by T. C. Edge
“That’s the idea,” said Ragan. “And thank you, Dax, for trusting me. Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“Why? Why are you helping her?”
Dax smiled and looked Ragan dead in the eye.
“Why not, Agent Hunt,” he said. “Why not.”
And with that, Ragan turned, rushed up through the building, and sped out onto the street, hurrying off to the east under the shadow of the gathering clouds.
16
Chloe was silent and unmoving, her heart rate slowed to a crawl and breathing held fast in her lungs.
It was a function of her augmentation, of the specialised nanites called respirocytes in her blood. They were the ones that allowed for Chloe’s supreme endurance, artificial blood cells capable of carrying hundreds of times more oxygen than their natural, biological counterparts.
As such, Chloe could stop breathing, knowing that the nanotech cells in her blood held plenty of oxygen to see her through for quite some time. She’d never tested her true limits, but had once gone twenty minutes without taking a swig of air. She knew she could do better. A lot better.
Hiding herself away in the depths of the building, she was trying to go unnoticed. Her breathing might be picked up by the agent on her tail, not just the sound it made but the light flow of air it produced. Skilled trackers were augmented to seek their prey with utter efficiency. Chloe wasn’t going to take any chances.
Her lack of breathing held another function too - to let her listen more acutely for incoming threats. At times of stress, your heart rate would soar, and your breathing would follow. In a quiet environment like this, such noise could mask the approach of an intruder, particularly a skilled tracker and spy like the one Remus had spotted up the street, heading their way.
So, Chloe remained in a state of suspended animation, her functions stopping beyond the scope of any normal human being. Anyone else would be dead by now. Only those like her - the augmented soldiers of the Panther Force, Spectre Squad, and others - could do the same.
She’d been there now for several minutes, seeking the deepest part of the building she could find. It was large, fitted perhaps with fifty separate apartments over five floors, as well as a slew of other rooms on the ground floor and basement floor below, including a spacious lobby. The place was decrepit, surely a target for demolition. It looked like no one had lived here in years, except rats, mice, and other such vermin.
Now, it had two new residents - Chloe and Remus.
And perhaps a third…
As Chloe sat in silence at the rear of the ground floor, Remus hovered off through the building, searching for a way out the back. Chloe sensed his path, his sensors interfacing with her nanites, though made sure to maintain some focus on her own situation too, listening for a single footstep that might indicate someone was sneaking her way.
So far, it had been minutes since she’d spotted that man marching her way up the street, and she’d seen nothing, heard nothing, and felt no other presence.
It wasn’t enough to ease her tension, or get her rushing back for the exit. Trickery was common, and this might just be a trap. She had to wait it out a little longer.
So she hid, and let Remus do his work, her fingers starting to tingle with sparks of energy as she sensed a threat closing in. Outside, the gathering storm that had brought an early darkness to help cover her retreat from the city, now set about turning against her. A single, violent rumble of thunder struck suddenly, roaring through the building and momentarily breaking Chloe’s focus.
It came out of nowhere, causing her to take a sharp breath, her heart suddenly flinging back into action. The resulting surge of adrenaline poured forth, and her fingers began fizzing and lighting up, ready to spark lightning just as the clouds were above.
The thunder trembled through the room, and down the corridor beyond, a valuable cloak for someone looking to creep up on their prey. Chloe took a moment to compose herself, to return to her dormant state, but found it too difficult as the sky cracked open a second time, this time bringing a deluge of rain along with it.
A battering ensued, the heavens ripped open and pouring forth a violent torrent. The noise was plenty to disturb the silence, Chloe’s ability to listen for threats muted and subdued. She shut her eyes, focusing entirely on Remus’ perception, and sensed him working swiftly through the ground floor, towards the rear of the building, seeking an exit.
He was having no luck, all windows boarded. He came upon a door that appeared to have once been a fire exit. It was boarded too, planks of wood hammered across it.
Another thunderous roar spread from above, causing Chloe to open her eyes again and take in the room ahead. The place was murky and grim, the allowance of light filtering through the old tenement block doused by the black clouds above.
Remembering the package Dax had given her, Chloe quickly drew the bag off her back and rifled within. She pulled out the contact lenses he’d mentioned, and quickly replaced the ones she was wearing. She was used to wearing clear ones that worked to protect her eyes from retinal scanning technology, and which could alter their hue and colour to help change her appearance.
These ones, however, weren’t the sort she’d ever used. They had other tricks, the most pertinent one now being night-vision. With a quick glance over the instructions, written hastily in Dax’s own hand, Chloe reached to her eyes with her index finger, tapping the lenses twice. Immediately, their night-vision capability activated, setting a strange green film over the world ahead.
New details came into focus, the room growing in clarity. She gently rose to her feet and moved towards the door, creeping her head around the corner. The long stretch ahead was quiet and empty, the silence only shaken as another burst of thunder cackled above.
Chloe drew back and shut her eyes. Remus’ view appeared once more. He was still searching, hovering through the air and scanning the world around him. Chloe knew he’d find nothing at the rear of the building. Unless she wanted to blast through a boarded window or door, the only way of walking out of here appeared to be through the front.
“OK, buddy, come on back,” she whispered.
Slowly, she began moving out into the corridor, searching the dim space ahead using her night-vision lenses. Remembering the lenses’ other settings, she reached up and tapped them with her finger, three times on this occasion. Now, the film of green departed, and a new capability activated, this one providing her with X-ray vision, allowing her to look right through the nearest walls to see if someone might be lying in wait.
“Wow,” she whispered to herself, mesmerised by the tech.
These sorts of lenses, she knew, weren’t readily available to the public. They were military issue for the special forces, mostly, and not sanctioned to be used by the general populous. Clearly, Dax had managed to get a pair on the black market, utilising his vast array of contacts.
No doubt they cost a fair bit.
And, he’d given them to her…
Feeling a fresh deluge of gratitude swarm her, she pressed on, now looking through the walls around her as she ventured down the corridor. She had a thought, and performed a quick test, returning her left lens to night-vision, and keeping her right lens on its current, X-ray setting. The reaction was immediate, and stunning, the two lenses working together to provide her with a unique view of the world ahead. She could see through the dim light and right through walls at the same time. For all the things she could do, all the augmentations her nanotech allowed, this was something new.
Feeling a little more composed now, with her sight ahead so vastly enhanced, Chloe began stepping forward with a greater sense of assurance. She began working down the corridor, through a set of doors, stopping to check the coast was clear as she headed slowly back for the lobby.
It seemed to her that the building was clear. Perhaps her pursuer hadn’t followed her into the building after all? Perhaps he hadn’t been the agent Dax had told her about?
Still, it paid to be cautious, a state of living Chloe knew well. Stopping before entering back into the lobby, she heard a light buzzing behind her and turned to see Remus coming her way. She smiled upon seeing him.
“OK, little guy, you know what to do. Go check the lobby for me,” she whispered.
The door ahead, giving access to the atrium, was worn and ill-fitted. At the bottom was a large enough crack for Remus to slip through without Chloe having to open it up. Altering his form, Remus slid through the gap, before arranging himself into the shape of a tiny drone once more. It was his favoured form during reconnaissance missions, and when the tension was as high as this. Somehow, fluttering about like a silver, robotic bird didn’t quite fit the situation.
As Remus drifted off into the large hall, Chloe reactivated her X-ray vision, searching the space ahead from behind the safety of the door. She could see through the door and into the atrium, but not beyond the thick pillars that dotted it, nor through the walls at the edge of the building. The tech had its limitations, and could only seem to penetrate a single layer of whatever lay ahead, working more easily through thin wooden structures than anything thick and constructed of stone and metal.
The lenses had a final setting, though - infrared - that Chloe wanted to try.
This time, it took four distinct taps to activate the setting. She did so as Remus hovered into the hall, checking behind the thick pillars that rose from floor to ceiling.
And staring ahead, the air was caught in her lungs.
A body…
Behind a stone pillar near the entrance to the building, the distinct shape of a man stood, deathly still. It was lit up in a dull orange and red, displaying his heat signature, clearly displayed against the contrasting, cold blue hues of the hall and the pillar that hid him from the naked eye.
Someone’s waiting for me…she thought with a pulse of terror.
Chloe felt herself immediately backing away, stepping a few paces down the corridor behind her, her eyes never leaving the glowing red figure.
Then she remembered Remus.
Come back…come back now!
The thought took hold, and Remus was quick to obey. But not before he drifted past the pillar in question, and the sight of the man came into view.
Chloe saw it from Remus’ perspective as she continued to withdraw - a man, dressed in a black suit and with a long black coat on top, his skin pale and eyes like slits, hair dark as ink. But there was a glaring white too, glinting off his teeth, his canines sharp and oddly elongated into fangs.
The man was smiling.
And he was staring right up at Remus.
Chloe recognised his kind immediately, and began pacing quickly away, trying to stay as silent as she could. Remus fled at the same time, shooting from the man’s view and right back for the door. He slipped through the gap, reformed, and whizzed his way right to Chloe’s side.
But Chloe knew that Remus had been seen. The man - the creature - had been waiting for her to leave the building, and hadn’t expected to be spotted. Now, he had been.
There was no need for him to hide any longer.
And right then, a voice seemed to shudder through the building. It was cold, almost etherial, like something from another world.
“Chloe…Chloe Phantom,” he called out, his words seeping clearly into Chloe’s ears. “There’s no need to run from me. I’ve been desperate to meet you for so long…”
Chloe was moving quicker now, reaching up to tap her lenses and withdraw their infrared cloak. She reverted to night-vision once more, turning to hurry towards the back of the building.
The voice came again as she ran, getting ever nearer.
“I’m insulted, Chloe,” it hissed. “I’ve longed for this moment, and you just run away. How could you do this to me…”
The tone was hypnotic, feeding into Chloe’s head. She’d endured the weird sensation before, the strange persuasions and powers such people held. Nano-vamps were built to unnerve, to lure, to draw unsuspecting men and women into their terrible web. Their lives were lived to hunt those like her, and they were gifted with a vast array of skills to accomplish that end.
Once or twice, she’d encountered them. And both times, she’d so nearly been snared. Of all the people who’d come after her, nano-vamps were the worst. And here she was, stuck in a building, with one of their kind for company.
She was sprinting now, hurrying along as the thunder boomed and the rain poured. Remus, keeping watch behind her, gave her a view of the corridor at her rear. At the end, the door to the lobby opened.
The man in black appeared.
Chloe flew herself left, rushing through a door. The pretence was over. There was no point in being silent, in hiding her step. She clattered through an empty apartment, seeking the edge of the building. Behind, she could sense the vamp closing in.
Within moments, she was coming upon a boarded door, what looked to be an old fire exit giving access to an alleyway outside. She thrust her full weight into it without thinking, cracking a couple of wooden planks but failing to do much more. She did the same again, stepping back and surging forward, her collarbone threatening to fracture at the impact.
She cared little for such injuries, knowing how fast they’d heal. Right now, she had to get out of this damn building, whatever the cost.
Lining the door up a third time, she could hear the hunter closing in.
“Chloe,” came his hiss, away down the passage behind, savouring every moment of the chase. “I’m coming, Chloe…”
The strike of fear was enough, pouring the adrenaline through her blood. Suddenly, her tingling fingers sparked to life, flowing with a violent burst of electricity. She aimed her digits at the door, and sent forth a crackling net of white and blue lightning. The reaction was immediate, the wooden boards smashed aside, catching fire as the door beyond was bust right off its hinges.
The world outside came into view, rain pouring from the gloomy skies. Chloe rushed right through, sensing the nano-vamp bearing down on her. Her fingers continued to cackle and fizz. She turned back to the door and sent another shot of lightning through the gaping, flaming hole, doing all she could to cover her retreat.
The walls were ripped apart, the corridor caving in as the flames started to spread. Chloe peered through a gap and saw her enemy, standing beyond the flames and falling rubble, staring at her with his cold, empty eyes. Yet the smile remained, his fangs extended. And a whisper fell from his lips, cutting right into her head.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” he said, his smirk ever rising.
She lifted her fingers again, ready to fire. But above, a threatening cackle stayed her hand, a bolt of lightning, so much more power than her own, brewing in the heavens above. A new fear spread through her body, forcing her to power down. In this state, she was nothing but a conductor. If real lightning came her way, she’d be fried.
Concentrating hard, she managed to control herself just in time, a surging shower of lightinng zapping down from the thick black clouds and hitting the earth a little way down the alley. The resulting thunder bounded through her, loud enough to cause her to stumble backwards a step. She swept her eyes back up to the crumbling fire-exit, and found that her stalker was gone.
Turning quickly on her heels, she knew she’d bought herself moments only.
She began thrashing down the alley, her feet splashing in the gathering puddles, forgetting completely the threat of peacekeepers and WSA soldiers that might be patrolling the area. Gone was the slow progress, the use of Remus as a scout. Now, she thought only of the nano-vamp, his hunt only temporarily slowed by the crumbling corridor and blocked exit.
As she hurled her body down the alley, the creature took no time to reappear, hurrying down the tight lane behind her. He must have moved back through the building and out the front exit, doing so with incredible speed. And now he was gaining on her fast.
Reaching the end of the alley, Chloe sped out into a wide street. She looked
left and Remus looked right, allowing her to perceive both directions simultaneously. To the right, way off down the road, a security cordon was set up. Ahead, a network of tenement blocks lined the road, dotted lights glowing from within indicating the presence of those who lived there.
Chloe’s decision was quick. She couldn’t turn right, that much was clear. She didn’t much want to trap herself inside a building either. The only option was left, straight down the road ahead.
She sprinted on, filling her lungs, quickly coming up on a larger intersection. Within the premature gloom of the early afternoon, the shape of bright headlights appeared, rushing up from a side-road.
She slowed, and turned, and saw a blur of black slipping forward through the sodden air. He flew so silently, his feet barely seeming to make a splash upon the thin layer of rainwater gathering on the earth.
Chloe spun around again, and the lights grew bright before her. The sound of an engine filled her ears, of tyres grinding over the soaking street. Before she could react, a car was spinning and stopping right before her.
A door opened up, and a face appeared.
A face she recognised.
“Get in the car,” shouted the man. “I’m here to help.”
17
Chloe didn’t know what to do. She knew the man to be the agent Dax had warned her about, the one who worked for the CID in New York. Ragan Hunt, that was his name. He was an enemy to her as much as the nano-vamp chasing her down…
“Chloe, get in now!” he roared. “If you don’t, Mikel will kill you.”
So rarely was Chloe torn like this, her mind unable to make a decision. She looked back again at the creature called Mikel, his eyes now narrowing at the sight of the car. His speed increased, his lithe body swimming forwards through the misty air. Chloe looked back at the alternative, and made a snap decision she hoped she wouldn’t regret.
“Damn it!” she roared, jumping into the car, her fear having made the decision for her.