Chapter 19 #3
She couldn’t tell if he meant the tech scanners the team regularly used or his hidden talent.
“High-end tags are micro-powered arrays designed to be undetectable in standard scans. You’d have to catch them when they’re broadcasting or being directly narrow-pinged.
Otherwise, they read as metal decoration. ”
“Fuck.” He stopped and turned to look at her. “We can’t go home.”
The rhythmic thuds sounded louder than ever. She glanced uneasily toward the street. “Maybe we should have Minan come get us?”
Minan’s tone beeped in the earwire. “No can do. The military just interdicted the whole district. If you are tagged, it had to have happened after we were evicted from the opening gala. Otherwise, their super-scanners would have caught it. If anything you’re wearing now is the same as this afternoon, dump it. ”
Arco didn’t hesitate. She unsealed her coat, then pulled her folded display from the big inner pocket and stuffed it into the waistband of her pants. It dug into her belly as she shrugged out of the coat.
Brenner grabbed it from her and balled it up with his, then ran back to the tech bin and tossed them in.
She pulled her flexin tunic open and shrugged it off fast before the drizzle glued it to her skin.
She let it drop in the mud puddle, then stomped it flat.
Thank the universe that boots and pants had been too functional to wear to a gala, or she’d be running through a construction site in nothing but flexin long underwear and a half-tank bra.
Brenner threw his flexin tunic in the mud beside hers, then slid his utility vest back on.
The rhythmic thuds became louder and more distinct, almost syncopated.
Brenner started westward, toward a dark melt-glass hopper. Steam clouded around it from its residual heat.
She sped up into a trot to keep the bone-chilling cold at bay for a bit. “Riverfront, or south?”
He caught up with her. “Minan, where are the public transport sta—”
A tremendous, ear-bleeding screech of metal dragging on road glass arose north of them.
Her brief glance behind them at the reflection from the opposite building’s windows told her all she needed to know.
A monstrously huge spider mech, lit up like an amateur winter solstice display, marched down the street they’d just left. Its two dead legs dragged an array of debris — decorative awnings, chained benches, pedestrian bridge railings. The spider slowed.
She and Brenner dodged around the blessedly warm hopper and ran straight into a dead end made by a newly poured glass wall. They ran back around the hopper and headed north.
The spider ground to a halt on the street. Its top spotlights blazed brighter, illuminating the ground, buildings, and the sparkling, wet sky.
Brenner ran up a stack of collapsed crates, then turned to pull her up and help fling her over to the other side. “What weapons does a spider have?”
Tōn Ko’s voice came over the earwire. “Can’t tell. Newscasters said this one is a Model Zed -something, Mark E, for experimental. No attack weapons, supposedly, but defenses and full-spectra scanners. Motion, heat, tech, fuel residue, biomass, you name it.”
Arco snorted. “It doesn’t need attack weapons. It’s got feet.”
She rounded a three-meter-high container and had to stop. Brenner bumped her but grabbed her shoulders to pull her back. An exposed subterranean level was now an inky lake, surrounded by high walls.
Turning, he pointed back the way they came. She followed. Tiny ice pebbles were interspersed with the drizzle.
Her earwire squealed a deafening tone. She scraped it off her jaw, stumbling in pain as she stuffed it in her pocket. Military jammers didn’t play around.
Just as they crested the top of the stack of crates, the spider took three giant steps into the site. One foot landed in the hot tech recycling bin and split it open.
Two tentacle arms arrowed down from the control head and plunged into the spilled contents.
In front of them, door-shaped holes gaped in the warehouse’s sagging wall. More stacks of collapsed crates sat beside them. Beyond the light pools from outside, the interior looked as void black as deep space.
Brenner slowed and pointed toward the warehouse. “Live security tech in there.”
“Better than being squashed.” She held out her hand, hoping he’d think she shook with cold, not fear. “Come on.”
For a split second, Renner wanted to be Faraday Brenner. To take Arco’s hand and run. Hide. Be safe.
But she wasn’t just Arco, she was Charrascos, the dangerous woman who worried the CPS enough to send a weapon of urban destruction after her.
And he wasn’t just Brenner. He was Runner, the survivor. Sparks, the minder freak. Renner, the rage machine.
Now he knew what the universe wanted. Protecting her was what he was made for.
“Go in and find a place to hide. The tech is probably alarms.”
Her expression turned frigid. “If you get killed, I’m firing your ass.” She spun and disappeared fast into the warehouse.
He didn’t have time to wonder what her nonsense meant because the spider thudded two more steps closer.
He started pulling current from every available source his talent had already found. The orange business building, city infrastructure systems, the dormant construction equipment, neighborhood storage batteries, anything he could touch and channel.
The charge danced on his skin. Decorative metal studs on his pants and vest grew hot.
Moving stiffly, because his skin was already cooking with the price for using so much talent, he stalked toward the spider. To pull this off, he’d need physical contact with his target. He headed for the closest foot outside the smashed tech bin.
The impatient charge he’d gathered fought to be free. Soon, he told it.
He sent tendrils of talent to the spider, checking for vulnerable spots. Its heavy shielding was breached where the dead legs dangled, and he was in.
The controls were clearly designed for humans to operate inside, but no one was there.
The systems reminded him of an unoccupied Jumper’s mech suit, with multiple failsafes and AI assists meant to keep its operator alive in a war zone. Which meant he’d have to hit all the spider’s ambulatory systems at once. He needed more power than he’d ever—
Jagged pain lanced his mind. He fell to one knee, control faltering. A flood of memories crowded into his consciousness.
He had pulled power like this once before.
A townhouse. An impact explosion that felt like a meteor strike.
Killing attackers inside and out. Davidro exiting, ordering him to get Georgie’s percomp.
The door controls failing. Collapsing walls.
Exultant that death would come from something besides the motherfucking collar.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Not now! Rage rose, giving him the strength to get up and start walking again.
A gust of wind blew icy sleet against his naked chest and arms. It felt good on his burning skin.
He almost missed the tip of an articulated tentacle as it rose out of the trash and pointed toward him.
Out of time. With one final lunge, he latched onto the spider’s foot and released the flow.
The tips of his fingers glowed blue with plasma discharge. The walker’s safety systems responded. He used their own power against them, overwhelming limiters and blowing past bleed-off gates.
His questing talent found the controls to the walker’s primary defense, a focused electromagnetic pulse, and burned them out. The last thing he wanted to become was a step-up transformer for a killer mech.
Agony erupted. The walker’s tentacle arm pierced his lower calf.
He sent a charge that seared both it and its approaching twin. More pain, but maybe it cauterized the wound.
The walker leg’s lights beneath his hand flared so brightly that they blinded him.
He didn’t need to see to pull more power. AIs tried to reroute and isolate systems, but were no match for the deluge he sent them.
Above him, small explosions went off, vibrating the walker’s foot under his hand. The walker was losing, which was good because he was running out of power sources. Out of strength. Out of time.
And maybe he shouldn’t be directly under a mega-kilo hunk of incalloy armor when it finally collapsed.
Still blinded by phantom black bars, he slid his free hand down his leg until he got to where flesh and bone converged with a metal tentacle. Even jostling it hurt like fire.
He dumped one last charge into the walker’s systems, then let go and sank to one knee. Every inch of him screamed in pain. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed the tentacle and pulled it out, hand over hand.
No scream he could make was loud enough to shout away the torture. There would be no walking on that leg.
Falling to his hands and knees, he crawled. The only light came from the dying spider, and even that was dimming fast. Sleet felt like needles on his newly burned skin.
The spider walker’s lights went out, plunging the world into darkness. He had no charge left, not even enough to power a seed light.
Crawling was all he could do. His brain felt muzzy.
To his left, a tiny light blinked three times. “Brenner, it’s me.”
Relief collapsed his elbows, landing him face-first in the mud. He didn’t care. Arco was safe. Now he could rest. His world tunneled to a pinpoint.
“Don’t you fucking die on me, asshole.”
He loved his red angel’s way with words.