Blood Oath

by David Ryker

  Without enhanced senses, it would have been impossible to tell where Leka was. My hearing, though, could pick her out by her wheezing as she took off ahead of the group. Damn, but she was fast when she was motivated.

  “Right behind you!” I said.

  “Took you long enough!” Leka had to pause for a second to cough, allowing me to catch up. “Shit. We’re dead.”

  “Then why are we still running?” Tomlins asked as she zipped past us, Curtis in tow with Garcia on his back.

  Good question. I told myself that the answer was “because we still have a chance.”

  Leka and I followed Tomlins, Curtis, and Garcia around a corner through another, shorter alley that led to a wider street. At the corner between street and alley, Curtis and Leka had to rest again.

  “How you doing?” Curtis said.

  “I’m all right,” Garcia said. “Man, just leave me here. I can’t keep slowing you guys down…”

  “The fuck I will!” Curtis said. “I didn’t carry your ass this far to make it all pointless now. Besides, we’re gonna need a pilot when we find us a vehicle to steal.”

  Tomlins and I were checking out the street. It wasn’t choked with bodies, but there was a roadblock at one end that had created a near-pileup of survees to our right. To our left was the intersection with the street we’d just come from.

  “Okay, man,” Garcia said. “Just, if you get eaten because I was slowing you down, that motherfucker better eat me too.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Leka said.

  I could no longer see the chaos unfolding in the alley behind us, but I could hear it. The xeno had stopped firing its organic guns. What it was doing now, I could only guess at based on the screams and the pleas for mercy that the creature probably couldn’t comprehend even if it…

  We could see the humans from behind, yes. Hungry, tired. We could see them from behind, see the humans fleeing. Hungry, tired. Hungry tired. The Friend needs us at our strength. We must feed for the Friend.

  The wave of disgust when I realized what the xenos intended to do shocked me back into my own consciousness.

  “Run!” I yelled, as sickening fear filled my body. But there was no way to get through the blockade of survees to our right without raising a racket that was sure to draw xeno attention. If we went to the left, we were just adding variety to the buffet.

  “Why the fuck are they eating us?” Tomlins said. “If they’re machines, how are they, you know, digesting?”

  “Maybe they’re feeding off our, uh, our energy,” Garcia said. “You know. Like Collins’ machines feed off his adrenaline…”

  “That would explain why they absorb the plasma bursts, wouldn’t it?” Tomlins’ eyes got big. She turned to me. “Don’t human bodies produce some kind of electromagnetic energy? You know, like sleeping next to someone gives you X Y Z amount of radiation in a year?”

  “Holy shit,” Leka said. “No, you’re right. Everything with a metabolism produces electromagnetic fields...shit, that is why the plasma guns don’t work!”

  I made my mind stick to that thought - it was better than comprehending why I had just seen the back of this battle through xeno eyes. “Unless they’re running the current right through the xeno’s body,” I said. “How do you explain that?”

  “How about I beat you over the head with a sack of onions, smartass?” Leka said. “Would that answer your question?”

  “Guys, we can’t stay here and talk.” Curtis stepped out into the street. “We have to pick a direction, and I vote we move away from the fuckers that are trying to, uh, metabolize our electromagnets. Or something.”

  “We won’t make it very far,” I warned.

  “Not very far is better than nothing,” Curtis said. “Come on, Garcia. You’re coming with me, whether you like it or not.”

  23

  Even if my suspicions were correct, and Leka wasn’t military, she had certainly seen some fighting - and not as a grunt at the bottom of the command chain. She was meticulous with how she arranged us for the march forward down the street, and she checked in frequently to make sure we were all still in position.

  Garcia and Curtis were in the center, flanked by Tomlins and me. Leka held the rear, where she could both fend off any xenos with that rifle and see people who had been smart enough to follow us.

  I was surprised to see Anderson emerge from the alley about thirty yards behind, moving quickly and silently with about half a dozen people hurrying behind her.

  She waited until she was within whispering distance of us to speak.

  “Hey!” she whispered. “You just gonna leave us all behind?”

  “Who’s ‘us all’ again?” Leka said. “First they turn on Collins. Next they turn on the people they think are protecting him.”

  Anderson let out a low grumble from her throat. “Some of the idiots tried to go back to the bar,” she said.

  “Oh, great,” Tomlins said. “At least they’ll distract the xenos.”

  Anderson chuckled darkly. “Right?” she said. “Okafor took another party south, which was smarter.”

  “We’re gonna have to find them once we find a vehicle.”

  “Yeah,” Leka said. “About that.” She pointed up ahead to the roadblock. “Once we climb over these...aww, fuck.”

  “What?” I said, turning to look in the same direction she was looking.

  Leka pointed east. “It’s our little buddies from earlier,” she said.

  Before I could ask her which of our little buddies, one of the motherfuckers stood up on a survee’s roof. He wore the stormcoat of a high-ranking guard and the green jumpsuit of a prisoner.

  “Stop where you are!” he barked at us. His head was roughly shaven, and half his face was obscured by fresh burn scars. “This is Death’s Head territory, and nobody passes through without tribute.”

  Leka scoffed and climbed up on the nearest survee before she replied. “Who the hell are the Death’s Heads?” she said.

  “We’re your new masters, is who we are,” the man said.

  “Is that so?” Leka laughed in his face, though her fingers were twitching on her gun’s barrel. “I don’t remember the Death’s Heads being of any importance a week ago, and I don’t think you’re that important now.”

  At least she was being brief and to the point. Even if she had been a little more polite and circumspect about her phrasing, these fuckers didn’t look like they would have been very responsive. There were five of them that I could see, and two more that I wasn’t supposed to be able to see lurking in the shadows of survees at the side of the street.

  “I’m gonna give you until the count of five to drop your weapons and hand over your solid-slug ammunition,” the bald goon said. “This isn’t a fight you can win. Believe me on that.”

  “Go suck a dick,” Leka said, shaking her head. “We don’t want to stay in this city. As soon as we can find a vehicle…”

  “One of our vehicles, you mean?” The guy who called himself a Death’s Head grinned. In the shadows, more of his men were appearing. “One. Two…”

  “Leka.” I turned around when I felt the humming in my veins. “Leka!”

  “Three!” the Death’s Head said.

  The shadow of the big xeno emerged from the alley. It seemed to be larger than it had been the last time I saw it. Or maybe that was just the fear that was making my heart pound. We didn’t even have enough room to charge properly and take our chances with these half-assed prison gangsters.

  “Kev, how fast can you turn that thing into a grief stove?” Tomlins said. “If we work quickly, maybe you can try and electrocute…”

  “You know, Mr. Collins, you don’t necessarily have to end it this way.” Another voice was addressing us now, from the roof of a building next to us. A familiar voice. A voice I thought I was never going to have to hear again.

  I turned my head, then the rest of my body. I could see the silhouette of a man standing on top of a lending office. He was just far bac
k enough from the street that it was difficult to make his face out, even with my enhanced vision.

  But that asshole always had to open his fucking mouth. “My orders have changed, Collins,” he said.

  “Yeah? I see the rest of you hasn’t,” I replied.

  “The man’s not making an unreasonable request, you know,” he said. “Drop your weapons. Give them some ammunition. Pass through his barricade, maybe give his gang a couple of your women in exchange for safety.”

  “I knew I should have gone and found your body,” Leka shouted up at the rooftop.

  Mr. Salter laughed as he stepped forward to the ledge. There was something...different about him. Something I could feel as he got closer to me. Had just his orders changed? Or had his masters changed as well? He turned toward the xeno and pointed. “I’ve made some new…”

  He’d made some new friends. Fuck. Salter was the Friend.

  “Vercingetorix,” Leka muttered.

  “What was that?” Salter said.

  “I said you’re an ugly prick!” Leka replied. “So, what? You’re best friends with the xenos?” She spat on the roof of the survee she was standing on. “Big fucking surprise there. You use the same tech. You have the same morals. Apparently, you even have the same guns!”

  “The Kras’ilik want only the preservation of their species,” Salter said. “Just as my employers only want to look out for our own futures.” He beckoned to the xeno to come closer.

  Pure fear, cold and rapid, shot through my nervous system.

  “Take your gun apart,” Leka said to me.

  I wasn’t sure how you were supposed to do it, but right now I was strong enough to just rip off several pieces of the gun’s casing.

  “The fuck are you doing, Collins?” Salter sounded casually amused, like he was watching a game at the bar. “Attack her!” He pointed at Leka. “Choke her to death with your hands!”

  As soon as I had the gun arcing, I knew what to do. I started toward the xeno, gun held at my side, walking as nonchalantly as Salter was speaking.

  “Collins, attack her!” he repeated, annoyance in his voice. “Collins! Vercingetorix!”

  Instead of a response from me, he got plasma fire from Curtis’s gun. The amount of swearing and clattering I heard overhead told me that the shot had gone wild.

  “Open fire!” yelled the man standing at the end of the street.

  “Fuck,” Leka said. “Everyone on the ground!” she screamed. “Return fire!”

  As I approached it, the xeno paused to consider me. It reared back on four of its hind legs, raising three high overhead as if to pick me up. I could feel curiosity, could feel a sense of confusion that was linked to Salter. I could feel a kind of...a kind of warmth. Like the warmth I felt when they were thinking about the Friend.

  This thing wasn’t hostile - not to me. I was still nearly hyperventilating as I allowed its huge, pointed claw to descend down, to surround me with black and red chitin that still ran slick with the blood of people I had eaten and slept beside for most of the past week. It was curious, I kept telling myself. It thought I was with Salter - or maybe it simply knew that Salter didn’t want me harmed. It thought I might also be a Friend.

  I was quick to correct its mistake. I didn’t hesitate to jam the opened chassis of the gun against the thing’s limb and pull the trigger.

  This time, I could feel the jagged, chilling agony of electricity running through my own body - but it wasn’t doing nearly the number on me that it was doing on the xeno. The towering monstrosity shuddered and screamed, although it stayed stuck to the plasma cannon as if by magnetic force.

  “Collins!” Leka called. “Leave the xeno alone and come help us!”

  Behind me, I could hear gunfire being exchanged. I released my grip on my weapon, which was somehow stuck to the xeno that was now pitching backward away from me.

  I felt something hit the back of my leg and looked down. There was a hole in the front of my jumpsuit - I could feel a tingle of pain in my calf that was quickly drowned out by my blood.

  “Come help us!” Leka called.

  Even as she spoke, I was sprinting forward to join the rest of the group. This wasn’t the same jerking, yes-sir instinct I was used to when someone was using my activation word. Leka, with her blood untainted by the xeno machines (or at least the same xeno machines) that ran through mine, probably had a weaker grip on my actions than people like Salter did.

  “Collins!” I heard Salter’s voice coming from my right as he leapt off a rooftop, expertly landing on the roof of a survee in front of me. He had a solid-slug pistol. I was unarmed.

  I reached to the side and grabbed a side sensor display off a survee parked on the street. I hurled it at Salter with all the force I could muster - specifically, at the hand that was holding the pistol.

  He had to jump off the survee to get away, and that gave me my chance. I leaped up on the hood of another and began bounding from roof to roof, closing the distance between me and the Death’s Heads.

  But Salter could jump high, too. He caught up to me as I was about to make a leap between vehicles and collared my neck with his arms. I gagged as we tumbled to the street together, and rolled with his momentum so I could come up on top.

  He was pinned to the ground with my knees. I got two solid punches into his face before he rippled his spine and sent me flying into the window of a clothing shop.

  I braced for impact; glass clattered around me as my shoulder breached the pane of the shop window. I hit the ground on my ass and slid on my back until I collided with a rack of trousers. I used the rack for balance getting up, and then I grabbed it and shook the clothes off it with a deft swing of one arm.

  “You’re starting to piss me off, Salter!” I called as I walked back out of the store. Salter was walking in to meet me. He raised the hand that held the weapon. I raised the rack behind me and swung it, letting it go at just the right spot.

  The cheap bars of pot metal whistled through the air and caught Salter square in the chest. He kept his grip on his pistol as he flew backward out the shop window. I took a mannequin by the hand as I passed it and ripped the arm off. I glanced askew at it. It was better than nothing…

  Salter still managed to fire as he flew. His shot hit me in the chest, but it missed my heart. I gasped reflexively, feeling air suck through the hole. I clamped my free hand over the entrance wound and tried not to breathe for a few seconds while the nano tech did its job.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Collins?” he said as he jumped to his feet. He seemed quicker than he’d been last time I’d interacted with him.

  “I’m trying to kill as many of these xenos as I can,” I said, “and then I’m getting the fuck off this planet.”

  “It’s just like I told you, idiot,” Salter said. “Come with me, and I can get you out of here.” A wicked grin crossed his face. “Don’t you want to see your daughters again, Collins? Wouldn’t you do anything for your family?”

  “I’m gonna see my daughters again,” I said. “And you’re not gonna have anything to do with it.” I took my hand from my chest and cautiously breathed in. The seal held. “What’s wrong?” I said, smiling as I hefted the mannequin’s arm in my hand and approached Salter. “Out of ammo?”

  Salter turned and sprang away from me, leaping over a parked survee with one huge bound. If I did that, I’d reopen my chest wound. I had to get around the trucks as fast as I could manage while I healed.

  I heard a clatter as Salter dropped his pistol. I picked it up.

  “Collins, what are you doing?” Leka said.

  “Like you told me to!” I replied, following Salter toward a building he had just climbed up like it was a scaffolding. “I’m helping!”

  Apparently Leka agreed with my assessment of what I was doing. I felt no backward tug, no exertion of her control over my instinct. I was free to clamber up the wall behind Salter. My Belters’ blood gave me the grip strength I needed to spider-climb up to
the roof, using tiny cracks between cement blocks as handholds.

  But by the time I got up, I was desperate to catch my breath. I felt the area where I’d been shot; the tissue was still thin and insufficient to help me get my breath.

  But still, I pressed forward. My lungs and legs got me enough speed to run across the roof and leap over the alleyway behind it. I jogged along the edge, looking around me trying to get a visual of Salter. Finally, I sighted the silhouette of his back, hauling ass across a rooftop in a zig-zag pattern.

  I watched him and panted, clutching my side while my Belters’ blood tried to rebuild me faster than I could destroy my own body.

  For a second, I knelt down, inhaling deeply to get oxygen into my blood. The more oxygen my blood carried, the faster I could rebuild my tissues. The faster I could rebuild my tissues, the faster I could get back to doing important shit like gaining distance on Salter.

  It was too bad, really, that having a sucking chest wound impacted your ability to get oxygen into your bloodstream. I had to catch that son of a bitch. I had to take him out before he used his newfound friendship to come after Leka and Curtis and Tomlins and the rest.

  Shit. I didn’t even know what his little rendezvous with the xenos had done for him. He certainly seemed to be feeling spry. Were there other benefits? Belters’ blood 2.0, perhaps? I watched his shape fade into the distance as I gasped for air, kneeling and clutching in the humid moonlight.

  And I got up. As long as I could keep Salter in my sights, I figured, I was close enough to being caught up to him.

  24

  Activated by the code word, my blood sharpened my senses so much I may as well have been running across the rooftop in broad daylight. Behind me, I could hear the rattle of solid-slug fire.