ABC - Penance

Labour Camp One – Original townsite.

I crouched behind a clump of ferns, observing the rear of the diner where I had hidden my bike. There was no movement I could see and the air was still and heavy, silent as the grave. Even the insects seemed to have shut up, waiting with an air of expectancy for the humans to bugger off and leave these ruins in peace.

Bent over double, I scurried across open ground and into the cool darkness of the garage. I sighed in relief when I saw my bike standing where I had left it, patiently awaiting its master’s return. I stood upright and walked towards the machine, already planning my next action when I got to Unity.

“Hey babe” Bobbi said to me, stepping out from a dark corner of the garage. “You took your sweet time getting back here”

I had my pistol raised and got off one wild shot before Bobbi slammed her right arm into my gun hand, spinning me around and sending the pistol into the wall. She tackled me hard, driving me against the garage wall and I oofed loudly as the wind was pushed out of my lungs. The Freelancer had me pinned to the web covered wall, my arms gripped and face pressed into decades old filth.

“My team are really pissed at you, Luisa” she breathed into my cheek, her lips tickling at my earlobe. “You trashed Nigel’s best drones, beat up sweet little Cathy and blew off Wade’s wanking hand”

“I’m aiming to collect the whole set. Anything I can do for you, Bobbi?” I asked her earnestly, trying not to breathe in the dusty cobwebs that my face was mushed up against.

She laughed and flipped me around to face her, pressing her body into mine. Bobbi was as much a predator as Wade had been, yet perversely I still kind of liked her. It shows how messed up my own sense of values were, to be turned on by a ruthless killer like Bobbi.

The woman used her metal arm to push my Smart Goggles up onto my head, exposing the entirety of my face. Bobbi was way taller than me, bending her body to bring her face close to mine. I shifted my left hand, freed now from her iron grip, fumbling between our chests.

“Trying to cop a feel?” she smirked and pulled away, dropping her eyes to my hand. She saw what I had taken from my bandolier and her right eye widened in sudden understanding. Her Enhanced left eye didn’t react at all, just focussed on my face with machine indifference when I detonated the EMP grenade.

A pulse washed over us, my hand growing eerily warm as the grenade sent its energy surging out for fifty meters in every direction. Bobbi collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, falling against me with an angry sigh as her processor was overloaded.

I lowered her gently to the ground, her long body making my back creak in protest. She had that vacant-eyed, slack-jawed look I had seen before from every Enhanced I ever pulsed. Depending on her internal equipment I had between twenty and sixty seconds before she rebooted and kicked my ass.

Working fast, I dragged her to a solid looking pole that supported part of the garage roof. I handcuffed her hands around the pole and cable-tied her feet together. My hands were busy rummaging in her pockets when she came to full alertness, scaring the hell out of me. I scooted back a couple of meters on my butt, staring at her in shock.

“Shit, that was fast!” I said with a mix of admiration and fear. “What are you loaded with?”

Bobbi tested her bonds, then tilted her head to regard me with her Enhanced eye gleaming faintly.

“My processor is hardened against EMP” she stated casually, looking upwards to where the pole connected to the roof framework. “I had to sacrifice some memory cells to make room for the hardware. Lost fifteen years of my childhood”

“Why?” I asked her, interested despite the situation. “Why throw away your memories?”

“What?” she answered. “Fifteen years growing up queer as fuck in Houston? I couldn’t wait for the Ripper to take that shit away. I would have paid someone to lose those memories and he did it as part of the upgrade”

She flexed her arms again, hearing the pole creak as it shifted minutely. She looked back at me, an approving grin on her face.

“You got me good, Luisa” she said. “Didn’t think you had another grenade squirrelled away” Her expression became sombre and she leaned against the pole, resting her handsome face against the cool metal.

“So what happens now?” she asked me.

“You tell me everything you know about what is going on at Camp One and Unity” I demanded. I recovered my pistol, made sure I had some rounds left in the magazine, and parked myself just out of her reach. I wasn’t pointing the gun at her, yet the meaning was clear.

“I told you before, you’re one of us Luisa” Bobbi declared. “A bloody ruthless bitch”

“Yeah, but I’m trying to change” I agreed and poked her metal arm with the barrel of my pistol. “So tell me what I need to know and I’ll show you my nice side”

“Nah, I like bad bitches!” Bobbi grinned at me. “But I’ll tell you what I can”.

=====

I left Bobbi still cuffed to the pole, confident she would be free before I was halfway back to Unity. She had told me as much as she knew about the Head Warden and what they had been doing at the old Camp, stuff that I had trouble believing to be true.

At the top of the ridge between the old Camp valley and the new one, I stopped my bike and let the engines idle. The Faraday bag was drawn from my pocket and I thumbed the phone on. It came to life instantly and I breathed out in relief, glad that I hadn’t cooked its electronics with two pulses in the same afternoon.

It rang suddenly, making me juggle it in alarm until I caught it one handed and answered the call.

“Luisa!” Georgia called out urgently. “Oh my god, what have you been doing? I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour!”

“Sorry Georgia” I mumbled awkwardly in reply. “Things have been a bit chaotic. Did you get a trace on the tracking stealthware?”

“Yes, I did” she said. “Well, mostly but the data is a bit confusing”

“How come?”

“I think it was an AI” Georgia spoke softly, as if fearful of being overheard.

“That figures” I concurred. “Any idea which one it was?”

“That’s where it gets confusing” the Net Diver confessed reluctantly. “The original source showed as being in Pan City”

“Holy shit!” I gasped. “I wonder if Archimedes knows there is another AI on his home turf?”

“Luisa, as far as I know, there is only one AI operating from Pan City” she explained to me.

“Oh” was all I managed as understanding percolated into my thick skull. “That makes it tricky”

I thought about what this development could mean, for me and my investigation. Archimedes was not all powerful, as much as he liked everyone to believe that. However, he had a lot of resources he could throw at any particular problem.

From what I had heard, he was as sneaky as they came. My boss Jericho-Three was an acknowledged devious little shit, but his master left him for dead when it came to working all the angles.

“Still there Luisa?” Georgia asked me, her voice full of concern.

“Yeah” I replied. “Just trying to work out what to do next. Leave it with me and I’ll try and call you soon”

“Okay” she agreed. “Don’t forget to kill that tracker!”

“Already done” I lied to her and made my goodbyes. Then I brought up the kill-switch she had installed and ended the tracking stealthware. My phone beeped its confirmation to me, letting me know it was once again my loyal servant.

I put my phone away, tucking it into a pocket. It didn’t need the Faraday bag now as I was fresh out of EMP grenades. The photograph I examined once more, tracing my finger over the faces of the two men. Tor Anderson had to be the taller man, based on what Tubbs had told me. He certainly matched the description, except for being a lot younger in the photo.

It was the shorter man, Alex I presumed, that I was pondering. I had a hunch about the slender, blonde headed man and I covered his eyes with my pinky finger, pretending the man was wearing dark glasses.

Yep, there was no doubt about it. The second man was a dead ringer for my boss, Jericho-Three.

Who the hell was this guy, and why did he look exactly like the Avatars of Great Archimedes?

I tucked the photo into my bandolier and revved my engines. These questions could wait until after I rescued my partner. Bobbi had told me where he was likely to be held, a place I had already guessed for myself.

They had him at Morituri’s, awaiting the Head Warden’s pleasure. I released the brakes and sent a shower of roadside gravel in my wake, surging forwards and aimed at the ass end of Unity.

I was at the outskirts of the town in minutes, slowing for the upcoming turn, when I spotted a lone Sentinel watching me from the road side. It lifted their arm in acknowledgement, or maybe to ask me to stop. I couldn’t be certain either way and I was lifting my own right arm in reply when the Auto-Truck roared in from the side-street, slamming into my bike and sending me tumbling across the tarmac.

With my arms instinctively wrapping around my head, I hit the road surface hard, driving the air from my lungs. The Ceramite plates and armour weave did their job, soaking up the abrasive impact of the rough asphalt.

I have no idea how many times I rolled until my head hit something and I blacked out.