by Jack Delgado
3:30 am, December 29, 2199.
“I hope you picked the right man this time, Mikhail. For your sake.”
“Relax. Wolf’s a professional. He knows what he’s doing.”
“I won’t relax until I see Aleksandr’s fat body on a spike! Every damn fool you’ve sent after the man failed, why shouldn’t this free-range bastard? He goes in there with two pistols, no backup and no plan, and you expect me to relax?!”
“Have a little faith in him, boss. Isn’t one of the big things in this goddamn nation that you’re innocent until proven guilty?”
“Yeah. At least it was, two hundred years ago! Until the job’s done, you’re a dead man, Mikhail. For fuck’s sake, man! You had to hire a freelancer, didn’t you! Drive my blood pressure up again and again…”
“The kid is a Daywalker, boss. He made rank in less than a year. He’s already got a hundred jobs under his belt. You know what they say about a young Daywalker?”
“Everyone does, but that don’t make it true! Do you believe in half the stuff they tell you?!”
“This kid was born and raised on these Godforsaken streets, boss. His mother is the goddamn Ice Queen, the Demon of the Sahara, the queen bitch herself, and the fact that he’s survived this long under her wing is a pretty fuckin’ big testament to his skill.”
“Wait. Fuck me, Mikhail… you hired the son of the goddamn Reaper?!”
“That’s what the underground says. And the underground is pretty reliable.”
“Mikhail, if that was supposed to make me feel better-!”
“He’ll be fine, Yakov. He knows the risk. And I don’t think she’ll blame us if he does fail.”
“How can you be sure, dammit?! You know what she can do with one flick of a wrist? I’ve seen it. It’s not pretty!”
“Yeah, but the kid’s an adult in their eyes. Adults are responsible for their own actions.”
“…Are you damn sure that he can do it? Abso-fucking-lutely sure?”
“He’s a runner. He can do anything.”
"And it's a runner, no less!" exclaimed the short, fat man at the head of the caravan. The light of the streets above the huge lower chamber lit his face with an unhealthy, yellowish pallor, shadows dancing over his sickeningly filthy grin as walkers passed overhead. His thumbs, shining with scar tissue and missing a chunk of skin off both knuckles, stroked the brown plasteel butt of his pistol and the wooden hilt of a long knife as he surveyed the shadows in front of him.
At the overweight man’s side stood a tall, skeletally thin woman, dressed head-to-toe in black armor-leather, the hilts of a dozen types of knives protruding from all over her basic, cheap getup. In the light behind her stood a line of fifteen men, masked with blank porcelain-white plastic, every inch of skin wrapped in bulletproof fiber armor, and a short line of huddled metallic figures, each bent over and bearing a massive pack on their backs.
Above them the man called Wolf stood stock-still, poised at the edge of a high tunnel leading into the chamber. His hands were frozen over the worn butts of his own pistols, just on the point of a draw. His eyes, invisible in the near-darkness, stared deep into the fat man’s muddy brown orbs.
"Why don’t you come down and settle this like a man?" the fat man shouted, false confidence layered over fear and a deep, irrational loathing.
“I could do with a fight, and if you’re good as you say you are then it should be a fun match! Whoever wins gets control over Omega’s drug trade!”
Wolf said nothing, letting his gaze wander over the more interesting aspects of the crowd. The mercs were crouched down low, their long, slender guns unwaveringly trained on Dante’s forehead. Trained professionals, long-career mercs. The woman was eyeing Wolf with an appraising expression, fiddling with the long, slender boning knife in her hands. He turned his head slowly over every detail, meticulously gathering and filing the various facets of the scene. The leader continued to rant gleefully at him, but the fat man’s voice was far away from the runner’s unconcerned mind.
Wolf’s eyes flicked to the mercenaries.
Fifteen standard-range Laser Rifles. Flashbangs and explosive clusters, several spare power packs in various pockets across armor. Armor is tigthweave shock-absorbent mesh, helmets are plasteel treated with an ablative coating.
Wolf’s eyes flicked to the woman.
Leather exterior, likely with tigthweave concealed between two layers. Knives are in top condition, primarily used for cutting meat and flaying. Possible fractal edge on each of them. Priority targets: leader, woman, mercs.
The woman leaned in close to the leader, bending her knees a little to whisper in his ear. Wolf jerked out of his planner’s reverie and homed in on their conversation, picking up each near-inaudible word.
"Can I keep him, Aleks?” she purred, hands sliding down her waist to a pair of kunai at her side, “He's such a delicious specimen, and you know what they say about runner… endurance. I want to see the color of his blood."
Likewise.
"We'll see, my dear. For now, we'll have to make him pay for making me late,” Aleksandr whispered back, smiling that disgusting smile. “You can do the honors."
She purred and moved away from him, pulling the kunai knives out of their ankle and spinning them idly around her fingers.
Maybe I’ll kill you first. Always a possibility.
"Runner!" shouted the leader, "Come down here and we promise not to kill you!"
Dead silence, that unseen glare like a massive weight settling on the scene.
The leader shifted his weight, unsure of the runner's intentions, then shouted again.
"If you don't come down, these fine mercenaries you see before you will blast your body into small chunks of sizzling meat, fit only to be fed to carrion and sewer worms!” he yelled up at Wolf.
“We will scourge and burn you, then clone your remains and repeat it again and again until you can bear it no longer! We will destroy every piece, grind it into the dust, and make sure your name becomes the joke of Omega! We will talk of the failed runner for years to come, and laugh at how your pathetic life was cut too short for further merriment!"
His voice, high and whining, rose to a shrill scream as he spoke, showing Wolf the true fear behind his words.
This has gone far enough. Time to show them what I’m made of.
"-AND I WILL PERSONALLY RIP YOUR HEART OUT OF YOUR CHEST AND MAKE YOU FUCKING EAT IT!" the fat man screeched, spittle flying from his mouth as his hands flailed spastically in the air.
Wolf stepped forward and fell straight down to the ground, his feet denting plasteel as he collided with the strong, solid floor. The fat man and the thin woman jumped back with a shout, her hand twisting back to throw the kunai. The mercs’ guns remained trained on the runner, never moving from the dead center of his head.
Wolf straightened slowly and walked forward, his steps ringing out across the silent space with the sound of straining metal. His trim, dancer-lean figure, tall but not large, left indentations with every step, the floor deforming under his weight.
The leader recovered first, his face purpling with rage as he strode forward to meet the runner head-on. The skinling girl hissed at the fat man and grabbed at his arm with a thin bony hand reminiscent of a claw, but he shook her off and stomped straight up to the runner. The leader jabbed a fat, soft finger in Wolf’s face, his voice a roar.
“DO YOU HEAR ME?” the fat man screamed, spit flying from his mouth, “DO YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU FREE-RANGE SEWER RAT? I WILL HAVE YOU ERASED FROM THE WORLD! YOUR NAME WILL BE GONE, FORGOTTEN!”
He drew his fist back for a punch and let it fly at the runner’s face, the augmented muscles under all the fat making it move with more force and greater speed than any mere human could hope to manage.
Wolf caught the man’s hand in his with a terrifyingly calm nonchalance, locking it in a viselike grip. He leaned in close to the drug dealer, a darkly handsome smile spreading across his face as he squeezed in tight. Bone splin
tered and snapped between Wolf’s fingers and Aleksandr screeched in pain, his gaze locked with those unbelievably blue eyes.
“My name is Dante,” the runner whispered, his other hand tightening around the butt of a pistol.
“When you get to Hell, look me up.”
The pistol shot up and jammed underneath Aleksandr’s chin, whiplashing his head back with a sickening crack.
A shot rang out around the chamber, a shell clattered to the floor, and the fat man’s head dissolved into fine red mist. His body fell backwards, jetting blood all across the floor in a thick red stream.
The rest of the convoy seemed frozen, the woman and the mercs alike staring in shocked disbelief at Dante. The runner lifted his head and looked around slowly, still smiling that dark, amused smile. He drew the second pistol out of its holster and held both of his hands out, as if surrendering.
“Well, come on,” he said easily, “Who wants to die first?”
The woman and the mercenaries seemed to snap back to reality, an enraged snarl crossing the woman’s face as she hurled the kunai knife straight at Dante’s face. The mercenaries opened fire, bright blue beams of laser fire blazing out across the chamber straight at Dante’s face.
The runner blurred into action, dancing to the side and letting off a volley of shots. The knife sailed past him, clattering harmlessly to the floor in the distance as the lasers burned into the opposite wall of the chamber. One shot, then two, then three blasted out of his guns, fifty-caliber armor-penetrating bullets streaking through armor and flesh and bursting out the other side. Dante ran forward, jumping, rolling and sliding to avoid the blue rays, the world slowing to a crawl around him.
The skinling screamed in anger and sprinted to meet the runner, drawing a balisong and a Bowie knife and dropping down into a knife fighter’s crouch. They met a few feet before the line of mercenaries, the skinner girl sweeping the knives in a vicious downward arc meant to open the runner’s throat. Dante pivoted to the left and kept running, completely ignoring the woman as he fired again and again.
The mercs dropped one by one, somehow unable to put even the slightest burn on this inhuman, this superman. They didn’t have time to scream, dying before they even knew where to fire, the runner’s ruthlessly accurate bullets sending them hurling into the void.
And as Dante reached the spot where the line had once stood, only one stood where fifteen had been. The last mercenary threw down his gun, his hands flying to a survival knife, but the runner was already on him, pressing his gun under the mercenary’s unarmored chin and pulling the trigger.
Without missing a beat in the dance, Dante whirled to look at the woman and let one more bullet fly through the air, aiming backwards towards the massive packs on the android’s shoulders. The bullet grazed each one, neatly lined up in old caravan fashion, splitting the bags and spilling their precious contents on the floor. The androids staggered forward and fell all about the sewer floor, overbalancing as they were relieved of their loads, screeching in electronic surprise.
The woman stared at Dante as he straightened from the combat crouch and holstered his guns, the sandlike hiss the drug powder made as it tricked through the metal grill of the walkway the only sound in the chamber. The knives in her hands clattered to the floor, her grip slackening as she stared at the runner with a deep, numb shock.
Dante walked forward, treading lightly to minimize dents in the metal, his eyes locking with hers. She fell to her knees next to the slowly cooling body of her boss, her hands trailing on the floor as she kept her eyes glued on Dante.
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
Dante’s hands clenched into fists and his smile inverted into an angry scowl.
“I’m going to give you a free pass on that one,” he said tersely, “because you don’t know anything about my family.”
She laughed, the sound hollow and cold.
“Like I could give less of a damn about you, you free-range shit,” she snarled.
“It would be appreciated. Then I won’t have to fight you,” he retorted coolly.
“Do you realize what you’ve done to me, you bastard?” she screamed, jumping up and thrusting her face forward into Dante’s.
“Yes,” he said, the smile rising back on his face as he shot a fist into the woman’s chest. The woman flew backwards and smashed into the far wall of the chamber, falling to the floor in a crumpled heap as Dante sauntered forward.
“I’ve taken everything from you,” he said calmly as he stopped in front of her, bending down and sliding one of the guns out of its holster. He leaned in close as he slid a fresh clip into the pistol, murmuring into the skinner’s ear.
“I’ve killed your commander, neutralized your supply caravan and eliminated the supplies that would have made you a queen in the underworld,” he whispered, smiling that wicked, hard smile, “I’ve destroyed any chance of you taking complete power from your weak, callow boss. I’ve ruined everything that you’ve been working to achieve, things you’ve been working at for a long time.”
His words seemed to pick up speed, his smile curling back into a deep, angry scowl, his eyes lighting up like coals as she watched, stricken with fear.
“I’ve turned you into a wreck and a failure and an outcast and something to be forgotten or laughed at,” he snarled, grabbing her by the chin and bringing her close enough to kiss, close enough to be swallowed up by those deep blue eyes.
“I’ve deprived you of a chance to ever be safe and secure and happy, and I’ve murdered even the ghost of a possibility of recovery. I didn’t come here to kill a man, you cruel and heartless bitch, I came here to ruin a gang and destroy their name forever. You poured everything into that lovely pink powder, and you were a damn fool to put all your eggs in one basket. Now it’s all gone, and you have nothing to start from scratch with. All your crews are dead. All your contracts have been terminated. All your middlemen have slipped back into their holes and switched their loyalties.”
His eyes blazed, his voice burning with contempt and anger and hate as his hand hardened into a claw, squeezing her jaw with an excruciating intensity.
“And you know what the best part about it was?” he spat, his eyes boring deep into hers, never stopping, never slowing their relentless, fiery advance.
“The best part was how goddamn easy it was to destroy you.”
He released her jaw and stood back up, turning around and walking back to where the androids clustered together, staring at the runner with a mix of gratitude and fear.
“And now, I’m going to prove myself to really be a big damn bastard, because I’m gonna give you the worst insult I can offer an enemy,” he called over his shoulder, his voice ringing off the walls of the chamber a dozen times.
The woman propped herself up against the wall and pushed herself slowly to her feet. Her face contorted into a horrible, twisted grin, her eyes wide and staring and enraged. Blood bubbled out of the corner of her mouth and she wiped it away, never breaking that mad, furious smile.
“Oh, you’re not walking away from me, you little maggot! I’m going to fucking kill you!” she screamed at the runner’s diminishing back, jumping to her feet and whipping a knife straight at Dante’s throat.
The knife flew straight and true, the point digging into the back of Dante’s neck. He stopped in his tracks halfway across the chamber, the knife hanging motionless in the air. The fractal point, sharp down at a molecular level, was surrounded by a small, hardened coating of grey latexlike material, suspended in midair by the barest grip.
It fell to the floor with a ringing clatter, and Dante walked on. He didn’t spare the woman a second glance as he walked past the androids into the darkness, becoming a silhouette and then a shadow, one of many in the underground of Omega.