by T. C. Edge
Remus flew in right after her, just as the engine blared. The car spun, turning down the road, the wheels desperately trying to gain some traction upon the slippery surface. With a sudden grip, the vehicle lurched forward, the door slamming shut as the car sped off.
Shooting down the road, Chloe looked through the back window, half steamed up by the storm. Through the blur she could see the black shape still advancing, his speed seeming to increase with every stride.
She took one look at the interior of the car, and a look of mixed dismay and disgust spread across her face.
“Can’t this hunk of junk go any faster!”
Ragan glanced across at her.
“You wanna get out and run?”
He did a little dance on the pedals, changing gear and turning suddenly down another road. The fact that this car used a gear system said it all. Cars like that hadn’t been made for decades.
“Where the hell did you find this thing?” Chloe called, looking back again and trying to see through the rear window. The blurred form of Mikel was even nearer, a gun being drawn from his cloak. “Watch out!” shouted Chloe.
Ragan turned quickly and just in time, swerving to the side as a burst of light sped from Mikel’s gun behind them. It glowed through the gloom, pitching into the tarmac where the car had been and ripping thick chunks from the ground.
Another shot fired, just missing once more. A single hit on the tyres and the car would be a goner.
“Speed the hell up!” shouted Chloe, getting a quick glare for her trouble.
“You think you can do better?” returned Ragan, drawing his own pistol from his belt. “Go ahead…”
He pressed a button, winding down the window next to him. The song of the storm rose again as it spread into the car.
Leaning to his left, he took his hands off the wheel, looking back through the open window at their pursuer.
“What the hell are you doing!” called Chloe, forced to reach over and steady the ship.
“Just keep her straight,” called Ragan, looking the other way. “And get your foot on the gas.”
His own foot left it at that moment, forcing Chloe to stretch her leg from the passenger seat and press down hard. She shuffled over to the driver’s side as Ragan stretched half his body out the window, aiming his pistol behind them.
Sharp bursts of fire sped from his gun, forcing Mikel to fade left and right. The nano-vamp was faster than any Chloe had ever seen.
Half watching in the mirror, she turned her attention back to the road just in time to avoid a parked truck. She swerved, causing Ragan to misfire and curse at the same time.
“Keep it steady, damnit!” he roared, reaching to his belt as he did.
He drew a thin clip from the leather. There appeared to be several of them attached to his belt.
“What the hell’s that?” called Chloe.
“Sensory grenade,” replied Ragan. “Just keep your eye on the road, and don’t look back. When I say so, shut your eyes.”
“But…the road. I won’t see where I’m going…”
“Just do it!”
Without a moment’s delay, Ragan pressed down on a small button at the end of the clip, and hurled it out of the window in Mikel’s direction. He dragged his body back into the car straight after, shoving Chloe over into the passenger seat.
“Now!” he called, retaking the wheel and slamming his foot onto the gas.
Chloe reacted immediately, shutting her eyes tight. A split second later, a stunning light overtook the blackness before her vision, and an ear-splitting ringing spread through her ears. Before she could lift her hands to protect them from the onslaught, the sound had begun to fade, and the light went along with it.
The darkness behind her eyelids returned. Tentatively, she opened her eyes and turned to see that Ragan’s were already wide and staring, glancing back behind the car as it continued to speed away through the streets.
He looked over, his piercing blue eyes intense, yet fluttering with a light relief.
“It worked,” he said. “He’s gone.”
Chloe looked back through the window. Mikel was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell was that thing?” she whispered, shaking her head.
“A nano-vamp,” answered Ragan immediately. “They hunt people like you and me, Chloe…”
“Yeah, I know all about that,” returned Chloe. “I mean that light…that sound.”
“I told you, sensory grenade,” said Ragan casually, swerving the old vehicle left down a side-street. “They emit a blinding light and sharp ringing tone that scrambles a person’s senses. Nano-vamps have sensitive eyes and ears, helps them hunt the likes of us down. They don’t much like these things,” he finished, tapping his belt.
“So, he’s definitely gone, this…Mikel?” asked Chloe, looking through the back window again.
Ragan nodded.
“I got him good, don’t worry. He didn’t see it coming, took a full blast in the eyes. He’ll see nothing but white for a few minutes.”
Chloe let out a sigh of relief, slipping back into her chair.
“I’ve never met a nano-vamp like him before,” she shuddered. “He’s…relentless.”
“Yeah, he is. He’s one of the rogues, swears allegiance to no one. They’re the most dangerous of all.”
“So, he’s not working for the WSA?”
“Could be,” shrugged Ragan, “though not in an official capacity if he is. Most nano-vamps are controlled, used by the governments to track nanobot soldiers down. The rogues aren’t the same. They’re ghosts, sometimes working as bounty hunters, sometimes just working for themselves. I don’t know if the WSA hired Mikel to track you down, or if he’s just after your nanites. Could be either. Or both.”
“And you know him…how?”
“Long story,” said Ragan, without elaborating.
Chloe raised her eyes, curious for more. She stared right at him.
“Well? Don’t leave me hanging.”
Ragan glanced at her, a grim expression spreading across his face.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” he muttered.
“Jeez. That bad, huh?” asked Chloe. “I’m guessing he’s taken someone you care about?”
Ragan’s eyes didn’t leave the road. His expression didn’t change.
“Er, sorry,” murmured Chloe. “I can be a bit…forward, sometimes.”
Ragan turned his eyes to her again.
“It’s all right. I guess you don’t exactly get much practice in social situations these days.”
Now, perhaps, it was Ragan’s turn to be tactless.
It was an odd exchange, really, though Chloe was quickly beginning to realise that, while this man had saved her from Mikel, he was far from her friend. The truth was rather different - he was, in fact, her enemy.
No less so than the creature they’d just outrun.
His saving her wasn’t an act of kindness. This wasn’t some knight in shining armour, galloping to her aid inside his rusted, metal steed. Oh no. He was no better than the rest, an agent of a corrupt government, of the very nation to which she once belonged.
He had saved her for one reason, and one reason only - so that he could be the one to take her in.
Chloe had forgotten that fact momentarily during the chase, but now it came storming back into her head. She turned away to hide her sudden nerves, looking out of the window, and slid her fingers towards the handle of the door. She knew what to do. As soon as he slowed to turn around the next corner, she’d leap out and rush away, and shoot the guy with a knockout dart from her bracelet gun at the same time.
She could kill him…but he had kinda saved her.
I guess I’ll let him live, she thought.
And the chase would be back on.
With her agitation beginning to rise, Chloe prepared to make her exit. She saw a turning ahead, felt the car begin to slow. Her fingers gripped the door handle tighter, and as they reached the corner and be
gan to swerve, she suddenly pulled on the latch and pushed at the door, hard.
Nothing happened. The door didn’t budge.
She tried again in a sudden rush, but knew immediately…
The door was locked.
Her eyes spun around to Ragan, who was looking at her with a wry grin.
“Thought you might try that,” he said.
She looked down and saw that his pistol was back in his hand, pointing right at her leg. Before she knew it, he’d pulled the trigger, and a little dart was punching out and cutting into her thigh.
The sedative worked immediately, strong enough to overpower her nanites as they worked to repel it. Her eyes flickered and her head fell back.
“Sorry, Chloe,” came Ragan’s muffled voice.
Then the blackness closed in.
Ragan looked at Chloe as her eyelids slid shut, a smile planted upon his face. He’d waited for this moment for quite some time. He hardly believed it was real.
Overhead, the storm was still rumbling loudly, the strikes of lightning and resulting thunder more regular now than ever. It was only early afternoon still, yet here in the eastern suburbs of LA, a darkness was quickly falling, the daylight blotted by the swamp of black clouds.
Driving on for a few minutes, he drew a spare hand off the steering wheel and tapped his left eye. Activating his scanning lens, he worked to bring up a map of the nearby streets, searching for all known security outposts and blockades in the vicinity.
Slowing the car, he worked down a narrow lane and stopped, satisfied now that he’d put sufficient space between them and Mikel. He’d brushed him off for now, but was certain it wouldn’t last long.
He needed to get out of the city immediately, his job only half done. Finding Chloe was one thing. Extracting her from enemy territory, well that was another entirely.
As the car stopped, he doused the lights and blinked to activate his lens’s projector function. The scanning lens on his left eye began searching for all security signals and known checkpoints. The lens on his right eye, meanwhile, projected the holographic image of the map before him, filling with the information picked up by his scanner.
Utilising his eidetic memory, enhanced by his nanotech augmentations, Ragan began memorising all of the streets around him, and all the security cordons in place. Several possible routes were worked up, none of which looked feasible when travelling by road. It appeared that every track out of the city was being watched, heavily in some cases. Going by foot might be easier in avoiding the major blockades, but then he’d have the high-flying sentry drones to deal with, ever watchful from the dark skies above. And, of course, the burden of Chloe’s unconscious body would be a problem too.
No, he needed to stay on wheels. That much had been clear. He’d chosen a vehicle for that purpose, not only to quickly catch up with Chloe as she attempted to flee the city, but to escort her out of it once she had. Over here, the CID couldn’t offer much help until Ragan got into a safer zone far beyond the city.
And, he didn’t much want their help either.
The car, he hoped, wouldn’t be reported stolen for a little while, giving him some time to make use of it without being tracked. He’d stolen it from a run-down garage not far from Dax’s tattoo parlour, choosing it for the very fact that it looked to have gone unused for a while. It had been a risk that had so far paid off. Any slower and Mikel might well have caught them.
Jeez he was fast, Ragan thought, shaking his head.
Clearly, Mikel had been busy. He was, Ragan knew, a rare breed of nano-vamp, one specially designed to not only seek and desire nanites, but actually benefit from their ingestion too. Most nano-vamps merely operated off a genetically engineered need, an unquenchable desire to keep feeding on nanites, to search out those who were augmented with such tech. Mikel, however, was something more.
Depending on what he sucked from someone’s blood, he’d take on their characteristics and abilities. The nanites would enter his own bloodstream, gift him as they did their previous owner. No doubt that was a large reason why he was hunting Chloe right now. Her nanotech was a prize that Mikel clearly wanted for himself.
Ragan looked at her again now, her head tilted to one side and chest lightly rising and falling. He’d searched for her for so long, and been so close once more. He reached out with his fingers, and touched them to her cheek, as if to make sure she was real.
“Just checking,” he murmured to himself, his gaze catching on her face for a few more moments.
She was beautiful. More than he’d expected, given the rare sightings of her these last few years. The clearest images of her were when she was only 16, when she lived with her father in New York. She’d changed since then, flourished into a beautiful young woman. She was leaner, tougher, her hands worn and calloused, a few wrinkles of worry already beginning to crease around her eyes and forehead, even as she slept.
Ragan gazed at her and smiled.
“You needn’t worry,” he whispered.
Drawing a breath, he drew his eyes away from her too, once more searching the map for a suitable way out. He logged all possible routes, and with time short as it was, came to a swift decision.
He’d head east, as he’d been doing, and just try to slip through the cordon. He had his identity, well crafted by Doc, that had seen him hover under the radar so far. Hopefully it would see him through one final time.
He nodded to himself, his plan set, before stepping from the car and into the pouring rain. He moved around to the passenger seat, opened the door, and hauled Chloe out, removing her backpack and tossing it onto the seat, before lifting her easily into his arms. His eyes fell to her face again, her sleeping expression coiling a little more as he carried her under the deluge.
Moving to the trunk, he opened it up with a spare hand, quite capable of balancing Chloe’s body in one, and saw the rather unpleasant interior. A stench of stale air poured out, filtering up his nose. It seemed as though the back of the car hadn’t been opened in months, maybe years.
“Sorry about this,” he grunted, turning his nose from the smell.
He planted Chloe’s body gently down, making sure she was arranged comfortably in the confined space before gently shutting the trunk. Then, before he got too soaked through, he hurried back to the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
He restarted the engine, the thing spluttering before coming to life. Then, pulling up his right sleeve, he turned his forearm over, revealing a small rectangular interface, fused right into his wrist. It was standard issue for all soldiers like him, given when he entered the Panther Force as a 16 year old and had his body augmented with his nanites, gifting him his array of super-human abilities.
All such soldiers had them, allowing those back at base to interface with their men while on active duty, tracking their vital statistics, location, and so on. When Ragan was drafted into the CID, becoming the chief tracker in the hunt for Chloe Phantom, the device on his arm remained, allowing the likes of Commander Wexley, Doc, and others to watch his progress from afar.
Ragan never much liked it, knowing that there was always someone out there who knew exactly where he was, what he was doing, how he was feeling. It was a downside of his physical upgrades. He could, as with all such soldiers, do things no other normal human could, and yet it came at a price.
A price of freedom and control. A price he’d never been willing to pay.
With the Panther Force, the interface on his wrist could never be interfered with. Doing so was a breach, and would result in immediate discharge from the squadron, and a withdrawal of all nanotech from your body. After becoming super-human, the idea of losing all that, of becoming ‘normal’ again, was unpalatable to most soldiers. It was enough to engender a feeling of loyalty among the corps, few ever falling out of line.
Joining the CID, the same was true. There were rules, regulations. Life was about duty, about serving a higher purpose. Freedoms were set aside for the pursuit of something more meaningfu
l, something that went beyond one’s own existence.
Ragan always held that belief. He always knew his own life was a tool to be utilised for the greater good. He would serve his cause, because as far as he saw it, humanity needed it to be served.
Even if they didn’t know it yet.
So looking at the device on his wrist, he could imagine Commander Wexley sitting at a screen, watching the little dot beeping on the map, telling of his exact location. He could imagine his boss reading his vital signs; his heart rate, his blood pressure, his energy levels and need for sleep, even his level of emotional exposure and turmoil.
The boffins back there at CID could interpret it all, knowing just how Ragan was feeling at any time of the day or night. And they’d feed it to Wexley, so desperate for Ragan to succeed, ever trying to get in touch to hear updates from his man.
Ragan could see it all, and it drew a smile to his lips.
He reached up, slipping a finger into his right ear, and drew out the tiny comms unit attached to the inner cavity. Every so often, a light beeping would sound in his head, telling him Commander Wexley was trying to get through.
He’d had enough.
He slipped the comms device into his jacket pocket, and then reached back to the interface on his wrist. He knew, now, just how to alter the settings. He’d learned over the years to hide.
He smiled, knowing the commotion it would cause back at HQ.
Because right now, it was time to go dark.
18
The rugged path ahead, heading eastwards through the mountain passes, marked the boundary edge of the city of LA.
Beyond, the territory remained that of the WSA for hundreds of miles, spreading through the old states that comprised the western edge of the continent. Many major cities that had once flourished were now dead shells through those lands. The same went for most of the central zones of the Disunited States, each of the four new nations now gathering mostly at the perimeter of the continent.
LA and New York could hardly be further apart, and thus were now largely militarised and so difficult for an opposing army to penetrate. The lands in between were vast, ruined by years of war. People still lived across the breadth of the continent, of course, forging lives in towns and cities that remained in operation, if only partially.