“What happened?”
Kate held on for another second. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve got to do something.”
He caught her wrist as she tried to walk off. “What doesn’t make any sense?”
“The Syndicate. They know I signed on to Division 0. Even they don’t want to risk starting a pissing contest with the police.”
“Until they asked you to kill one.”
“The guy went rogue. I… he’s not active duty anymore. It’s not a respect thing, David. It’s a fear-of-reprisal thing. They can’t squeeze money out of people when they’re dead. Do you have any idea what a Syndicate war would look like?” She grasped his arm where he held her other wrist. “The police wouldn’t be able to stop. They’d have too much to lose in the public eye. The people I used to work for are too stupid and proud to walk away. It would be a complete disaster. They’re in both cities… ACC territory too… even independent nations. Only place they don’t have much sway is China. Hell, they’re even on Mars.”
He squeezed her hand. “So what are you going to do?”
She took a deep breath, held it for a second, and let it out her nose. “I’m going to confront El Tío. I need to understand why.”
“I’ll put in a call for some Div 1 support.”
“No, David. I have to do this alone. If they see an army coming, they won’t even try to talk.”
He pulled her against him. “No way. Don’t you watch any holo-vids? Going in alone is when the idiot gets themselves killed.”
“El Tío’s the closest thing I have to family.” Tears pooled behind her eyelids. “Something happened to him. You said Paul and Leo had some kind of implant.”
“What, exactly do you plan to do about it? You’re not much of a telepath.”
She paced about, grumbling. “I’ll worry about that once I get there.”
Kate stomped down the hallway. Squeaking boots came up behind her before a hand caught her shoulder.
“I’m going with you at least.”
“No.” She spun around and held on to him, shaking. “You almost died once already. I can’t lose you.”
“I might not be able to override an implanted suggestion, but I can force him to be too calm to act on it.”
Fear and guilt kept her clinging to him. As afraid as she was of losing David, having him be there for her… What’s wrong with me? I’ve never needed anyone before. She laughed. Maybe that’s why I’m so fucked up.
“Okay.”
David brushed her hair away from her eyes and smiled. “You do
n’t sound very confident. Are you sure this is a good idea.”
She tucked away her worries. “No, but… let’s go.”
Kate broke into nervous laughter as David set the patrol craft down in a familiar looking alley at the edge of a grey zone. The shuttle ride to the East Coast had taken less time (about twenty minutes) than convincing the local Division 0 brass to let them borrow a patrol craft for an unofficial excursion.
He raised an eyebrow at her while shutting down the drive system. “You are giving off genuine amusement?”
She covered her mouth until she got control. “Yeah. I was just thinking about how to put on the whole ‘cop attitude,’ and then I realized I’d been scared shitless of the police for years. Feels so twisted to be one.”
The patrol craft door opened with a weak hiss. Kate stepped out, stood, and pulled it down, leaving her hand on the armored surface. She felt foolish exiting an armored shell in the middle of a war zone. Her worry intensified at the lack of any visible sentries by the back entrance into El Tío’s little restaurant. Silva and the large aug were gone. Perhaps they’d been sent to her apartment to wait for her. Maybe El Tío had panicked and cleared out.
“David?” She stared at the plain grey door.
“Yeah.”
“I need a nudge. This isn’t gonna work if I’m scared.” She glanced over the car at him; within seconds, her fear faded. An upwelling of confidence came from nowhere, and she stood tall. “Thanks.”
“Don’t do anything reckless.”
“That’s why you’re here.” She grasped the handle of the stunrod hanging on the left side of her belt and marched into the alley.
Inside, a few toe prints burned into the cheap, decorative floor covering reminded her of the last time she’d come to visit. She navigated the dim, cramped corridor, hung a right, and walked past the kitchen. Two of the men working there stopped and gawked. She didn’t bother looking at their thoughts. It didn’t matter if they were horny, recognized her, or freaked by the presence of someone in a police uniform. She took her time walking, remembering her old mad dash when her feet would start fires wherever they touched. Her confidence increased—it felt good to be human.
Kate rounded another corner, but jumped back at the chirp of El Tío’s sentry gun. Without her holographic bracelet on, she expected it to fire. Instead, it made the same safe chirp it used to.
“Police ID.” David reached forward and tapped the rigid guard on her left forearm. “By law, automated defenses have to yield to cops. Modifying them not to is grounds for a summary. It’s considered the same as attempted murder of an officer.”
She stomped out from behind the corner. Behind the sentry turret, the unassuming door to El Tío’s ‘storeroom’ hung ajar, also devoid of the usual living guards. Kate frowned at the memory of the man who always stared at her tits. A charred handprint on the wall made her smile.
The door opened without resistance. She gave it a shove and it flew aside, slamming against the bare cinder blocks with an echoing, metallic boom. The men who once stood guard at the door lay dead on the floor inside. From the looks of it, they’d killed each other.
El Tío sat at his desk, a rough-cut obsidian oval held in the grasp of a pair of nude, chrome succubi. Bottles of various liquors stood in a row in front of him near a single shot glass. Crimson spatter marred one side of his otherwise immaculate white fedora. The rest of his dark suit looked impeccable.
Her old chair waited on the thermal tiles in front of the desk, a recognizable ass print in heat bluing upon the seat. The man seemed old and frail now, devoid of the fear caused by his reputation. Kate smirked at the corpses. Had all the bodyguards made him seem so intimidating? She wasn’t a terrified savage child any longer. Perhaps, to a fifteen-year-old, he might still be scary.
No. He looks broken, almost sorry.
Kate wondered if David’s telempathic boost of confidence made him seem so harmless. He didn’t look up at her as he poured a shot of something brown.
“Buenas noches, señorita.” He pulled another tiny glass out of a drawer. “Te puedo interesar en una bebida?”
“No, thanks.” Kate held her hand up. “I’m on duty. En servicio. Yo soy policía ahora.”
His eyes raised to regard her. Hard eyes; the way he looked at a man before killing him. El Tío could kill a person as easily as eat an olive. David grunted. Despite the look she’d seen directed at other people so often, having it aimed at her didn’t scare her at all.
“Lo que le pasó, El Tío?” Kate stood at the side of the desk, avoiding her old perch. “What happened to you?”
“He’s enraged,” said David, his voice strained as if he held a heavy burden.
Kate did what she had promised never to do. She peered into El Tío’s mind. Blurry images cavorted in the shadows of his hatred. Somehow, he believed she had attacked the Syndicate. The dead men in the room—Silva from outside, and the four associates who happened to be in the restaurant at the time—were her doing as far as his thoughts cared. He believed the girl he had protected had betrayed him and had come here to end his life. He had only survived by a chance absence.
“He thinks I did this.” Kate gestured at the dead. “He thinks I tried to kill him.” She banged on the desk. “El Tío, look at them! They’re beaten to death. No burns.”
“He sees them as burned,” said David.
El Tío’s killing stare never faltered as he downed his shot.
“It’s got to be a telepathic implant.” Kate moved to David’s side. “We can’t leave him like this.”
David’s light brown face beaded with sweat. “This man is quite intent on becoming angry. I… I can’t dent this overlay on his memory. It’s way out of my league. Maybe Lieutenant Commander Ashford can do something about it.” His cheeks lost some color.
“You say that name like he’s the grim reaper or something.”
“Heh. Not too far off. Mind blast. Even stronger than Burckhardt.”
“So?” Kate raised an eyebrow.
“If he wanted to, he could make you into a drooling lump… permanently.” David shrugged. “If you ask me, I’d rather just die. Damn, I’ve never seen an implant this strong.”
Kate’s anger raised the temperature of the room a few degrees. “Archon. It’s gotta be Archon.” She looked around for something to burn. “Fuck! I should’ve known as soon as Paul said it.”
“What?”
“If you’re not with us, you’re against us. That’s what Archon said. It was him!” She stared in horror at El Tío for a long moment before gazing into David’s chocolate eyes. “What can we do?”
“We—gun!” David shoved her off her feet, grabbing for his E-90.
Boom.
A blast of blue muzzle flare flashed under the desk. Kate’s involuntary reaction to being shot at triggered, surrounding her with heat blur. A bullet splashed off her hip. She landed on her side as David let off a yowl of pain and hit the ground.
At the sound of the man she’d fallen for crying out in agony, unbridled rage took her.
She screamed and thrust her arms forward, commanding the air around the desk to ignite. A tornado of flame whirled into being, engulfing El Tío. Another gunshot went off amid the conflagration, but the bullet ricocheted in the distance.
Kate’s furious shrieking faded to desperate wails. The energy left her; the cyclonic inferno dissipated a second before the fire suppression system went off. Water spraying on her special uniform sizzled to steam in an instant.
She scrambled up into a crawl and rushed to David. He lay on his side with his back facing her, right hand clamped over his left armpit. Kate grasped his arm, hovering, ignoring the water raining all around them.
“David!”
He rolled onto his back, grinning at the water like a delirious fool. “Oh, that feels nice.”
A starburst of lead had melted his shirt, enmeshed with molten skin and a bleeding bruise. She glanced at the flaring pain on her hip, finding a s
mear of lead on her still-intact uniform. Soaked hair clung to the sides of her head as she burst out laughing and crying at the same time.
“It hit me enough to melt.”
“Not completely.” He cringed and reached for his stimpak case.
“You should’ve let me take the bullet.” She pushed his arm away and gave him two stims. “You’re too gallant.”
David’s laugh stalled with a wince. “Ouch.”
“I’ll call a Med.”
“I’ll be okay. Didn’t get the lung this time.”
Kate picked at the slug fused into his skin. “You need a doctor.”
“Fine, but we can drive back. You know how cops are. Two MedVan trips in one day, I’ll never hear the end of it.” He pointed at the desk. “We should at least call in a crime scene unit.”
With her immediate fear for David’s life gone, Kate shifted to look at El Tío—or rather, what remained of him. She knelt, numb to the frigid downpour, staring at the blackened husk of a body tilted at an angle in the chair. His warped gun dangled on two fingers between his knees. The shot glass, halfway to his mouth, overflowed with water from the sprinklers. Charred skull protruded from places where no skin remained; hollow eye sockets seemed to look back at her.
David grunted and sat up. Kate shivered at what she had done. Yes, El Tío had been a bastard. He had exploited her need for human contact and turned her into a weapon. He became the stern father figure in the back of her mind she’d have done anything to please. Not out of fear, but out of wanting to be loved. Until she had found El Tío, she had never killed a person with malice, or worse—no feeling at all.
Yes, he had been all of those horrible things, but she had loved him anyway, and his last dying thought had been that his girl had betrayed him.
The sprinklers cut out with a loud clank, making her jump. Kate reached toward the pathetic, emaciated corpse.
“I’m sorry.” She sobbed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t kill them. That son of a bitch made you believe it.”
Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6) Page 37