Horizon stood in the back of a dusty bar, designer cannabis smoke wafting over from the nearby booths. Her leukosynths neutralized the THC, and various other intoxicants in the smoke, but the smell covered everything, and she didn’t want to cut off her sense of smell in case she needed it. Not trusting her smartsuit’s camouflage after the fueling station incident, she’d covered herself in heavy clothes, bleached the fur on her head and tail, and even adjusted her metabolism slightly to pad out her torso and thighs.
How late is Shawn? Horizon silently asked.
“Surprisingly,” Samantha answered. “He still has three minutes left before our designated check-in time.”
Horizon sighed and approached the bar. You can prevent me from getting drunk, right? She flagged down the bartender and ordered a large dark beer, paying for it immediately with a swipe of a paychip. As she drank, she swore she could swear she felt the microbots in her stomach burning away the alcohol. She was about halfway done with her drink when a text message appeared in the corner of her eye.
Shawn: Found them, they’re headed your way. Leopard in a blue coat.
Horizon: Did you tell them to speak to an arctic fox?
Shawn: You don’t really look that much like a fox, but yeah I have him your description.
Horizon raised an eyebrow in the direction of the door as she took another sip of her beer, the consistency reminiscent of a fermented milkshake. After a couple more minutes a whitish-gray snow leopard came through the door, thick fur bursting out of a patchy blue jacket. Horizon didn’t react as they took a seat at the bar and ordered a hot drink. Once the bartender took their order and turned away the leopard held up a cupped hand towards the bleached raccoon, a data card in the center of their palm.
Horizon took out her paychip and handed it to them under the counter, allowing them to pass the data card in the same manner. The leopard slipped the chip into their pocket, collected their drink, and walked over to one of the booths. Horizon continued to watch them out of the corner of her eye as they unfolded a tablet and inserted the paychip. One of their eyes widened and their gaze shifted back towards Horizon for a moment.
“Something’s wrong,” Sam stated.
That could be, Horizon replied. But let’s not get carried away yet. We have what we came for, if they confront us, we run, but wait for my signal.
The snow leopard slowly returned to the bar, sidling up next to Horizon and setting their drink down in front of her. “We need to talk,” they whispered.
Horizon gave them a curious look as she felt her muscles tense in preparation to defend herself. “What is there to discuss?”
They held up their tablet, folded so that it would be difficult to read from the side but facing Horizon. It displayed a wallet app bearing a number: 4997.37.
Horizon stared back at the display for a few moments before she figured out what it was. “Oh, my bad,” she apologized. She held up her half-empty glass. “I was getting bored waiting and bought a drink.”
“And you used the same chip?” the snow leopard retorted.
“I had just the one chip,” Horizon explained. “Here, I’ll give you the rest.” She tapped the tablet with a finger, Sam near-instantly transferring 2.63 sacs from the wallet stored on her neural implant into the tablet.
The leopard pulled the tablet back to read it again, eyes widening and ears raised in surprise. “You’re a… borg?” they whispered.
Horizon started to rise off her stool, letting a hint of a glare appear on her face. “Is that a problem?” she inquired.
They started to inch back from the bar nervously. “No, it’s… fine. I just…” the snow leopard stood and ran for the door.
The raccoon glanced at the still-steaming mug they’d left, then shook her head and gulped down the rest of her beer. Horizon grabbed the snep’s abandoned mug and brought it up to her muzzle as she asked Sam what are the chances they’ll turn me in?
“High,” the AI replied. “I planted a virus on their device, would you like me to disable it?”
No, Horizon replied as she sniffed the drink, even over the cannabis smoke she could identify cocoa, cinnamon, and potato vodka. Just warn me if they call anyone. She was tempted to ask why Sam had planted a virus without asking, but by now she figured there was no point.
Horizon departed the bar, trying desperately not to look like she was in a hurry. In the back of her mind she reviewed the data from the card. It seemed to confirm her suspicions about Niflheim. There was some kind of ship or station in Surt’s trailing Trojan asteroids, Company public records claimed it to be simply a research base, but four Jord years ago a pirate had attempted to raid it. Some unknown weapons fire had vaporized the pirate craft in a burst of nuclear fire. Additionally, many had noted that certain augmented individuals had disappeared without a trace within days of the base’s monthly resupply by mass driver. Including Jenny.
The cyborg raccoon ducked behind a sign to read the data more closely without worrying about collisions with traffic. When was the next resupply? She found the list of previous launches and made some quick calculations based on the orbital data of Surt’s moons. Horizon tensed as she realized that the next optimal launch window would be in just twelve hours. Sam, she inquired. How likely would it be that we could break into the mass driver by tomorrow?
“Extremely unlikely,” the AI answered. “There are hundreds of armed guards, at least a dozen in exo-suits, biometric locks, auto-turrets, and air patrols. Even if you managed to hijack a launch pod, the Company fleet could just shoot it down, to say nothing of Niflheim’s own armament.” Images of the toroidal mass driver with its cannon-like launch ramp appeared around her panda avatar. Along with pics of the aforementioned security measures. “Maybe if we had a few months to gather resources…”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
But we don’t, Horizon retorted. We have hours, at best. I need a workable plan of action.
“Tanya?” Horizon looked up to see Shawn running towards her. “What the Hel happened? I just got reamed on mesh by Searan and now they’re saying that they’re calling the cops.”
Horizon lunged and picked the vole up by the collar. “You didn’t tell me that your friend was a total borgophobe!” she snarled. “How did you even find someone like that? I thought your forum was all technophiles?”
“What?” Shawn looked confused for a moment as he thought back. “Well, they said some things about ghuls and liches, but it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary… At least you got the data, right?”
The augmented raccoon swung Shawn around and flung him down the street. He flew far in the low gravity, five meters, ten, fifteen… far further than any un-augmented parahuman could be expected to throw him. The vole finally landed on the ground, skidding across the snow in a long line until he came to a halt.
Wary that her outburst may have attracted attention, Horizon peered around the corner of her hiding place. There, she spied a security officer tracing Shawn’s arc of travel back towards her, one hand on their dart pistol.
Time slowed as Horizon leapt for the officer, claws extended. They drew their gun, but barely managed to raise it before the cyborg’s titanium claws were on them. Horizon barely felt the dart stab her in the thigh at point-blank range, her leukosynths neutralizing the drugs it carried as quickly as they hit her bloodstream. She yanked the gun out of their hand, shredding their flesh in the process, and smashed it against a nearby wall.
Horizon felt the officer’s arm snap, satisfied that they were sufficiently incapacitated he threw him aside. The subsonic whine of rotors approaching drew her gaze upwards and she just barely dodged the net fired from the drone. Her peripheral vision caught sight of a few electrical arcs and pops where the net’s fibers contacted the snow. A stun net? she thought, perfect.
The cyborg ducked and wove at inhuman speeds while the drone tried to line up another shot. Two more drones approached rapidly. While she was distracted by the new drones a rock sailed through the air towards the first one, coming up a meter low. The drone turned its launcher towards the new target, a vole searching for another projectile to throw.
“Get out of here!” Horizon shouted at Shawn, but it was too late. Another stun net wrapped itself around him. Shawn was knocked to the ground, convulsing as the shocks pulsed through his nervous system. Horizon leapt to assist him, grabbing the net and attempting to tear it off even as it shocked her.
Current blazed through her fingers, but she managed to tear the net loose. Automatic fire burst behind her, bullets burying themselves in her back. Horizon muttered a curse; she’d let herself get distracted. She spun around, ignoring the expanding tears in her back muscles, and saw the drones take up positions around her. One of the new drones had a net launcher like the first one, but the other was armed with a machine gun instead. The machine gun drone hovered to her right, while the net drones flew to her left and ahead of her. While behind her an armored ground transport was just screeching to a halt.
Surrounded, Horizon chose to dive directly into the line of fire of the drone ahead of her. Its net caught her, too slow to dodge it with the bullet holes in her. She sprawled on the ground, under the net, unable to throw it off. Every time she tried to move a shock made her muscles convulse. She spotted a trooper in an exo-suit jumping out of the transport and stomp towards her, shoulder gun leveled.
Horizon’s current-numbed skin couldn’t feel the darts, but she heard them launching. The sheer quantity of drugs finally began to overwhelm her leukosynths, and her vision started to fade. The last thing she saw was Shawn starting to run only to fall again seconds later.
Whatever happened next was a blur. She could remember getting picked up and moved by people in exo-suits multiple times, being transported in the back of a truck along with a motionless Shawn, and then when the drugs began to clear out, she found herself strapped to a gurney propped up against a wall.
Her muzzle and extremities were enclosed in devices that afforded her no movement. Her every appendage was held down by some sort of restraints, her eyes the only thing she could move. Next to her she could make out a sealed crate clamped onto the floor, and a vole affixed to a similar apparatus to herself.
Before she could think of trying to speak to Shawn she was shoved back by a sudden force of gravity. The acceleration, she thought it felt like at least 4 Gs sitting on her chest like an elephant, continued for what felt like an eternity before leveling off. The weight pressing her down lessened before vanishing altogether. Now it felt like “down” was solely towards her stomach, null-G, they were in space again.
Horizon attempted to move her arm, nothing happened, she didn’t even feel the muscles tense. Sam, she thought, what’s happening?
The AI remained silent. Sam, what’s going on? Where are you? Still nothing. Did her brain implant short out? Was she now trapped in her body, paralyzed?
A snapping sound drew her attention, Shawn tossed aside a simple zip-tie cuff. Another few snaps and the vole stumbled out into the air, flipping over and crashing into the crate in front of him. Horizon rolled her eyes, the only thing she could do, at the newcomer to microgravity.
After several minutes he managed to right himself and reached out towards Horizon. “I’m really hoping this is you,” he commented, grasping at the mask covering her muzzle. Shawn fumbled with something on the sides of the mask, and eventually she felt it come off.
Horizon took a few deep breaths. “Thank you,” she managed to gasp out despite her breath’s refusal to come in.
“Tanya,” Shawn asked. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t move anything below my neck,” Horizon replied. “Thanks for removing the mask.”
“I tried meshing you after I woke up, but you weren’t receiving.” The vole leaned close to Horizon, eyes narrowed in concentration. “Huh?”
“What is it?” Horizon inquired.
“I’m getting some kind of signal interference around you,” Shawn poked at a panel in the side of the gurney. “Maybe I can deactivate it somehow.”
Horizon heard the click of several buttons being pushed, followed by an alarm buzz. Shawn swore and tried punching a few different buttons, with the same result. “Just break it open!” Horizon shouted after the third attempt.
“Okay, okay, I think there’s an access point here,” Shawn grabbed hold of something outside her limited field of vision and braced himself against her gurney. After a minute or so of grunting and wrenching something cracked and the vole went flying back.
A prickling sensation flowed all over her body, like her foot had fallen asleep but for everything but her head. In front of her a hazy outline slowly coalesced into the form of a red panda woman. “Connection… established!” Sam’s avatar shook herself off in exasperation. “Damn I hate EMP jamming!”
Is that what that was? Horizon attempted to tense her arm muscles, and this time she felt them respond. She yanked hard against her restraints and heard the satisfying snap of cables and bolts.
“Hey! Careful!” Sam cautioned. “I couldn’t heal you while those jammers were active!”
Horizon pulled her arm out in front of her, the entire forearm was encased in some sort of metal sleeve. She reached out with it towards the tumbling Shawn, and he grabbed hold. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean for you to get captured too. But if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to break free.”
“Yeah, good thing they zipped me up with such wimpy ties, guess they weren’t expecting me to be augmented too.” Shawn’s eyes twitched as he registered what she’d just said. “Too? Wait, you wanted to get captured?”
“Yes,” Horizon stated as she tried to find some sort of release mechanism on her sleeve.
“Why?” Shawn inquired, confused.
“Because,” Horizon answered. “We’re going to Niflheim.”