“Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss” - Johan Meltron, Paradise's Loss
The Terran was screaming as she ignored the cutting bar sawing through her guts, spraying whitish-clear fluid that evaporated away almost immediately. Her hands clawed through the armor, raking Vuxten's chest and shoulder, but he screamed back into her face and slammed his chain wrapped fist into her head once, twice, three times and she tattered away into nothingness even as the chainsword sprayed out whitish-clear fluid that turned to wisps of vapor less than two feet from the clattering blade of the cutting bar.
He refused to back up a single step, despite the fact that the 20mm was overheated and discarded by the hypercom link, his rifle was slung over his back, his pistol was empty, the heavy subgun overheated, and the Vegetation Cutting Bar Mark 2 was beeping a low battery signal.
The heat in his suit was stifling, making him pant, leaving his tongue feeling raspy and sandpapery. He took a quick sip of water, ignoring how it was flat and tepid, and chinned up another piece of stimgum. The suit beeped at him that he was over the line, too much stim too quickly.
--chewy chewy-- 471 sent, overriding the interlock and resetting the counter to zero. He kicked the play button on the next song as Vuxten tabbed up two pieces of gum and used his tongue to move them to either side of his jaw, clamping down on them with his molars as another two flickering Terrans made entirely out of white energy slid through the wall, screaming, and oriented on him.
The speakers roared with a primal scream as Vuxten saw several others flicker through the wall. One kept disappearing only to reappear a few paces away, screaming just like the others. All of the specters, the Phasic Shades, had terrible death wounds on their bodies, were mutilated and torn, but still screamed and oriented on Vuxten with a desperate need to kill.
"Well I love TV and I love T. Rex," thundered out the speakers as Vuxten took two long steps and buried the fist wrapped with the shattered chain of a chainsword into the guts of the one on the left. The red-hot smoking metal embedded in the heavy gauntlet ripped through the man in a spay of whitish ectoplasm that evaporated in the air and sizzled on the gauntlet. Vuxten spun in place, coming in fast and hard, holding the handle of the cutting bar with both hands.
"I can see through your skirt I've got X-ray spex," roared out as Vuxten ripped the first one in half, the chain on the cutting bar smoking and a dull red. The inlay on the blade itself was lit up, burning warsteel and orichulum, smouldering astralite and phasite, sizzling blood rubies and fire emeralds swirled together in a silent testimony to where Vuxten had been and what he had done to those with the knowledge and wisdom to read the smoking runes.
That one tattered apart and dissipated and Vuxten reacted out of instinct, turning on his heel, extending out his hand in a closed fist in a move that Lady Keena had taught him. The burning barbed links of the chainsword chain embedded in his gauntlet caught the flickering one right in the mouth. 'Blood' sprayed and chunks of teeth were shattered from the mouth and for a split second Vuxten felt resistance, like thick cobwebs, as the phasic shade's head shattered.
He finished the spin in one quick movement, going back to an offensive stance when the spinning backfist was done, Lady Keena's constant training burning reflexes into Vuxten's muscle memory.
"I came from the sky like a 747," boomed out of the speakers.
Vuxten ducked under the stump of a wrist that had sharp metal straps pressed into the bleeding wound, that had white gore and blood dripping from the spikes, the chainsword clattering as it ripped though the knees of the next one before coming up and spearing through the chest of another.
Gone were the doubts he felt on the practice field. No longer did he wonder if he had what it took while he sat behind a desk. Vanished were the questions that plagued him in the night, the ones that the ghosts of the men and women he'd led to their deaths had shining in their eyes.
Everything was focused.
Here.
Now.
The eternal frozen present where the was only the roar of the cutting bar, the pounding of the music, and the screams of the enemy.
"I'm the bad boy, baby, I fell out of Heaven," echoed off the walls as Vuxten saw a light go green on his HUD. He pulled the heavy stubber off his hip, clenching his fist and feeling the fzzt of the ammo reloader load the empty magazine in the weapon's mag-well as well as reload his ammo pouches.
The rounds from the heavy ornate mag-ac submachinegun flashed bright purple as they screamed across the room, hitting white shades and the wall with bright purplish-white flashes.
"NO MORE BLOOD!" Vuxten bellowed out, raking the entire wall with the phasic rounds. Ferrocrete dust and ectoplasmic blood sprayed from the wall as the phasic enhanced rounds hit home. "NO MORE!" Vuxten yelled.
"Sex Fuhrer, baby, I'm a love dictator," sounded out as Vuxten swapped magazines, dropping the empty on the floor where it laid there with wisps of smoke coming out the open end.
"Vuxten," Peel's voice sounded in his one working ear.
"Vuxten here, go ahead," he said, panting. He glanced, habitually, up at his armor status.
Green.
His chest, shoulders, back, and arms hurt. It felt like blood was running down his torso and arms.
"Blitzkrieg romance, I'm a cool dominator," sounded out even as 471 lowered the volume.
"Shoot the Detainee in the head," Peel ordered.
Vuxten's eyebrows went up and his whiskers twitched. He turned to look at her.
The short thick bodied Terran female was standing next to the hypercom, breathing heavily. He could see pinkish blood had run from her ears, her eyes. Blood trickled from her nose and over her lower lip and down her chin.
"Repeat last," Vuxten said, switching the subgun to semi.
"Shoot the Detainee in the head," he heard.
Vuxten jogged up next to the Detainee.
She was mumbling, swaying slightly.
He lifted his subgun, pressed the muzzle against the Terran woman's temple, and pulled the trigger.
"Well, I'm Christ in shades, I'm a napalm god," sounded out as the Detainee's body fell to the floor.
A chorus of screams interrupted Vuxten's staring at the Terran woman's body and he turned back to face the oncoming rush of shades.
----------
Dambree set down the can of fizzybrew, pulling her mask back into place as she swallowed the last of the Countess Crey Root Beer Fizzyblast. Menhit had gone outside again to clear the area around the small building they were in.
"What?" Peter asked as Dambree moved between Peter and the door.
"They're coming," Dambree said, drawing the heavy brush blade from the sheathe strapped to her thigh. She rolled her head, cracking her neck, then rolled her shoulder, feeling a liquidy squishing pop in her right shoulder.
"Oh," Pete said, turning back to the screens. "I just need a few minutes more."
"I know," Dambree said, taking four quick steps forward, bringing up the brush blade.
The door crashed open and three screaming Terrans rushed into the room.
The first one went down with their face and skull shattered, Dambree twisting the blade out of habit to break the skull and keep the blade from hanging up on the bone. The second narrowly missed catching Dambree with a fist wreathed in a reddish-purple nimbus.
Dambree hacked off his arm at the elbow for his trouble.
The third lunged for Peter and she turned, bringing the blade down on the Terran's thick spine, the heavy vertebrae cracking under the blade.
The one with the severed arm tried to lunge forward and grab Dambree. Dambree ducked slightly, sliding to the side, sticking one leg out.
The Enraged tripped over her foot, trying to twist to grab Dambree as he went down. Dambree avoided the grab, then carefully stabbed the blade through the gap between the thick ribs, sinking eight inches of blade into the torso before twisting it and yanking it free.
She walked forward and closed the door, putting her shoulder against it twice to get it back into the tracks.
Pete didn't look up, checking over his search results, looking for the block of code he needed to modify and update, as Dambree walked back to the vandalized vending machine. She pulled it open, got out a Countess Crey Watermelon-Kiwi Auzlander Emu Blast, and kicked it shut before walking away.
For some reason, the sound of the can cracking open, made Peter feel better.
Seeing the block of code he had been searching for finally pop up in his search results was even better.
---------
Crashrider crouched down, peeking around the corner of the alley that led to the dimly lit street. Cars went by quickly, their lights illuminating nothing through the fog and miasma of the city. Trash filled the street's gutters and sidewalks. Half the buildings had broken or boarded up windows, of the remaining, over half were dark and empty.
Crashrider motioned and then sprinted across the street. The others followed, Steeltalon last, her matte black cyberarm drinking in the light instead of gleaming.
A few moments later a heavy LawSec Gee-EmCee Banshee howled down out of the burning clouds, dropping to street level. Searchlights speared out of the heavily armored VTOL, raking the sidewalks and the sides of the buildings.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The runners huddled down in the alley.
After nearly a full minute the engines of the Banshee screamed like their namesake and the VTOL lifted back up, its guns retracting and the searchlights going dark.
Almost there, Crashrider thought to himself, checking over the datacloak he was wearing. He and Steeltalon checked the others, then each other, then continued on.
They moved slowly across the next street, looking up at the rooftop.
A large communications tower sat, lights blinking, like an accusing finger pointing at the toxic clouds that misted down acid rain on the city.
Crashrider led the group past an alley intersection, then went to take a right at the next one.
He stopped.
Standing in front of him was a Terran woman, swaying back and forth. Her skin was deathly pale. She wore only a pair of dirty panties. Her hair covered her face, hiding the mouth that gave slowly sobbing weeping cries.
A glance down showed her fingers were long, razor tipped, and needle pointed. Pixels dropped off the talons like blood.
The figure growled as Crashrider slowly backed up, still making weeping noises.
"Go, go," Steeltalon said, moving past Crashrider, motioning at the others.
Crashrider waited until the others were by before backtracking slowly, keeping his eyes on the Black ICE, until most of his body was around the corner. Only then did he quickly yank his head back, breaking visual contact with the lethal construct.
"We'll go around," Steeltalon said, looking up.
"Wesa can try theesa fire escapez," Renegade Dime said, pointing up at the side of the building across another street. "Gosa up, runsa across the roof, jumpsa the otherez alleyweez."
"Ifza itza the samesa alleysa," Steeltalon mumbled.
"Wesa cansa try," Cyberplushie said, checking her short barrel carbine.
"Do, dosa not, nosa try," Crashrider said. He nodded. "Letsa go."
The next street had cars scattered around. Some burnt, some wrecked, a few with the holodash glowing fitfully and dimly. Trash blew on the street and the wind was cold and heavy with droplets of acid rain that was steadily eating away at the buildings.
Crashrider peeked out, looking back and forth.
Both ends of the street had streetlights here and there, gleaming and glittering in the night. The runner frowned, looking suspiciously at the alley across the street. It was dim, full of debris and garbage, with only a few sputtering lightbulbs outside of heavy metal doors.
Behind him the wailing sobs started getting closer.
"Weeper coming, muey muey bad," Dime whispered.
Crashrider turned around. "Lasta objective. Bigsa bigsa gooey-pay," he nodded at the roof. "Shiny and chrome."
The others nodded.
Crashrider turned and got ready.
"Onesa," Steeltalon said softly.
Everyone tensed.
"Twosa," Steeltalon said.
Hands tightened on gun grips.
"Threesa go go go," Steeltalon said.
The group sprinted across the street, one after another, single file.
Blackfile almost made it across when a speeding truck clipped her. The heavy duty compressed file's bumper knocked the runner down and the cargo truck lurched as it ran over her body. The truck tipped, the tires squealed, and it rocked up on one side even as the cab jacknifed.
The truck slammed into a car, which vanished in a spray of pixels.
Blackfile flickered and vanished, leaving behind only a puddle of pixels that gleamed and glittered as the polygons began vanishing.
Two of the cars began wailing as internal file content checksums were knocked off the blocks.
For a second there was silence.
Then the howls of checksum autrepairs filled the air.
A loud growl ripped the air as a large figure rose up in the street. Black oily looking rippled flesh and a single white lens in the middle of the 'head' rose to nearly ten feet high.
"TAR MONSTER!" Dime yelled as the Stoner Class Grey ICE raised its head and gave a bubble roar.
"RUN!" Crashrider yelled.
Twisted and malformed figures climbed out of sewers, storm drains, windows, and the group of runners could see the shadows of hordes of autocorrect error checkers swarming toward the crash site.
Crashrider ran down the alleyway, taking the first open doorway. A clock on top of a dresser flashed 12:00 over and over with red LEDs as they ran through the room. The next room they passed a room with a wall where a vehicle had crashed through, the military vehicle scorched and burnt.
The runners fought at close range as they bulled toward the stairs, weapon fire flashing the walls with yellow light as the checksums failed and fell to the ground. From the stairs, the runners moved through an apartment.
In the kitchen, the runners clustered up, firing their weapons at the howling maddened creatures that charged into their guns.
"RELOADING!" Plush called out, scrambling to push shotgun shells into her Miltech Bulldog compact assault shotgun.
"We're pinned," Steeltalon said, abandoning the streetspeak that fooled the scanning programs, despite the risk that they might get detected.
After all, the Tar Monster Grey ICE was crashing up the stairs to the second floor they were on.
Crashrider looked up, seeing that ceiling was missing.
"Up," he said. He knelt down, "Go. Now."
One by one he and Steeltalon boosted the others up. Steeltalon grabbed Dime's hand and was pulled up. Plushie held out her hand to Crashrider.
"Hurry hurry muy muy bad!" she said.
Crashrider let his SMG hang from the strap as he jumped up, both hands reaching for Plushie's hand.
The Tar Monster crashed through the wall, arms outstretched, the single cyclopian eye burning red.
"RIDER!" Plushie yelled.
Crashrider grabbed Plushie's hand and the other runner gave a convulsive yank, snatching Crashrider out of the queue and up onto the next floor.
"Go, go, go," Steeltalon yelled.
The group ran through the apartment, pulling open door and looking inside, searching for an exit as the Tar Golem slammed around in the kitchen below, roaring out its rage as it looked for the dataline that had cycled out of its reach.
Crashrider felt relief fill him as a door revealed stairs that led to the roof. He pounded up the stairs, his SMG bouncing on his hip.
The roof was quiet, silent, with a single skylight that was unbroken to the room below.
The antenna stood, blinking, in the middle of the roof, next to a table that held an empty coffee can on it.
Steeltalon and Plushie rushed to the antenna, Plushie pulling out her tools and opening the signal repeater box.
Crashrider moved over to the table and pulled out paintstick as everyone else set about the task that Miz Johnson had given them.
He wrote the name in Unified Galactic standard on the table as the Tar Monster ICE stumbled around the second floor, roaring in impotent rage.
Calshiina
"Donesa, muy muy," Steeltalon said.
"Punch out," Crashrider said.
He watched as the others flickered and vanished.
He put his fingers to his temple. "All packages delivered, Miz Johnson. Punching out."
He vanished.
Off in the distant a neon side glowed in the dimness.
MERCY HOSPITAL.
-----------
Sam screamed in frustration and rage as Herod jumped through a window and vanished.
Again.
"COWARD! COME BACK!" Sam screamed as the window shattered. He spun and ran out the door, feeling the gateway shatter around him as he muscled through it.
He could feel Herod. Iota Layer. Cool Storage. Historical database. South-Eastern Hemisphere. TerraSol.
With a snarl he reached out and ripped open a line straight to Iota Layer.
In a signal propagation firmware section a recently placed update package flickered to life.
Sam stopped, blinking, as Herod's signal suddenly multiplied ten, a hundred, a thousand times.
He was all over the various layers of the shells. In databases, hiding in IO ports, in printer buffers, in scuzzy-buffers.
Herod's signal shined brightly, not the muted one he'd been using.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER, HARRY! I TOLD YOU I'D KILL YOU!" Sam screamed as he turned and swept toward the nearest signal.
In the room Sam had left, Herod climbed in another window, sighing and shutting it.
He was breathing heavy despite having no body.
The SUDS network was massive, built on ancient, archaic technology. In some places there was actual coaxial cable or low-speed fiber-optics rather than superconductor. Between the layers was microwave repeaters instead of spooky or strange particle or paired quark repeaters.
Herod slid down the wall, panting heavily. His pants were torn, his shirt ripped in two places, and he had gleaming bruises on his digital skin.
He touched his temple. "I can't keep it up much longer," he said.
"Roger," Peel's voice came back.
--------
Dee suddenly looked up from where she had been slumped in the chair, head down, arms limp between her knees, breathing heavy and drooling blood.
"The kid snuffed one of my copies, Trucker took out the other, Menhit wiped the other me out," Dee said. She wiped her nose and grimaced at the pink fluid on her sleeve.
"You gonna be all right?" Daxin asked.
Dee nodded, reaching down and picking up a plastic animal carrier. "I'm fine, ya big thug."
Daxin glanced at Legion, his mouth set in a grim line.
Legion just nodded back, staring with unreadable eyes.
"Let's get this show on the road," Dee said, walking toward the door.
The contents of the carrier blinked wide innocent green eyes.
'mew'
-------
Night had fallen in Atlantis. The City of Souls gleamed with light even though the streets and buildings were newly empty. The lavish parks, museums, galleries, restaurants, and clubs were empty for the first time in thousands of years.
Up the slopes of Mount Meru a river flowed, pulled down by the gravity of Alpha Layer. It flowed from a pool inside the lavish palace at the very top. The tile around the pool and the mosaics on the wall had not been made locally but instead stolen from Terra itself and carefully rebuilt exactly as it had all appeared in the hidden ruin in the Olive Hills of Lost Alba Longa. It was a place of wealth, power, and unbridled ambition.
The water in the pool rippled and swirled.
A head lifted out of the water, close cut hair plastered to the skin. Runnels of water ran down the tanned weathered face as blue eyes scanned the room even as the mouth opened and let the oxygen extractor fall to hang from a cord around the neck.
More heads raised up, looking around.
Seeing it was clear, the male Terrans one by one moved up the underwater steps, revealing they were wearing green camouflage, equipment harnesses strapped to their chests, and heavy, bulky, obsolete looking rifles in their hands.
In complete silence they moved to the golden gate that made up the solitary exit from the pool. One opened it slowly, after checking it carefully for wires or traps.
The men moved out of the room.
The water went still again, reflecting the moonlight streaming through the glass imported from Terra itself.
-----------
"What a strange sight," the frog said as he sat down in the bushes.
"Indeed," the fox said, joining his friend and companion.
The frog opened a satchel and handed the fox a carefully wrapped snack.
"What do you supposed it is?" the frog asked.
"I do not know. I have not seen the like nor have I ever heard of such a thing," the fox replied.
They both gazed with curious wonder at the tableau before them.
A wide clearing was before them, with a glass mountain rising into the sky. Atop the glass mountain was a chair that slowly turned in a circle. Bound to the chair was a Terran man with five faces. Four of the faces were stern, their eyes emitting bright light, which searched the ground at the base of the mountain, the grass of the clearing, the trees of the forest beyond, the villages and towns beyond the forest, and even gazed with sharp intent at the valleys and ravines of the great mountains beyond.
The middle face was that of a young man, with rough features. The eyes were wide with horror and fear, the mouth opened in a scream of pain and agony.
The fox and the frog could see that the middle face struggled, attempting to wrest a body from the twelve armed, six legged, five faced head even as wings of onxy, bronze, and ivory beat the air.
"Should we help him? He is in pain," the frog said sorrowfully.
"Can we climb a glass mountain?" the fox asked.
"With faith, and with each other, all is possible for us," the frog said, patting his companions hand.
The fox nodded and stood up. He held out his hand to the frog, who smiled as he took his friend's hand to be helped to his feet, for being helped by a friend brought no shame to either.
Holding hands, the fox and the frog moved across the clearing toward the base of the glass mountain.
-----------
Vuxten stood in the middle of the room, panting. His heat was back up, his slush was to the point he was risking scorching the nanoforge. He hurt all over and could taste blood.
Beyond the pockmarks and scraped in the ferrocrete, there was no evidence of the desperate struggle that had just ended.
--hate shades-- 471 one said.
"Uh-huh," Vuxten said.
"Tod," the woman's voice made Vuxten look to the side.
The Detainee was standing in the room, her dress smooth and unwrinkled.
Her head intact.
"Let's go. You're falling back," she said.
Vuxten just nodded.
--everyone immortal but us-- 471 complained.
"I think I'm ready to go home," Vuxten replied.
471 sent back a nodding emoji that had a bandaid on its cheek.
But he still followed the Detainee as she led him back to the mat-trans. She took a looping, wandering path that Vuxten was just glad seemed to avoid anyone that wanted to rip his guts out.
His armor still read green across the plating integrity but he could still feel the raking talons of the phasic shades in his muscles. A glance showed him that his core temperature was back up, slowly climbing even though the inside of his armor felt like an oven.
The room where the mat-trans was looked just like all the others, but Vuxten noticed the armaglass that made up the octogonal room inside a room was a different color than he'd seen before.
The Detainee opened the heavy door and waved Vuxten in.
--hate hate hate this part--
"Me too, buddy," Vuxten said, his boots clomping as he moved inside the mat-trans.
"Sit down," the Detainee instructed. "You'll be joining Team Three, so sit down so you don't fall down."
"With pleasure," Vuxten said. He leaned against the armaglass and slid down till he was sitting down.
"See you on the other side, Tod," the Detainee smiled.
The door closed and darkness pulled Vuxten down with sharp talons of nightmares.