Nemesis: A Near Future Thriller (Forsaken Mercenary Book 6)

by Jonathan Yanez

  The woman vanished. The light above her went out, leaving me in darkness again.

  “Man,” I mumbled. “I can’t even get a break when I’m passed out unconscious. I need a vacation.”

  One moment I stood in a dark room thinking I needed time off, the next I woke up on the ground of the library breathing hard. A cold sweat gathered at my brow. I had no idea how long I was unconscious, but it couldn’t have been long. Monica said it herself, the serum she shot me with ran its course quickly as my body burned it off.

  I jumped to my feet, feeling a bit wobbly.

  Since X was gone, I had no ready means available to communicate with Bapz or anyone else, for that matter. I stumbled over to the desk with the holo screen. I was just about to hit the controls when the door burst open. Bapz stood there, his eyes wide.

  I get it. There were so many darts sticking out of my body, I must have looked like a freaking pin cushion to him.

  “Daniel.” Bapz rushed over to me. “Are you okay?”

  “Not in the least,” I said, tasting a metallic sourness in my mouth. “Monica, she’s—there’s something wrong with her. I’m not sure how long I’ve been out. We have to find her.”

  Bapz nodded along with my words as he plucked the empty tranquilizer needles off my body. He flung them to the side as if they were lint caught on my shirt.

  “We will, we will,” Bapz agreed. “I’ll—”

  The way the robot cut off his own words made me look over and give him my full attention. Blaster rounds being fired from somewhere in the house above us told me everything I needed to know.

  Monica was still in the building.

  “I just received a communication via the camera grid,” Bapz said as we rushed for the door. “Monica’s in the tech room. She’s going after X.”

  Bapz and I sprinted down the open hall and up the stairs. I was limited on how fast I could run, since I had never been to the tech room before. That was probably for the best, as I had a hard time keeping my feet under me with the drugs still wearing off.

  More blaster fire came from the second level as we pounded up the steps. All around us, workers either ran from the sounds or toward it with weapons in hand.

  We burst through a broken glass door into a white room portioned by clear glass. Many of the glass walls were shattered now, thanks to the weapon fire that had been exchanged.

  Steel tables and trays lined the walls. There were clean counter tops and tools in each of the portioned-off glass rooms.

  Two technicians lay wounded on the ground. Once gripped his left leg and the other her right shoulder. Monica stood near the far side of the room with a blaster in her right hand. In her left, she held a young technician in a white coat.

  I had seen the young man before, more of a kid really. He had been a member of the Way come to work at Dragon Hold on the tech team. He looked terrified, visibly shaking as Monica pressed the weapon into the side of his head.

  “She has X,” Wesley warned me. Wesley was the only person in the room who stood facing Monica. He leveled his own blaster at her head. A smear of blood trickled down his left arm where he had already been struck.

  A handful of other technicians hid behind overturned tables, their eyes full of fear.

  Behind us, the manor security force piled into the room. These men and women were mostly ex Immortal Corp members. They wore black uniforms with minimal body armor, only a protective chest piece that covered their torsos.

  Each one of them leveled some kind of weapon at Monica.

  Monica kept looking at us to the line of windows on her right as if she were waiting for someone or something.

  “She moved so fast, I hardly had time to react,” Wesley confessed. “She walked in here like everything was peaches and cream and then started unloading on people. X is in her right pocket. Monica put her in some kind of container.”

  “This could have all been avoided if you didn’t stick your nose in it,” Monica growled at Wesley. “All of you would be sleeping on the ground. No one had to die, but oh well. I guess what’s done is done.”

  My mind was doing backflips. The Monica Warden I knew would have never caused injury to the innocent. There was no way this could be the same woman. She had to be under some kind of mind control or something else altogether.

  I decided to go with my gut instinct.

  “I’m not sure who or what you are,” I said, taking a step closer with my arms out. “But there’s no way you’re getting out of here alive. Even if you jump out that window, you keep looking out of, this estate is equipped with turrets that’ll shoot you down before your feet hit the ground.”

  Monica licked her lips. Her dark hair shimmered for a moment. Or maybe that was my imagination. I blinked twice. I needed to get my eyes checked.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Monica blinked twice. Her eyes went from the brown I knew to yellow, almost cat-like. “You have no idea what kind of game you’re playing.”

  “I don’t want to play any games,” I said. “Let the kid in your arms go and give me X. If you do that right now, I won’t kill you.”

  “So generous,” Monica said. Her voice was changing now. It came out with each word elongated and over pronounced. “But I think I’ll pass.”

  “X, can you hear me?” I asked.

  “She can’t,” the woman who I was positive was not Monica Warden answered. “I have her in a black box that blocks any communication in or out. I’d also think twice about using those turrets. A misplaced shot and X here is nothing more than a few data circuits.”

  Once again, the Monica impersonator looked out the window to her right.

  She came back this time with a wicked smile on her lips.

  “Well, this has been fun, but my ride’s here,” the woman said. “Hopefully, I’ll never see you again.”

  With that, she shoved the young technician forward and threw herself out the window.

  Eleven

  This was one of those times in life where all reason went out the window, literally. I saw it in slow motion as the woman I thought was Monica Warden hurled herself from the second-story window, shattering the glass and falling out of view.

  The turrets went off at the same time. A black orb of crackling energy whizzed by the windows. Nemesis.

  “Bapz, the turrets!” I yelled as I sprinted for the last window on the left side of the wall.

  Nemesis swooped down, catching the Monica Warden impersonator by the arm. Their flight course would take them straight past the row of windows. If I hurried, I could intercept them by crashing through the last window in line.

  It was a crazy idea, but I never claimed to be sane.

  I pumped my legs underneath my body, sprinting for the window at full speed. Lucky for me, the sedatives I was pumped full of minutes before were now completely out of my system. Contrary to what most people might have thought, I was thinking with a clear head.

  I crossed the distance of the tech room and slammed into the glass window using my left arm to shield my face.

  My trajectory couldn’t have been any better. I tackled the Monica impersonator, latching around her neck and torso.

  Nemesis held her by both hands at the moment as they flew past the manor. With my added weight, we all shook as if we were going to fall.

  “What the—” Nemesis’ words broke off as he looked down to see my grinning face.

  “Good to see you again too,” I said through gritted teeth as I choked the woman who had shot me with the tranquilizer.

  The Monica impersonator said something, but I couldn’t really make it out. It sounded like, “Cshhsw rrr ugghh.”

  My objective right now wasn’t to kill her, but rather to make her drop. I wasn’t going to let X be taken by this psychotic pair of whatever they were.

  Flying over the manor grounds, Nemesis let go of one of his accomplices’ hand so she could try and get me off. We were inside the black orb of Nemesis’ energy, but it was unnecessary
for him to even have it in use.

  Bapz granted my request to turn the turrets off. If there was even the slightest chance X could be injured, I wasn’t willing to take it.

  I pulled myself up Monica’s body and began hammering at the hold Nemesis had on her hand. The woman impersonating Monica had totally let go of Nemesis now, trying in vain to get me off. Her fingers scratched at my face and eyes.

  I ignored it, hammering my right fist over and over again into Nemesis’ grip on the woman. A manic panic took over at the thought of losing X.

  The world spun around me as Nemesis tried to support the three of us as we flew over the estate grounds.

  Finally, I was rewarded with a grunt from the man known as Nemesis. When he lost his grip on the Monica impersonator, both she and I fell to the ground in a heap of arms and legs.

  We were half a kilometer out from the estate gates. I could still see it behind us in the distance. It was a wonder we had managed to travel so fast so far.

  Sand kicked up in front of me as a line of Grimm Reaper vehicles careened toward us.

  Nemesis came down to help up the woman that I had landed on top of.

  “Laine,” Nemesis asked her as she rose to her feet, “are you well?”

  “He almost strangled me!” The woman, who was not like any woman I had ever seen before, rose to her feet or paws.

  In front of my eyes, I witnessed the impossible; that seemed like a common trend lately. In the dying light of the midday sun, the Monica impersonator’s hair receded into her head. Her face grew wider, her skin turned to short, dark fur.

  In a second’s time, the woman named Laine shifted from human to what I could only describe as a cat-like humanoid.

  If I had more time to process what I saw, I might have been disturbed.

  I’ve got to lay off that high-octane caf, I thought to myself, blinking as I took in Laine. That’s not natural.

  The Grimm Reaper vehicles surrounded us quickly. Weapons were trained on the three of us. Sand brought into the air by the Grimm Reaper vehicles scratched at my face and hands. There was nowhere to run. Right now, I just had to buy some time. Everyone in Dragon Hold would see what happened. It was just a matter of minutes before they loaded up and came out this way to help.

  Not to my surprise, Aleron stepped off a worn buggy. He lifted dark goggles from his eyes to his forehead and gave us all a big grin that said everything except that he was actually happy to see us.

  “Well, aren’t we all just one big happy dysfunctional family,” Aleron said with a chuckle. He opened his massive arms wide to take us all in. Lucky me, he headed over in my direction first. “Daniel Hunt, the thorn in my side. The man who just won’t back down. Good to see you.”

  “Aleron,” I said, looking at him with a fake grin of my own. “May I call you Aleron? You’re happy to see me? Something tells me you don’t really mean that.”

  “You know what, Danny boy,” Aleron said, planting a meaty fist in the center of my gut. “You’re right. I don’t.”

  I doubled over, gasping for breath and falling to my knees a second later. Coughing, I tried to suck in air.

  The Grimm Reapers all got a good laugh. They hollered and clapped at the action. A few of them even called me derogatory terms I’m pretty sure Enoch or any follower of the Way would not have approved of. I even learned a few new curse words.

  “Fight amongst your own on your time,” Nemesis said to Aleron. “We had a deal. The AI chip for our son.”

  I stopped gaging long enough to look surprised. My head felt like it was going to explode. I rubbed at my temples with my right hand, trying to understand everything.

  “That we did,” Aleron agreed. “Although it’s going to be a shame not having you alien scum to do our dirty work.”

  “My son!” Laine demanded.

  “The AI first,” Aleron said with an outstretched hand.

  “How do we know once we give it to you that you won’t go back on your word?” Nemesis asked. Black matter began cracking at his hands.

  “Easy there, Lord of Darkness.” Aleron waved his right hand forward.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the Grimm Reapers exit a rusted van that ran on a miracle. The Grimm Reaper shoved a small child in front of him. The kid had to be four, maybe five. I was horrible at guessing kids’ ages.

  The one thing that was obvious in a scenario full of questions was that the kid wasn’t human. The child was bound by his wrists. He had less fur than his mother but enough to cover his face and exposed arms.

  “Alexon!” Laine said, taking a step toward her son.

  “Momma!” The small boy looked as if he were going to run to his mother.

  The Grimm Reaper behind the boy gave a toothy smile before pressing a blaster into the back of the child’s head.

  “No!” Nemesis shouted. “We have it. We have what you wanted.”

  Laine reached into the pocket of the white pants she wore. A troubled look crossed her brow. She looked down, shoving both hands into her pockets.

  “No,” Laine said. “It was right here. I had it. I—”

  She looked over to me.

  During our little confrontation while Nemesis took us for a ride, I had managed to snag the black case holding X and shove it into my own pocket.

  “He has it,” Laine said, pointing to me. “He must have taken it from me.”

  All eyes and weapons swung in my direction.

  I was in a bit of a pickle, to say the least. On one hand, I wasn’t about to give up X to let Aleron do whatever it was he wanted to do with her. On the other, I wasn’t about to stand around and watch some furry kid die, alien or not.

  “We’ve got motion from their base!” a Grimm Reaper shouted from the roof of one of the vehicles. He extended an ancient pair of binoculars to his eyes. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “By that time, we’ll be gone.” Aleron waved the warning away. Instead, he walked back over to me, where I still knelt in the sand. “Is it true? Do you have the AI?”

  “Hypothetically speaking,” I started, still trying to stall. “If I did, what would you be wanting with said AI? I can’t imagine you want her to read books to you. You don’t strike me as the reading type. You look more of the picture kind of guy to me. You know picture books?”

  Aleron backhanded me so hard, I think I might have blacked out for a second. My head whipped to the left. Stars exploded across my visions. A wave of blood spurted out of a cut lip.

  “I feel like that was uncalled for,” I said, licking at my split lip. “I was just trying to have a conversation with you about literacy. I’m concerned for yo—”

  Aleron backhanded me again.

  I shook it off as my head pounded with pain.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, swallowing hard. “Maybe you do like books being read to you. Maybe you do want to learn to read and that’s a great thing. I support that. Maybe we can enroll you in a few adult education class—”

  Aleron growled in anger. Placing a thick boot in my chest, he slammed me backward. A knife flashed in his hand. The big man was on top of me before I had time to react, skewing my right palm into the sand with his blade.

  “Rawww!” I roared in pain. It felt like pure fire being driven through my open palm.

  “Funny now, are we?” Aleron spat as he rose to his feet, ripping his blade free. “Laugh now. Give it to me before I stick you again.”

  Aleron emphasized that last point by kicking me so violently in my side, I was sure my ribs were bruised, maybe broken.

  My eyes darted over to the child. Alexon stood in his captor’s grip, eyes brimming with tears. Both Nemesis and Laine looked from me to their child, helpless.

  “Boss, we got incoming from the manor,” the Grimm Reaper on top of the roof said, lowering his binoculars. “We got to go.”

  Aleron waved a dismissive hand at the warning. He looked at me and back to the child, however.

  “You have a soft spot for kids, huh?” Aleron
walked over to Alexon. He sheathed his knife and brought a heavy blaster out of his holster. He placed he muzzle against Alexon’s head.

  “No!” Laine screamed.

  “Wait!” I yelled at the same time.

  I gathered myself, struggling to my knees. At the same time I reached into my pocket and brought out the small black case that held, X. As much as I hated giving in to this bully, I knew what X would have wanted. I wasn’t sure what Aleron wanted with her, but I knew he would kill Alexon if I refused to hand her over.

  “Here, take it,” I said, handing the box over to Aleron. “Take it and leave the kid alone.”

  “Boss, we really got to—”

  Blaster fire punctured the air as if we stood in the middle of a fireworks show. Aleron grabbed the black case from my hand. I saw it in his eyes as soon as he did so. He had no intention of keeping his word.

  His finger squeezed the trigger.

  Twelve

  I just reacted. It wasn’t because I liked Laine or Nemesis, it wasn’t because I had a soft spot for kids. It was because I refused to let this child suffer for the sins of his mother and father.

  I threw my body toward Alexon, at the same time grabbing Aleron’s weapon and ripping it toward myself. There was no time to get a good grip on the blaster or even try and rip it from his hand. All I could do was try and place my body between the weapon and the child.

  BOOM!

  To my unreliable recollection, I couldn’t ever remember getting shot in the gut at such a close range. I did now. The pain was shattering. It was as if I wasn’t even able to move and instead was forced to live in a moment of pure agony, frozen in place by the level of pain. I looked down to see my stomach a mess of blood and ripped flesh. Breathing was so difficult, I could barely manage the act.

  “You idiot,” Aleron said, placing the smoking barrel of his weapon to my forehead. “I wonder if you’ll be able to heal yourself if there’s nothing left of your skull to replace?”

  I wasn’t able to move. I shook against the pain, hoping against hope some miracle would take place so I could live long enough to see Aleron fall, even if I wasn’t the one that would be his executioner.