Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force (17 page)

It was a modular
system, and they had installed the nerve darts, the ones with hydrogen peroxide
micro-propulsion and multiple laser targeting.

This had to be
one of the toys Alexander Rohm employed as part of his self-protection cloud,
Big Fella decided.

Memo to self:
Never attack Alexander Rohm out in the open.
He
smiled grimly. On his E-Thing the last of the six men was lit up by the
targeting lasers.

Man, six at
once. Hardware. You just can't beat it.

His finger ran
across the screen of the E-Thing, giving the order to fire.

He didn't need
the E-Thing screen to see the six hissing hornets rocket from the sky, hitting
six targets. The men yelled in surprise, but not for long. Soon they were just
six silent victims, writhing slowly on the ground.

****

KC padded
silently across the floor toward the back of the main room. Even with her
goggles piercing the gloom there were shadows everywhere from all the
industrial debris scattered throughout the room, and she wanted to be sure
there were no lurkers. Her olfactory sensor dot detected no scent of men, but
she remained cautious. There was probably a Modification out there somewhere
that suppressed human bodily odors. It wouldn't be any crazier than some of the
other Mods she'd encountered.

Satisfied that
the room was secure, she edged toward the exit at the rear, where one of the
men had gone. If she could take him down, and assuming Big Fella was taking
care of however many men where outside, Rix would only have to deal with
Vinicius and one other man.

 
She reached for the door handle but
before she grasped it, the door shot open, hitting her arm and spinning her
around. A man burst through and in a continuous burst of motion delivered a
barrage of blows. She twisted and ducked, her heightened reflexes allowing her
to avoid direct hits, but even the man's glancing shots were powerful enough to
knock her off balance. She tried to raise her arm and aim the net gun at the
man, but he slapped it aside. It gave a metallic ring as it bounced off a
nearby brewing kettle and clattered to the ground.

The man was
attacking so aggressively that her every motion was defensive. But it was clear
he could not see in the dark as well as she, and the fury of his attack was
likely his best chance at keeping her from getting away. She used the night
vision advantage her goggles gave her and threw a vicious kick, a solid strike
to the man's stomach. She knew he felt it, but it did not slow him down much.

This was exactly
the kind of fight she had hoped to avoid. Her own strength-building
Modifications made her stronger than most any normal man, but going up against
a large MI reset the equation. Muscle mass still mattered, she knew, and it
would not go well for her if she tried to go toe-to-toe in a fistfight with a
250-pound Modified man.

Like what was
happening now.

She backed her
way across the room, parrying his punches, rolling to safer spots in the
shadows between the machinery. Thanks to the blood boosts she could keep up
this pace for a very long time, but she guessed that her opponent could as
well. Once, she got close enough to throw a straight-fingered jab at his eyes,
but he moved at the last moment and her thrust landed harmlessly across his
forehead.

She turned and
with three longs strides put some distance between them, and leaped to the top
of an old cabinet, dust billowing into the air as she landed. There was a
slight pain in her foot as she sought her balance, and when she reached down
she discovered she had landed on an industrial-size, rusty bolt that had
probably been sitting up there for decades.

The man did not
follow immediately, but instead turned his head partway over his shoulder,
toward the spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

"Boss! I've
got one of 'em down he-"

The large bolt
hit the man across the mouth, sending a spray of blood arcing across the musty
air. He cupped his jaw in his hands and dropped to one knee.

"C'mon,
admit it, that had to hurt," she called out. "I know they haven't
come up with any Mods that protect teeth from being knocked out."

While the man
was still down KC leaped across to the top of another of the sturdy metal cabinets
and then to the top of one of the old brewing kettles. She slid on the sloped
upper section, but caught the remains of the pipe sticking up from the top and
steadied herself.

The man stood
back up and looked slowly around the room, trying to locate her in the dark.
Between the absence of light and the stealth fabrics she wore, he could not see
her.

She could see
the cold fury on the man's face, and finally recognized him from Rix's
briefings. This was another of the original raiders on Open Sky's headquarters,
the man who had been entirely tinted and dressed in black — the driver.
As he had been in the delivery truck and then outside by the loading docks at
the time of the raid, there were not many security cam images of him, and most
of the ones they had been able to access were from high angles. But they had
cleaned those up and enhanced the features, and there was no mistaking the man.
She was fighting with one of their primary targets.

A faint shaft of
light cut through the darkness as the rear door opened again, the doorway
filled by an enormous figure.

KC recognized
the silhouette at once.

The other man,
however, didn't and darted directly toward the door at this new opponent,
clearly intending to use the brief moments of light to his advantage.

"Big!
Killer comin' at you," she shouted in warning.

Big Fella was
ready, but the man did not break his stride or pull up at all. He speared Big
Fella with his shoulder, carrying them both back into the rear room and sending
them sprawling to the floor. Big Fella felt the crunch as the metal and
composite frame of his exoskeleton that ran up his spine slid along the
concrete.

The man
immediately rained blows upon his head and face, and for the second time this
night Big Fella found himself on the receiving end of a faster man's punches,
and this one was even stronger than the first. He felt himself losing
consciousness, each blow he received perceived through a fog.

The man was
smiling now as he sat on Big Fella's chest, delivering punches that echoed through
the larger man's frame. He grasped the sides of Big Fella's head and lifted up,
preparing to use the full strength of his Modified body to smash Big Fella's
head into the ground. But then Big Fella saw that he wasn't there anymore for
some reason, which confused him for a moment. His head rolled to the side and
he saw that KC, a small, shimmering figure in her stealth fabrics, was engaged
in a furious dance of combat with the man.

He came to with
a sudden clarity and pushed himself fully upright with the aid of his XO. With
a snarl Big Fella lunged over and grabbed the man with his right arm and flung
him across the room into the brick wall. The impact made a crunch that echoed
in the darkness.

They could see
him drop to the floor but he was up again in an instant. After a moment he
started laughing. "You idiots. You can't hurt me. A clumsy giant and a
little girl? That's my morning workout."

There were high
windows along the walls of this room, allowing more light to enter, and the man
could see them clearly. It was another cavernous floor. A faded old sign
indicated it had been the bottling room, although the machinery had long since
been cleared away.
 

Big Fella turned
to KC. "We could fight with this asshole all night. Let's end this now
though." He tossed his E-Thing to her. "Call in the air support while
I give this guy his workout." He gave her a wink and then strode in the
direction of the man. The two circled each other warily.

KC read the
screen in an instant and called up the personal protection drone display
screen. It showed a calm overhead view of the brewhouse. She tapped in a series
of commands and stepped back against the brick wall.

Five seconds
later the drone came crashing through the windows, scattering glass through the
room. It wobbled from the impact, but stabilized in seconds.

The man from
Vinicius' assault team looked up, puzzled, unsure of what he was seeing. The
black drone hovered overhead, humming softly.

KC could see the
man's expression relayed from the drone to the E-Thing. She activated the laser
targeting and smiled as the man lit up. Her finger gently touched the E-Thing
screen, giving the command to fire.

She looked up,
not wanting to watch the result on the small screen. The nerve dart hissed and
leaped from under the wing of the drone, lighting the room for a fraction of a
second. It hit the man squarely in the stomach.

He glanced down
at his midsection, then up, uncomprehending, and collapsed on the floor.

KC looked to Big
Fella and raised an eyebrow. "Do I have to wrap this one up, or will you
be a gentleman and do this one yourself?"

Big Fella let
out a booming laugh. "Damn, KC. You're just nine kinds o' fine."

****

Rix watched as
his foe, Vinicius Cunha, climbed up the metal spiral staircase onto the third
floor. It was the first time he had seen the man up close, in person.

He had seen a
lot of Modified men in his life, but he had to admit, Cunha was perhaps the
most impressive and intimidating. Rix guessed six-foot-six, but it could have
been more. It was the mass of the man that astounded, though. He was as thick
as a comic book superhero, or supervillain in this case. He looked as solid as
the pillars that dominated the ground floor of this building. His skin had an
unusual texture that Rix had never seen before.

He stepped
forward off the stairwell, and another man followed him up. He wasn't nearly as
imposing as Cunha, and Rix judged him to be only moderately rigged.

The third floor
was one large room, and Rix stood in the middle of it. The center of this floor
had been mostly stripped bare, with the clutter pushed to the outside walls.
There were more windows than on the lower floors, allowing in soft moonlight
and starlight. There was nowhere for a man to effectively hide. But Rix was in
no mood for hiding.

Vinicius Cunha
smiled. "At last. I was beginning to think I had come all this way for
nothing."

Rix smiled back.
Oh well,
he told himself
. No
sense making this any harder than it has to be. Who knows, it might even work.

Rix raised the
two compact crossbow pistols he held in each hand. He had fabricated the small
bolts with the tranq tips that had worked so efficiently against Vinicius'
local men earlier in the week. Without a word he shot the bolts at the two men.
The smaller man stumbled back, cursing, and fell on his hands and knees.

Vinicius stood
motionless as the bolt bounced harmlessly off his chest. He watched it spin
away from him and clatter as it hit the floor. He glanced over at his man,
crawling on all fours, and shook his head.

"Are you
joking with me?" Cunha said, as he slowly removed his jacket. "Do you
think so little of me that you thought that might work? Or is ignorance your
problem? I am not like any other Modified man you have met. Oh, Travis Burnet,
this is going to be a long night for you."

Rix casually
tossed the crossbow pistols across the room. "You can keep calling me that
if you want. But you should know that's not who I am. I'm here for Open Sky to
make sure you pay for all the blood you've spilled. And you have my guarantee
you won't leave this room a free man."

Rix could see by
the man's expression that Vinicius hadn't expected that, but his grin soon
returned. "That explains much. But you are doing me a favor. I thought I
was dealing with two separate problems, but now I see that it's only one big
problem and I will be able to start addressing it
right now
."

Rix had fought
against dozens of MIs in his career, but he had never seen anyone who moved so
fast. In fact, there was not even time to be sure that he had actually seen the
man move. Vinicius was in his face almost instantaneously. His fist slammed
into Rix's chest with a force that would have instantly killed an unmodified
man. Only his bone density Modification kept him from dying on the spot.

Even so, his
unbreakable bones were surrounded by soft tissue, and the power of the blow
reverberated through his organs. The momentum of the punch sent him flying
across the room and sliding into some of the old office equipment in the
corner. He stumbled when he tried to stand, and realized he had seriously
underestimated Cunha's abilities. He swayed as he got back to his feet and
looked at his surroundings. He realized he had been flung to the northwest
corner of the room.

Good. Not the
southwest corner. That would have really screwed up the plans.

Cunha was moving
much more deliberately now, casually strolling over to the jumble of industrial
hardware that lined the walls. He picked up an old cast iron pump housing and
held it out in his hand, weighing it.

Rix was grateful
for the minute to recover.
He really does expect to spend the night
torturing me. If he wasn't so cruel he could have killed me by now.

Rix's eyes never
left Cunha, so he was ready when he threw the heavy pump. This time, with his
heart racing and the do-or-die reality of the situation closing in on him, he
ducked in time for the pump to fly past him. Even so, Rix was surprised yet
again when the pump did not clang off the brick wall, but instead went
clear
through it
.

The dust from
the vaporized brick had not yet settled when Vinicius made another lunge. Rix
kicked an old metal chair up into his face, but he swatted it aside and
continued on a straight course at Rix, like a charging bull.