Chapter 27 #2
I rolled off him just as the other enforcer seemed to recover and was scrambling to grab the black device.
But in his rush, he fumbled, and I slapped it out of his hand before hitting him again.
He stumbled back against the wall, and I punched him over and over.
With every punch, my mind played an image of Lyra being shot.
The only thing that stopped me was the feeling of my pinky knocked out of joint, and I stepped back, huffing, and popped my finger back with a wince.
The enforcer slumped to the floor. His face was a bloody mess, and I couldn’t tell if he was even still alive. I already knew the other was dead, and I didn’t feel one bit bad about it. Weird, since a week ago, this would’ve made me puke. Instead, the pain was keeping me focused.
I grabbed the black device and held it up. “What the hell is this?”
It’s a micro-targeted, cycling-pulse EMP. It very nearly knocked me offline.
“But you basically go offline with every upgrade.”
“I never go offline. I enter a standby mode, operating all processes at a lesser degree to allocate resources to the upgrade. I’ve told you before, you cannot function without me just as I cannot function without you. We are dependent on each other.
“I thought you were being facetious.”
I was being factual. And I will endeavor for that to never happen again.
I was not anticipating such a weapon and am already replicating EMP-shielded nanites to envelop my core.
You will certainly notice a drain in energy and an increased need for calories as I perform this operation.
We were very fortunate the designer of that weapon made an incorrect assumption: they assumed that I was fully technological in nature.
“You aren’t?”
Not in the way humans understand technology.
Kynan groaned again, and I rushed to him. He’d come to somewhat—his eyes still struggled to focus—but he managed to meet my eyes. “A little help here?” His words were slurred.
I pulled out the knife I’d taken off the enforcer back in the Crawl and cut his restraints, then helped him to his feet. He was wobbly and would’ve fallen if I hadn’t wrapped my arm around his waist. “I got you.”
“We need to move. Their amps would’ve fired off emergency pings when their hosts died,” Kynan said.
Assisting him, we left the room. I carried a blaster in my right hand.
I accessed their amps but am not operating at full efficiency yet, so I could not intercept the pings.
Fortunately, I do not believe these men notified their superiors that they received a tip on our location; otherwise, all thirty-two pairs of enforcers and ninety-one drones currently assigned to patrolling the slums would be in this building.
“They probably wanted the bonus all to themselves,” I said.
“Bonus?” Kynan asked.
In the hallway, the skinny rat glanced around the corner. I glared at him, and he scurried off. He was probably waiting for his own payoff for turning in fellow human beings. I glared at the space he’d been in before replying to Kynan. “Nothing.”
Unfortunately, it’s safe to assume every pair was given a micro-targeted, cycling-pulse EMP. Until I can strengthen my EMP shielding, it’s best we avoid them.
We made it to the ground floor without being intercepted by enforcers or drones, which confirmed Byte’s theory that the pair was acting on their own.
But once we headed outside, it’d be just a matter of minutes before a drone caught us on their video feed.
Kynan’s strength was quickly returning now, and he managed to walk on his own, pulling out his own blaster.
As we approached the entrance, the door opened, and we raised our weapons.
Talon saw us and smiled, not the least bit fazed by the blasters. “Seems like I’m always bailing you fellas out of trouble.”
Kynan holstered his blaster. “Not always. There was that time at Tallimon Station.”
Talon smiled. “Ah, yes. That was totally worth it.”
They embraced. I lowered my blaster but didn’t holster it.
When the pair separated, Talon said, “Dreswick’s got an infestation. We need to get you out of here. I’m parked right outside.” Then he shot me a side eye. “And you owe me an AV. Don’t think I’m going to forget, either.”
He held the door, and we stepped out to find a white Nutriva Transport Systems AV parked at the curb.
I’d seen the logo before—a planet made of brightly colored shapes of fruits and vegetables—often parked at the market, dropping off food and supplies for the various vendors.
Nutriva Transport Systems was the world’s largest food shipping service on TerraSoft-11.
There were easily dozens of them driving around any hour of the day.
Whether this was an official truck or just painted to look like one, I now wondered how many times those trucks were being used as cover for resistance activities.
He opened the back of the truck, and Kynan and I climbed into the narrow space in the center not filled with boxes of food.
“It really is a food truck,” I said.
“Of course,” Talon said. “But if we get stopped, there’s a false panel near the front. Kynan’s used it once or twice. Make yourselves comfortable and keep quiet. To get where we’re going, we have to drive by a whole fleet of security AVs and drones.”