“From back at the hospital?” said Pippa.
Franco nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that dude. I gave him a proper pounding.” He chuckled. “He won’t be electrifying my testicles in a hurry!”
“I think we’re gonna need some help on this one,” said Keenan quietly. He finished his cigarette and flicked the butt at the superheated bars, where it flashed for a nanosecond, disintegrating into nothing.
“Neat,” said Franco.
Keenan reached into his mouth and began to fiddle.
“What you doing?” asked Franco.
“He’s got a transmitter and micro-kube fitted in one of his teeth,” said Pippa. “The only problem is, once activated the criminals may well detect the frequency. Or maybe the roof above us blocks all signals, even military. Either way, it’s a calculated risk, but we seem to have little option. It also has integrated files and army DBs on criminals and data through the Quad-Gal.”
“So, it’s his wisdom tooth?” Franco congratulated himself.
“Yeah yeah, quick, Franco, quick.”
There was a tiny click
.
“Cam, you reading me?” said Keenan, voice low. “Cam, come in, we’re in the shit and could do with assistance. Over.”
They waited.
Nothing.
“Maybe I was right,” said Pippa. “This place looks like a fortress from the outside; proper high-spec polymer alloy shells. Last thing the Razor Syndicate needs is prisoners radioing for help from the outside world. They seem to be the controlling factor here on The City and they’re not amateurs; they must have the tek to render us incommunicado.”
“This is the latest hardware,” said Keenan, rubbing his forehead. “It’s not usually cracked for at least three months, and even then the hackers sometimes screw it up. And—believe me—I’m regular with updates, to an anal degree.”
“Maybe they captured Cam, then?”
Keenan nodded. “Or maybe the damn thing’s injured, or something?”
Franco kept strangely silent, staring at the floor. He coughed, and started to hum a little tune.
The GG returned, carrying a sheaf of metal papers. “Here we go,” muttered Pippa, as the platform lifted smoothly and glided through the vast chamber towards the cell.
The GG, dark eyes glowing, eyed the captured group.
“Pippa,” it said, simply.
“Yeah, fuckwit?”
“I thought I knew of you. You were a prisoner on
Hardcore.
News of your exploits has reached me. Many of my friends—from my production batch—ended up on
Hardcore.
I believe you have... met, many of them.”
“Met them, danced with them, slaughtered them,” smiled Pippa easily, moving from her cross-legged position to standing. She scraped back her hair and tied it. She licked her lips, making them wet. “I just hate the stink of your metal skin, if the truth be known. I can’t stand your arrogance, your base stupidity, and your aspirations of superiority over the humans who created you.”
“So you hate my kind?” said the GG. The metal face, swept back into a hook above the long metal head, was emotionless. Tiny pistons moved the jaws but no sounds emerged. The GG relaxed its stance with a hiss of hydraulics.
“Yeah, dickhead, with extreme prejudice.”
“Funny, really,” said the GG, “because the feeling is reciprocated.”
There was a
buzz
and Pippa’s metal wrist-bands locked together. The bars shimmered and the GG gestured to her. “Come here, my pretty.” Pippa’s arms extended before her, and she stumbled—was dragged
—
towards the opening and out onto the pad. Slowly, she looked up at the GG looming two feet over her. He was a large model with tiny swirls of white military script acid-etched down his arms, chest and face plates. That meant only one thing: Combat Model.
Keenan lunged for the opening, but the bars fizzed into existence and he recoiled from a sudden broiling heat.
The platform eased away, gliding through the vastness until it touched down on the black ground. Pippa glanced at her squad, high above, then looked back to focus on the GG.
“You have a score to settle?”
“Yes.”
“You want revenge?”
“Yes, little one. I have long heard your name. I have long savoured a moment like this, but never dreamed it would come to pass. Now a gift has been placed in my lap, and I do not intend the opportunity to escape me.”
“Does McEvoy know?”
The AI tilted its head. “What could he understand of my needs? This does not concern him. This is a matter of AI pride. This is a matter of machine over flesh. You are a scourge to my kind, human.” The GG spat the word with such venom that Pippa cringed. “Killing you is nothing more than an exercise in necessity.”
Suddenly, it flexed backwards and withdrew its black Sliver Sword. The blade, incredibly thin, shimmered in the gloom of the roof bay as Pippa backed away, uncertain whether this was a fight... or an execution.
“Give her a weapon you metal piece of coward shit!” screamed Franco, battered face glaring down from his imprisonment. “Or are you merely indicative of your mercury-bowelled chickenhead kind?”
The GG paused. He glanced at Pippa. Then back up to Franco. With a
click
Pippa’s hands released. The GG gestured to the wall where consoles lined every inch of available space. “Over there. You will find your weapon. Choose with care, little lady.”
Pippa sprinted, as above her Franco sat back on his haunches.
“Indicative?” said Keenan, staring hard at Franco.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It must have been the beating; released some rogue verbs into my slopstream.” He smiled, a little shamefacedly. He scratched his ginger, recently shaved head. “But it got her a sword. Look!”
“Well done, Franco.” Keenan’s voice was soft. Worry etched his brow. His eyes were dark and hooded.
“Hey, well, they don’t call me Mr. Smooth for nothing, you know?” Franco’s optimism was a crazy thing.
Below, Pippa was whirling an identical single-molecule Sliver Sword. It hissed and screamed, slicing air as she spun and, apparently satisfied with its balance and edge, she turned to face the AI.
“I know you,” said the GG, readying its weapon.
“Come and eat this,” hissed Pippa, and charged to the attack.
Swords clashed, Pippa spun and swayed back as the GG’s blade nearly took her face clean off. She retreated, the GG advancing, sword a blur of spinning dark death.
Again Pippa attacked, blades clashing, smashing together, grating and ramming up to the hilts. Their faces grew close. The GG’s dark eyes dilated. “You’re going to die a long hard death,” it snarled.
“That’s what they all said,” smiled Pippa sweetly, “just before I hacked their heads from their junk-top necks.”
With a grunt, Pippa kicked away, the GG’s sword following. It sliced a narrow line across her calf and she flipped, landing lightly with a pattering of blood. Her head snapped up. The GG grinned with black hydraulic jaws.
“Sloppy,” said Pippa.
The GG growled, stalking forward.
Again they clashed in a whirl of blades, which saw Pippa backing madly away. She was quite clearly outclassed. Her back slammed against a group of consoles, she ducked right, and the GG’s sword cut a glowing line through steel and exited in a shower of high-voltage sparks. Pippa rolled, sword hacking at a knee-cap, but the GG flexed and side-stepped, its sword nearly decapitating the woman.
She paused, a tense coil, down on one knee, face lifted. Sweat traced a fine sheen on her brow. A touch of uncertainty etched her cold grey eyes.
This was a fight, she knew, she could not win. And yet, what other option did she have? To run was to die, and to leave her friends to a patiently drawn-out execution? Never.
Yet to fight? Well, she was giving the GG exactly what it desired: an easy execution, a playful retribution.
The machine attacked, metal feet scouring the floor. Pippa rolled fast, her sword lashing out only to be carried by the GG’s flashing blade, rolled from her sweating grip, and sent spinning and sparking across the glossy ground. Pippa backed away, snarling, then turned and sprinted for the three dark, insect-like helicopters.
It took a moment for the GG to focus. It made a
cracking
sound, possibly of annoyance. The last thing it needed was to chase a lithe woman on a long sprint around the indoor arena. It would catch her in the end, superior stamina. But depending on her speed, it might take a while.
Pippa sprinted, then veered, slamming the catch on the nearest attack chopper. The door slid silently, and Pippa was ducking and squeezing into the narrow functional alloy confines before it was even halfway open.
The GG chuckled, a nasty metallic sound. It strode forward, almost nonchalantly, swinging its sword. “You can’t hide in there for ever, my pretty,” it said, dark eyes glowing. Hydraulic thumps echoed through the chamber. It halted, spinning its sword. It could taste the kill. The taste, even for an AI, was sweet, a metal chemical cocktail.
Pippa looked up. The GG could just about see her silhouette through the tinted cockpit windshield.
She looked... triumphant?
The GG frowned, tiny metal scales sliding into place.
“Who said anything about hiding?” asked Pippa. There was a
shring
as quad mini-guns slammed down and locked; then a turbo-whine as the barrels accelerated and spun up, and Pippa squeezed both triggers.
The GG was turning to flee in sudden horrified realisation as a thousand heavy calibre rounds tore into its frame, its shell, pulverising it limb from limb in a violent bright flashing scream of hot metal shavings, molten alloy and disintegrating panels. The GG was massacred, decimated, crumbled. The Sliver Sword spun across the black ground. Metal pieces shot out and scattered. The guns roared. The GG’s head bounced, scarred and dead, against the skyscraper floor, then was chased spinning by a line of flashing bullets.
The guns whined down. Smoke poured from barrels. Pippa leapt down and waved up at Keenan, who dazzled her with a smile. “Good girl,” he whispered up on the platform, as Pippa jogged to the consoles and activated the lift to the prison GRILL cell.
“Easy come, easy go,” said Franco amiably.
“Does nothing ruffle you?” said Keenan.
“Plenty, mate. I’m just good at hiding it.” He winked.
“She’s a very dangerous lady,” said Rebekka, voice quiet, eyes hooded, face pale.
“More than you could believe.”
“I’ll be careful around her.” She placed a hand on his arm. “And thank you, again, for saving me, for keeping me... alive
.
I am not a part of this madness. I am not your nemesis.”
Keenan nodded.
As they waited for the lift, Pippa moved back to the attack chopper; it was an Apache K50, military grade, bearing full armaments. She played around with a few controls, and started warming the engines. The Apache whined, growled, spat exhaust fumes, and slowly the rotors began a lethargic rotation.
The lift deposited Keenan, Franco and Rebekka on the ground. Keenan leapt into action.
“Rebekka, go to Pippa. Do not leave her side. Franco, with me.”
“Where we going?”
“To tool up.”
“Now that’s a good idea.”
They jogged through the gloomy space. Distantly, alarms sounded and Keenan threw a glance at Pippa. She gave a thumbs up, and the Apache lifted slightly, gliding across the vast interior of the chamber and settling down, guns and rockets focused on the main doors to the room’s interior. Any soldiers who came through that entrance would end up mashed mince-meat.
The grenade-blasted bullet-riddled container bearing the kit they had originally purchased from Rebekka and her team nestled in the shadows to one side. The doors, blackened and charred, swung open easily with buckled groans, and Keenan and Franco hurried inside and armed themselves with MPKs. They pocketed magazines. With a smile, Keenan reclaimed his battered Techrim.
“They’re coming!” screamed Pippa across the chamber. Her screens were alive with activity.
“Franco, get the roof open: then load up the chopper. I want all this kit with us. When we get to Ket, I’ve a bad feeling we’re gonna need every last shell.”
“OK boss. Where you going?”
Keenan grinned. “I have a score to settle.”
Keenan pocketed several items from the inside of the container, then sprinted away into the gloom. Free of constraints, he felt his senses vibrating, humming with adrenaline. This was it! How it used to be in the old days before the squad, when Keenan had worked MILintel missions alone: infiltration, demolition, assassination, sometimes protection, but more often than not the cessation of life. That had been a long time ago, before he’d met Pippa, before he’d met Freya: the women who changed him, shaped him, moulded his life, exorcised his darkest demons and laid them to rest.
Now, however, the demons were creeping; they were back. And once again Keenan felt the talons of a dark soul creeping into him, turning him from human into... something else.
Keenan moved along the wall, eyes glinting in the darkness; he checked his location and found a low narrow access door leading to a utility corridor. He slipped inside, amongst the pipes and cables, supports and bare concrete walls. His hand touched the rough surface tenderly; he guided himself along the stretch to a junction. He stopped, listened. Muffled gunshots hammered from the chopper’s mini-gun. Keenan smiled grimly. Pippa would hold well; would do her job. He could trust her to do that.