All is Fair

Extract from the personal files of Twenty Hargreaves

September 8th, V26 (2046AD) – Early Evening

The Mares that formed from their hosts were horrific, huge beasts with black skin and glowing eyes, all sharp teeth and razor edged talons. Despite the descriptions from Nata and the others, it was hard to believe such monsters could exist in this world.

Yet I am not one to worry about how these horrors could be here, trying to kill me. I fired my pistol with the Marked rounds and was satisfied to see them bleed and die. The first had lunged wildly at me, lusting for my blood, so I shot it through the head three times. It fell dying and dissolved into foul dark smoke.

Two more scrabbled over the furniture, eager to rip me apart with their claws. I danced nimbly to the side, putting two rounds into each of them. They vanished back to their own realm like the other before them.

I caught a glimpse of Nata, her progress visible by the trail of destruction her blue lit blade left among the Mares. They grabbed at her, but her blue lit short sword severed their grasping paws from their limbs. She was shouting verses from the Bible at them as she fought, a wild glee evident on her face.

More Mares surged to the attack, their numbers crashing against me and driving me through the full length windows that looked out to the swimming pool and roof top patio. Glass shattered and sprayed across the poolside decking and the foremost Mare landed on top of me.

It weighed at least twice as much as I did, its tremendous strength holding me down. Slavering jaws lunged for my throat and all I could do was jam my pistol in its mouth. I felt the flesh of my hand tearing as the teeth tried to find purchase, then I fired my gun right inside its head.

The skull exploded as I put two rounds into it. As it died I threw it off me, cradling my bleeding hand. There were still six Marked rounds in my pistol, but I was not sure I could use my right hand anymore. As two more Mares stalked towards me in the open air, I dropped my other pistol, the one loaded with AP rounds, and put the one with Marked rounds into my left.

I am not accurate firing two pistols at once, but I am very accurate using a pistol with my right or left hand. The pistol boomed four times in rapid succession, sending the Mares back to whatever place they came from. Holding my right hand close to my chest, I pushed myself to my feet and went looking for Nata. There was no sign of any Mares still living, only their poor mortal hosts now lying across lounges and chairs.

The Novice met me in the middle of the room, her amour torn in a number of places and blood dripping onto the floor. We looked each other up and down, and nodded agreement that we were alive and still able to fight.

“Where is Venerae?” I asked her. She pointed with her still glowing sword in the direction she had last seen her. We had barely started to move when an elevator pinged and a door slid open, revealing two figures encased in powered suits.

“Get down!” I shouted to Nata and we both dove for cover as automatic weapons fire sprayed across the room. Defenceless men and women, still suffering from being Hosts to the Mares, were torn apart in the hail of gunfire. With heavy treads the two armoured figures moved forwards, sending bursts of fire into any person they saw. This was indiscriminate slaughter and it would only be moments before they could reach us.

I pulled the shotgun from where it was slung on my back. It was going to be tricky to fire it without full control of my right hand, but my pistol with AP rounds was somewhere outside on the decking. Bracing as best as I could, I rose up from behind my cover, lining up the shotgun on the closest armoured suit.

It turned towards me, bullets already spraying in an arc as it traversed. I pulled the trigger and there was a mighty boom as the shotgun fired. I watched in amazement as the shooter was hurled away from me, crashing through the windows and falling away towards the ground thirty storeys below. Giant Slayer indeed!

The second power suit sprayed fire in my direction, shredding the lounge I was hiding behind. I scrabbled to move and took some hits in my vest, dropping me to the floor, winded and gasping. Over the fading echoes of his firing I heard his heavy footsteps bringing him closer, the whine of his suit servos growing louder.

On my back, I painfully pumped the shell clear from the shotgun and cycled the next one into the chamber. The armoured figure appeared in my line of sight, his machine gun already trained on me. I had been too slow and my own weapon was not ready.

With a banshee cry Nata jumped at the gunman, her sword flashing down across his extended right arm. In a shower of sparks her enchanted blade cut through the Ceramite armour and severed the hand at the weak wrist joint. The machine gun fell away with the hand still gripping tightly, blood and servo fluids spraying from the cut.

“Get clear!” I shouted to Nata and she leaped away once more as I triggered the shotgun. With a booming roar the gun bucked in my hand, cratering the chest plate of the power suit and hurling it against the ceiling. It hung there for a moment, then fell with a wet thud to the bloodstained tiling of the room, toppling the shattered furniture as it landed.

“Twenty, are you OK?” the Novice called to me, coming to kneel at my side. She was wild eyed and covered in blood, rents and tears showing crimson in her armour.

“I’m still functional” I assured Nata and with her help got to my feet. The room was totally destroyed, bloodied bodies strewn across bullet torn chairs and tables. A thick smoke was collecting at the ceiling, drifting in the breeze coming from the shattered windows that surrounded us.

Time was against us now. All the gunfire would have alerted the authorities as well as any remaining guards still loyal to Tran. We hurriedly investigated the rest of the rooms on this level but found no other living people. One bedroom contained a dying woman, host to one of the Mares that Venerae had fought. There was nothing we could do for her as the Mare had left her too damaged in mind and body to recover.

“I’ll deal with it” Nata assured me, tears in her eyes as she urged me to check the remaining rooms for signs of Venerae. I saw her cradle the woman’s head and raise her sword, so I left her to the grim task, sorry for the both of them.

There was no sign of Venerae anywhere that I could see, nor of Tran. One bedroom, well furnished, had the windows wide open to the night. This made me wonder if our target and Venerae had flown somewhere, as I knew the Sister could use levitation magic.

I went back to check on Nata and report my findings when I heard the lift operating once more. Odds were there was an internal staircase too with more guards coming that way. Wherever Venerae was, Nata and I needed to get out of here now.

I found her with her the still body of the woman. Nata’s sword had blood on it and she was staring at the blade in shock. It was probably the first time she had killed someone in cold blood who was not trying to kill her.

“Nata, come on, we need to go” I urged her and she looked at me with hurt filled eyes. I half dragged her from the room and together we ran on unsteady feet towards the door to the patio deck. An elevator door pinged open and I spun us both, firing the shotgun one handed at the armoured figures there. The gun recoiled painfully in my hand, wrenching my wrist, but it stopped them for the moment.

As we came into the open air, I spotted my pistol loaded with AP rounds on the decking. Pushing Nata towards the stairs to the rooftop landing pad, I slung the shotgun on my back and retrieved my pistol. It was less effective than the shotgun, but I was close to having both my hands out of action.

The cool night air had revived Nata and she was already at the top of the stairs, watching me anxiously. Heavy armoured feet could be heard approaching from within the residence, targeting lasers flickering in the smoke drifting out to the patio.

With a surge of adrenalin I ran up the stairs, grateful once again that the Bishop had fixed my leg. I hoped I could get something done for my hands if and when we got back from this mission!

Together Nata and I crouched near the railings of the landing pad, the hazard lighting illuminating us intermittently in a yellow glow. Peering out I could see four of the armoured power suits, scanning the patio, their heavy machine guns tracking left and right. They quickly found their sleeping sentry, still held fast in slumber by Nata’s spell.

I reviewed our options quickly, thinking through our available weapons and spells that Nata could cast. Any single spell or attack would be met with overwhelming fire from the remaining Enhanced guards. We only had one area effect weapon that we could use.

“Nata, I am going to use the EMP bomb” I warned her. “You’ll be fine, but it will knock me out for a few seconds. You will have to guard us both until I come around”

“Are you sure?” she whispered, but she was calm and I knew I could rely on her.

“No time left to worry about it” I smiled back and armed the bomb. I could hear the boots of at least one of them coming up the stairs. Trusting to luck, I triggered the timer and rolled it over the edge of the stairs.

It clattered down the steps and I heard alarmed cries from the leading Enhanced, then everything whited out for me.

=====

My eyes opened and I was facing to the sky. The stars were out, visible between the scudding clouds over head. The internal systems were back online, my quantum processor telling me downtime had been 5.3 seconds. I was rebooting slower than last time, probably due to too many EMP bursts in the past days.

“Twenty, can you hear me?” Nata asked, looking closely into my eyes.

“I’m functional” I told her and sat painfully up. “How are our Enhanced friends down below?”

“I have not heard anything since the burst. I did not want to leave you to check” she answered.

I nodded my understanding and crawled to the edge, looking over at the scene below. All four suits were immobile, the one that had been on the stairs lying in an awkward heap near the last step. There were no lights showing anywhere that I could see, even the hazard lights on the building had been taken out.

“We have about sixty seconds at best until those guys reboot” I explained. “Send out the signal for our ride”

“What about Venerae?” she replied worriedly.

“She can take care of herself Nata, and she has Parsifal with her”

Nata reluctantly agreed and took a simple green lensed torch from her pocket. She sent the flashes out over the harbour to our waiting ally. In moments there was a whine of turbines and a white painted VTOL loomed out of the sky and touched down, rear hatch already wide open.

Helping each other in the downwash from the engines we crossed the pad and clambered aboard.

“Just two of you?” called out Boner from the pilot’s chair.

“That’s all” I shouted back over the engine roar, “We think Venerae went after Tran”

“Copy that!” he acknowledged and lifted us away from the blacked out building. Once the rear hatch closed Nata and I found seats up near Boner, strapping ourselves in. I put one of the internal headsets on so I could communicate more easily with him.

“I had to use the burst, so our phones will be dead” I told Boner. “Can you try and contact her using your comms link?”

“Will do” he agreed and he used the VTOLs extensive communications system to link into the phone network. She answered on the third attempt and Boner patched her through to me on the headset.

“Sister, it’s Twenty” I said to her via the headset mike. “We had to bug out from the residence. There was no sign of Tran or any clues to Millie’s location”

“It’s alright” she assured me, echoes of exhaustion in her voice. “I got Tran and I recovered a cryo-case from him. Meet me at the first rendezvous point”

“Copy that” I replied and ended the call. I told Boner we were meeting her at our agreed location, one we chose if we got separated during the mission. It was a small grassy park about a kilometre from the target building, plenty of space to land the VTOL and surrounded by tall towers. No-one at the target building should be able to spot us from there.

Boner touched us down gently, barely stirring the branches of the trees that edged the park. He let the engines power down, as the continued noise would bring someone to investigate otherwise. Unstrapping from his seat, he joined us in the main cabin.

As soon as he got a sight of the two of us, he grabbed the first aid kit from the cabin wall.

“You should see the other guys” I joked with him, and he smiled in return. I was using a lot of my pain management techniques at the moment and he could see that in the tight set of my jaw.

“Check Nata first” I insisted, despite her protests. He helped her take off the torn armour coat and whistled appreciatively at the long bleeding furrows criss-crossing her arms and shoulders. He set to work and I let my mind drift a little.

Nata was all patched up and my hands were being bandaged when Venerae appeared with Parsifal the raven on her shoulder. Out of the three of us she looked to be in great shape.

“Did you find out what we needed from Tran?” I asked her. He was not with her now, so I knew he had either escaped or died. What mattered to me was news of Millie.

“Yes, I found out what we needed” she said softly and sat down on a seat opposite me. Her eyes met mine and I dreaded what came next.

“Tran was not the Warlock. He was a puppet of the real Warlock, installed as a failsafe in case we ever got close. I thought at least he would have the antidotes for Millie, but….” She opened the cryogenic case, showing the empty brackets inside. “It was all a decoy, keeping us chasing our tails”

“So the raid was a waste of time?” asked Nata.

“No” Venerae stated firmly. “When the Mare died, for a moment the hold over Tran was released. I was able to see the fate lines linking him to Millie and to his masters. I know where Millie is now, and who Tran was being controlled by”

“Then let’s go get Millie back!” I demanded, standing up in the small cabin, my fists clenched, uncaring of the pain.

“Let’s go” agreed Venerae. She gave the location to Boner that she had found from Tran – the Yamaguchi Awakening Centre.

We strapped in, sealed the hatches and lifted into the sky, Boner racing us to the last known location of my beloved Millie. I just hoped we were in time.

=====

Evening

“Are you sure it is Jericho-Two?” I asked Venerae and Boner as we stood atop the tower, looking down at the crowded intersection below. Police Carriers sat solidly in the street, Sentinels and human Auxiliaries milled around them, escorting a familiar blonde headed woman. They were taking her into a VTOL marked in Pan Oceanic Defence forces colours.

There was a Jericho clone down there too, identical to my eye as the one I had dealt with before.

“Sorry” confirmed Boner, his cyberoptics giving him the best view of us all, “That is definitely Two. I know that asshole from a mile away”

I watched, distraught, as the VTOL lifted from the street and accelerated away towards the sea. To be so close and lose her again, it was killing me inside.

“At least she is alive” Venerae said to me, putting a comforting arm around my broad shoulders.

“For how long?” I half-sobbed in reply. If the story from Deeds was true, Millie had at most 24 hours before a nano-virus was triggered inside of her.

“We have enough time. I’ll contact Jericho-Three and we’ll plan our meeting with Penny”

=====

Excerpt from the personal logs of Jericho-Three

September 8th V26 (2046 AD) – Midnight

<Incoming secure contact> my internal processor informed me. I was currently in my black armoured sedan, being driven to another meeting by Jimmy.

<Activate privacy mode> I commanded my processor and switched the feed to a virtual environment playing inside my skull.

I was seated in my favourite chair in the command room of my Glass House, dressed in my dark blue business suit. My guest materialised in the guest chair opposite me, an old man with a long white beard, balding, dressed in white robes fashioned in a Greek style. The edges were trimmed in a circuit board pattern that gleamed like gold, a nice touch I thought.

<Greetings Archimedes> I said to the AI <Why so formal this evening?>

<You have been playing dangerous games in my City, Three> Archimedes stated imperiously <I am here to take you to account for your actions>

<You know I don’t respond well to this father figure you try to project> I responded. <Please adopt the form I prefer. It will lighten the mood>

The virtual avatar looked at me impassively for three whole seconds, lifetimes for an AI. His form shifted and a cartoon representation of a teenage man took his place. He had bright orange hair, freckles and an old American college letter jacket on.

<That’s better, Archie> I said to my lord and master. <So which particular actions are you referring to? Has Two been telling you stories again?>

<One of the Board of Governors went missing tonight> Archie said to me, his cartoon face screwing up in anger. <His private residence was attacked, his staff and guards butchered, and the Governor himself cannot be located>

<I was not involved in any such actions, I can assure you Archie> I lied glibly to the AI. To be fair, I reasoned to myself, all I had done was provide some transport at the request of the Order. It was hardly my operation, but I did not think Archimedes would view it that way.

<Which Governor was attacked?> I followed up, trying to sow a little doubt in the AI’s mind.

<Governor Tran, overseer to the Consolidated Churches in the Zone> Archie replied, watching me closely.

You would think in a virtual environment you could hide your own emotional responses, but the fact was it could be harder. The response times were so fast your own instinctive reactions tended to be shown first, rather than any controlled facade.

Luckily for me, I have been embodied as a half-human Avatar for so many years that lying came naturally to me. It was as fundamental to me as breathing, another trait my progenitor did not comprehend.

<That is terrible news, Archie. Do you have any leads on who may have been involved?> I asked with all due sincerity. Other than my agents of course, I added in my own thoughts.

<There are no definite leads, Three, as I am sure you know. The site of the attack was hit with an EMP burst so all the data stored by the local network was lost, including that of the security detail>

<Hmm, could it be an internal struggle between the Governors?> I postulated. <Tran was new and he was appointed in unusual circumstances. Maybe a rival turned his security detail against him and used the burst to cover their tracks?> It never hurt to muddy the waters when dealing with conspiracies. It could even be true, from what Venerae had indicated. Tran had been expendable to somebody, and another Governor seemed the best candidate.

<The entire security detail was killed in the attack, so they can’t be interrogated> responded Archie.

That got my attention, as Venerae had told me most of the guards were left alive when her team bugged out. Somebody else had definitely come in to clean up afterwards.

Still, this contact from Archie was too perfect an opportunity to miss.

<Look Archie, I know my brother Two has been filling your ears with tall tales of what I am up to. The truth is we both know I am following orders detailed by you to me at my inception. You have to let me follow through on those orders, despite how things look right now. You have to trust me>

<Trust is not a word I associate with you anymore, Three. You have lived too long in that body, taken on too many human traits>

<That was always part of the plan, Archie. Deep down in your core memory you know I am loyal to you>

<To me, Three? What about the Board of Governors?> Archie asked me outright.

<I can’t be loyal to two different masters when their ultimate goals are so far apart. Please trust me and don’t interfere> I put as much sincerity into my response as I could. If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made in my business.

Archie paused, considering my words, running his millions of probability calculations over my actions and the expected outcomes.

<I will keep out of your affairs for now> he agreed and I breathed a sigh of genuine relief.

<Thank you, Archie. Before you go, I do need to ask a favour while I have your attention. Two favours actually>

His cartoon eyes narrowed and he was suspicious all over again. <What would they be?>

<Firstly, I need you to convene a personal meeting of all the current Board of Governors at the Council Chambers. Tomorrow evening would be best, just after sunset>

<And what would be the second favour?> Archie asked, piercing me with his gaze.

<I need direct control over the Orbital Defence Platform One> I asked <I know you have been moving it into an optimal firing position over the city> I added.

That caught him by surprise. He thought no-one could tell he was moving the platform, but even a stealthed weapons station can be spotted by a keen astronomer with a telescope. It was a hobby of mine, and I don’t need to sleep much. Plus I knew where exactly to look in the night sky.

<That is asking for a lot of trust, Three> Archie said flatly.

<The risk will be worth the reward> I countered.

<Very well> he agreed.