Static.
John Stone shuddered as he came around. The shudder turned to a shaking that did not stop; he was in the first stages of hypothermia. Well, shit, this was not exactly what I had planned. His normally immaculate charcoal suit was ruffled and torn. The frigid breeze was turning large blood spatters on his shirt and pants into a treacle like goo with icy crystals embedded within.
Opening his eyes brought up a translucent digital display in the foreground of his vision, behind which he could see the side street he was laying face down on. The asphalt was cold and the water pooling around his face was beginning to freeze. The high definition display crackled with static interference for another brief moment.
Reboot underway 32% complete
Satellite Uplink established….
Personal Subnode reactivated…. Stealth mode on
Firewall - Ok
Vital signs below established norms
Smartlinks reestablished:
Contact Lenses – Ok
Thermographics – Ok
Flare Compensation - Ok
Commlink / Commlink OS – Ok
Customized Smartgun OS 2.07a – Ok
Reboot Complete
Personal settings applied
Incoming message…
The commlink communication was clear and clean, a good sign that the damage to John’s cyberware was superficial. The female voice, smooth and sultry, sounded like the voice of a young detective from a neo-modern entertainment show from the 10’s, ‘John, your vital signs suggest weakness but you are in no imminent danger’
That’s comforting. How long before my location can be triangulated.
‘Initial modeling suggests that your location is already known. There is a ninety two point two per cent chance that the agents hunting you will be at your location in four minutes and thirty eight seconds. However, the margin for error is large. Your adversary’s capabilities are largely unknown. I would suggest you get up.’
No shit. …and the rest of the plan?
‘Underway, data purges will be complete in fifteen minutes.’
He had to buy time. John pulled himself up against a nearby dumpster, his limbs beginning to unfreeze, enhanced adrenal glands pumping artificial accelerants into his blood stream. The greasy remains of packaging trapped in the door of the dumpster smeared further unpleasant stains on his expensive suit. He was angry, a side effect of the chemicals, at least in part. He was pissed at himself, disgusted at how he’d screwed up.
Stone checked his smart guns both physically and via his smartlink. All good, scratches only and full magazines ready for violence. He fished around in the inner lining of his suit. He cautiously pulled out a black cylinder the shape of an eighty per cent scale hockey puck.
Time Olivia.
‘Three minutes, thirteen seconds. Five consistent matrix signatures are converging on your location.’
He twisted the top of the puck clockwise, its upper circular face lighting up with time, blast radius and power level information. He sent a pulse of information from his commlink setting the parameters for the device and then twisted the top back to lock the configuration. He dropped the bomb into the dumpster as he started walking hurriedly towards 4th street. A heads up map of the vicinity highlighted his location, other nearby personal nodes and the five approaching adversaries appeared in his field of view. The five shaded regions defining the location of his adversaries morphed and shrunk as Olivia’s models calculated and recalculated the uncertainty of their position based on all the data she could gather.
4th street was busy, blessedly so. Slow moving vehicle traffic on the street and even slower moving shoppers on the sidewalks formed an obstacle course for anyone uninterested in following the general flow of the crowd. Most of them had come from the baseball game at the Red Dome. Data popped up in Stone’s peripheral display.
Reds Q: 15W (2 fatalities, 3 injuries) / Astros H: 7L (4 fatalities)
Stone dropped his matrix ID and then logged in with a new ID, a safety precaution in case he was being tracked. Who was he kidding? He was being tracked and they would find him. It was just a matter of timing.
He crossed the street just as it began to snow. He referred to his heads up display again, as he sidestepped into a narrow alleyway. Four of his adversaries showed up on the map, just where they should be. Olivia! Sound like that of a backfiring truck distracted him, followed by screams and a wave of heat, dissipating the snow and the holiday cheer. He’d got four of them, no innocent fatalities, and lots of collateral damage. Usually he’d take pleasure in that, but he’d missed one.
Olivia, I hope you have an idea where that target is.
‘Unfortunately, my error margin on temporal and spatial location for the fifth target puts it somewhere in Q city or one of its suburbs. It must be using sophisticated counter-measures and I have some evidence to suggest that it is using a series of spoofing and false-spoofing strategies to remain concealed.’
Great. Well, in that case, lets hope I can kill it…
A rain of bullets from above brought an abrupt halt to Stone’s thought. Over a brief second, John twisted his body away trying to form as small a target as possible to the sniper above. As he dove for cover, he glanced up taking a couple of still shots of the silhouetted figure above, sliding them aside on his visual display.
… when it finds me, he finished his thought. Perhaps, you could enhance those pics and see if we can figure out what I’m dealing with, he squirted to Olivia. Simultaneously, he unholstered his two smartpistols, selected armor piercing rounds for the weapon in his left hand and explosive rounds in the right. Crosshairs appeared in his vision. He landed gracelessly behind a low wall on some steps leading down to a sub-level door. It looked sturdy.
‘I do not have enough data to identify the entity attacking you. It is humanoid but not human. It is approximately one point nine two meters tall. This is the best image enhancement I can provide of its face.’
One of the still digital images zoomed in on the facial region of Stone’s assailant. It looked insectoid, carapace plates, with markings that could be a part of its shell or paint. Gang markings maybe, but if it was any local group or any group with a criminal record, Olivia would have pointed it out. The head was that of an ant but with a flatter nose and a line of sharpened ‘teeth’ were suggested in a slightly open mouth. Its eyes were just black blots against the bright, false enhancement of the image. He had only a few moments to take it in before he saw more muzzle flashes from above.
The creature was making its way down the metal fire escape stairs on the north wall of the building across from Stone. This thing was agile, taking half a set of steps at a time. It took a few more shots. It was careful to use the metal steps and the railing as cover against Stone’s return fire. Stone waited, he’d not fired a shot yet. The insectoid was only firing off enough rounds to keep Stone behind the cover he had found. The bullets were ricocheting off the wall, pieces of brick and mortar exploding away at each impact.
Stone carefully selected targets on the fire escape structure and estimated the trajectory by which the creature would fall if the metal framework came away as he expected. He took a deep breath, stood up to get a better view and fired seven shots.
Three explosive rounds hit the fire escape framework. The old structure did not collapse away from the wall as Stone had hoped but the metal did buckle and the creature with the assault rifle was thrown from the steps. Stone’s tracking of the creature was only slightly off and the two armor-piercing rounds from his left hand hit the creature squarely in its back where a human’s lungs would be. Then, in panicked genius, he turned and fired a round from each gun at a second assailant, instinct and adrenaline saving his life. The creature’s head and chest exploded from the impact, but not before it pulled the trigger on the rifle it held in both hands. Stone felt the impact of several bullets as he was hammered against the wall of the steps. His left shoulder, ribs and elbow shattered under the barrage of high caliber ammunition. The pistol in his left hand slipped from useless fingers.
Artificial adrenaline pumped the pain out of reach, driving Stone to anger instead of unconsciousness. Ahhh… for fuck’s sake, Olivia, how long? And are there any more?
‘One minute, seven seconds. … and unknown, the entities have successfully shown the ability to remain hidden from my sensors and act unpredictably as compared to my models.’
No shit, very helpful.
Stone glanced at the first insectoid. It was still twitching. He needed to be sure it was dead. He put two more rounds into its head and then a round into the equivalent of its thorax and abdomen. Security forces were likely on their way. He grabbed and pulled a feeler away from its ruined head. Evidence, maybe it would help him to figure out what was going on.
He holstered his gun, pulled off his suit jacket and wrapped it around his ruined arm. He was starting to feel the cold. He needed to find time to rest up.
‘Data purge complete. Predictably, the purge has been observed. Government agents are on the scene. An investigation number has been filed.’
It’s done. I need a secure link to Rebecca and call me a taxi. I need to get to the Old Cellar.
‘Link established.’
Rebecca’s icon flashed up on his display. Stone, what do you want? The gruff tones of the troll’s baritone voice coming through clearly over the commlink.
I need a team, new team, untraceable….
What for?
Infiltration, retrieval, violence, ethics might be detrimental.
OK, anything else.
Yeah, I need a place to hole up. I’m on my way.
And I’m helping you why?
5%, and a story to die for.
10% and you can keep your story.
Done… see you in 20 minutes.
Can’t wait.
Static
Static
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