Virtual Immortality Read online

  He hit the emergency lights and turned to chase. She eyed the control stick for the laser cannon and clenched her jaw at the worry of having to use it. To her relief, the rogue vehicle flipped on hazard flashers and angled into a slow descent.

  “Relax, I don’t think you’ll need that.”

  “I…” She sighed. “Something doesn’t feel right. It just came out from behind that billboard like it wanted us to see him. If he didn’t move, we would have gone right past him.”

  Vincent smirked. “It’s also possible the driver is drunk, stupid, or has a poor sense of his surroundings. I bet he saw us coming and got spooked. Breathe. It’s just two more hours.”

  “I know.” She spoke in a whisper. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” The thought of using some sick time tomorrow sounded more like a good idea.

  The grey car drifted away from crowded streets, gliding several blocks west into a deserted area. It pitched nose up as side panels split open, allowing ground wheels to slide out into position. It eased its weight into the tires and came to a halt in an area devoid of people. Vincent watched for the telltale flash that let him know the hover system powered down. As soon as he saw it, he landed behind the other car and covered it with floodlights. For some reason, the driver had made a run into in a grey zone: a lawless patch of blight occupied by those with too many legal problems or too little sense.

  The street was extra-wide with a strip of brick running down the middle where benches and lampposts sat among the gravesites of five trees. Trash spiraled around, caught in a breeze, and a stray dog scratched at a toppled vendomat two blocks away. Vincent watched the car for a moment before appraising the area as Nina combed through screens to evaluate the vehicle they had just stopped.

  Six blocks from here, the façade of a skyscraper was dying a slow death, crumbling into the street below month after month. The sight of it hinted at the edge of a black zone―an area so far lost to urban blight and unchecked cyber junkies that the government blacked it out of the city navigation system; not even the military wanted to go there.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Vincent’s uncharacteristic seriousness made Nina shiver.

  “We got a single occupant. Male, probably in his late forties.” She glanced at the panel. “Trunk is empty, no cyberware, pistol under his left arm, looks like a standard class 2 ballistic. Minimal threat.”

  A wireframe model of the other car appeared in the windscreen indicating the position and movements of its driver and his weapon. The civilian fidgeted and tapped at the controls.

  Vincent and Nina sealed their helmets and got out. The routine of a garden-variety traffic stop soon chased away her fears. They approached on different sides, and the driver lowered all the windows and kept his hands in clear sight. The man looked as worried as they felt. The sensors impressed her yet again with their accuracy in regard to his age. Traces of grey brushed the sides of his dense curly hair, and he wore a suit that looked to be on the low end of overpriced. Nina pegged him for middle management. Before Vincent could say a word, the man broke the silence.

  “I forgot about that damned conference. The traffic is backed up all the way to Sector 193. I’d been sitting on the same block for almost an hour. All of a sudden, the car took off, driving itself. Couple blocks later, it tucked up on that damn ad-bot and just sat there.”

  Nina waved her tactical light through the interior of the car and found nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Self-driving car?” Nina lifted an eyebrow.

  The driver’s dark skin glistened with sweat. “I thought the cops took it over.”

  Vincent studied the holo-pane over his left forearm. His armor’s signal processor had already linked to the man’s NetMini, displaying all the critical info and no criminal record.

  “We don’t have that capability, sir.” Vincent had heard a lot of excuses before, this one included. “Guess you figured we wouldn’t see you on the other side of that adbot?”

  “I told you; it drove on its own.” He let out a nervous laugh.

  “You know it’s illegal to fly within forty yards of those things, right, Mister, um, Benton?”

  The driver’s expression sank. “I’m sorry, officer. Please believe me. I understand how dangerous it is. The damn car did it on its own. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me screamin’ at it.”

  Vincent glanced at his arm again. Mr. Benton had an impeccable driving record.

  “I’m not as concerned with you accidentally straying into the edge of the exclusion zone as you’re clearly not a threat to the senator. Those bots are unpredictable, and, if you had hit it, there are hundreds of people on the street below that could have been injured or killed.”

  “Young man, please understand that I am not trying to make an excu―”

  He stopped in mid-word as a scream followed a series of gunshots out of a distant alley. “Oh my!” Mr. Benton turned and looked as blue flashes lit up the face of a building at a corner two blocks distant.

  Vincent sighed. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  he sight of the fog on the inside of Nina’s visor stalled Vincent in his tracks. She stared at where the shots came from, her gun slid into trembling hands.

  Damn.

  He wanted to tell her to radio for backup and stay in the car, but she would never forgive him if he treated her like that.

  “Mr. Benton. Please consider the bots a danger to you and to everyone around you as you continue to operate a hovercar in the city. Have a pleasant evening.” Vincent gave him a wave off.

  With an incredulous stare, the driver nodded and pulled away offering several assurances that he would not even share the same hover lane as a bot again.

  The screams carried a type of raw terror that neither of them had ever heard, more than some prostitute getting caught up in a gang shootout. Nina hit the panic button to call for backup. The same woman’s voice cried out, repeating the word “no” as fast as she could yell.

  Vincent whirled around the corner, sighting over his weapon at what he expected to be a rapist. What he saw made his heart skip a beat. A woman lay on the street, cowering next to a smear of hamburger that used to be a pimp. Her bright pink hair, luminous flashing fingernails, and outfit of iridescent fiberoptic tape gave away her occupation. The glowing garment left little to the imagination, and made her skin glow soft blue, purple where blood covered her.

  She crawled backwards away from a huge and grimy man that towered over her. Blood dripped from his arms and he made a slow unsettling laugh just loud enough to be audible. More than seven feet tall, he looked thinner than one would expect for his height. A huge square chin framed crumbly yellow teeth and a pair of bright orange street-grade cybernetic eyes whirred as they widened to focus at Vincent. Sticking out of his head like old-style camera lenses, they offered no hint of emotion.

  A ten-inch lime green Mohawk was the cherry on top of a murder sundae.

  Steel plating covered parts of his body, and at least one of his legs appeared to be all metal. Oversized boots with metal spikes on the sides lent a disturbing emphasis to how far away from normal this man had gone.

  Segmented hoses descended like dreadlocks from the back of his head, curving around and into the center of his back. He turned toward Vincent and they twitched as if whatever substance within them surged.

  He raised his left arm straight up in the air and grinned at him. The curved blade that jutted from where his hand should have been shimmered in a coating of heat blur. Vincent stared at the vibro-blade that could slice his duty armor like sushi. The augmented crazy pivoted his arm, ready to kill the woman. If not for wanting to make a show of it, he easily could have done it already.

  He shouted at the man to freeze. Fully expecting Nina to just stand next to him and aim at the ogre, her forward rush shocked him mute. She fired at the man while sprinting for a metal bench about fifteen yards ahead.

  “Run! Get out of here,” Nina screamed, clicking shot after shot at the monster
.

  With each blue flash of burning propellant, another slug sailed over his head. One nipped the mohawk, causing a burst of hair particles. After seven misses, she put three into his chest. His body twitched backwards. The slugs glinted blue in the old streetlights, embedded in his chest without penetrating.

  Subdermal armor…

  Nina stared at her worst nightmare come to fruition―an augmented ganger and her only weapon a pistol so small other cops called it a toy.

  The mammoth head swiveled away from Vincent, he picked at the bullets in his chest as though they itched. The glowing woman crawled forward into a run; the castoff light from her costume created a migrating glow along the walls of a distant alley. He plucked a single bullet out, licked his blood from it, and then dropped it. With a grunt, he pulled a boxy submachine gun out from under a tattered, black trenchcoat. Nina tucked herself against the metal bench when the gun came out, peering through the slats at him. Her happiness at having saved a life died as the ganger grinned at her in the same way he had the prostitute.

  “Nina, what the hell are you doing?” Vincent sounded near panic.

  Diving behind the fender of the patrol craft, he fired, hoping to draw attention away from her. His sidearm, bigger and louder, made Nina cringe with each shot. She heard every slug land, though they failed to do much beyond annoy him. The truth of her predicament crashed into her mind. She shrieked as the ganger opened fire in her direction. Projectiles ricocheted around her, clanking off the bench and clicking off the road. A few glanced off her back, hitting like punches but failing to pierce her armor.

  “Stay down, backup is on the way.” Vincent called out over the tactical broadcast channel. “We have an aug nut job in Sector 188; require immediate assistance from Division 5. This guy’s boosted to fuck and back!”

  Vincent kept shooting as he yelled; one or two brought forth small spurts of blood on impact. Except for a tiny flinch, the man ignored it. Vincent’s mind chased an elusive calm as he tried to tell himself that this ganger’s weapon should not be able to pierce Nina’s armor. The blade, however, worried him.

  “Come on… over here… over here…” Vincent muttered to himself as he continued shooting.

  The aug ignored him, lost in a euphoric haze of consumed fear. He leaned back as if savoring a beautiful aroma in the air―a woman screaming. Nina shrank tighter as bullets sparked around her. Strips of aluminum bench liquefied into twisting spirals in the wake of passing projectiles. Her cover would not last much longer.

  Giving up on his sidearm, Vincent dove into the patrol craft and grabbed the control for the laser cannon. In the time the system took to deploy from its roof bulge, Nina reached a point of panic where she could no longer remain still.

  Vincent pushed himself up, staring through the flickering orange targeting circle that appeared in the windscreen. His breath stopped as Nina bolted from cover. In a full on tear, she weaved around a light post and jumped over a tree fence ahead of automatic fire striking the ground. About twenty feet from the car, indirium projectiles bored through Nina’s left leg, chest and right arm. The high-density asteroid metal hit like an onslaught of sledgehammers. She fell forward and skidded to a halt face down on the pavement.

  Fuck! Armor-piercing rounds. Vincent pounded on the dashboard, trying to make the cannon deploy faster.

  The aug’s magazine ran dry. Nina dragged herself behind a damaged vendomat. Luminous green fog leaked from her armor’s joints as the stimsuit lining activated, filling her blood with a cool rush of synthetic adrenaline, nutrient gel, and flesh-repairing nanobots.

  He strolled after her with a lackadaisical gait, whistling a vaguely classical tune as he slid another magazine into his weapon. The eerie grin on his face reminded Vincent of a child that just got what he wanted for his birthday. A brief flash of orange traced a pin straight line from the patrol craft’s cannon through his thigh and into the alley behind him, ending his revelry.

  Mechanical irises whirred closed as the hole caught fire at the edges. The pavement behind him glowed into molten rock for several seconds before dimming. He swatted with his right hand to tamp out the flames as he careened to the ground, growling curses.

  Vincent yelled over the comm. “Nina? Are you okay?”

  He tried to take another shot but the cannon could not reach an angle low enough to hit a prone target at such a short distance. It was designed for shooting down hovercars from two hundred meters or more, not nailing a psycho aug at twenty feet.

  “I don’t know why I ran…” Her delirious voice creaked over the comm, a touch above a whisper. “That was stupid.”

  She coughed. Blood spattered the inside of her visor. Nina had never even had a bullet bounce off her armor―tonight she had taken three straight through.

  “Vincent? Is that you?”

  Shock.

  Hoping that her disorientation was just a short-term response to the adrenals in her stimsuit, Vincent tried to calm himself, knowing she would be okay. Medical technology in 2417 could easily correct a pierced lung; as long as her heart remained intact, she would be fine. Still, the panic in her voice drew him toward her. His emotions got the better of him and he did not consider the status of their assailant. No one could get back up from a weapon that could slice a hovercar in half. He ran towards her, all the while telling her to be calm.

  Nina lay on her side, covering a hole in her armor that leaked blood. No pain registered from her wounds. She stared at the shimmering fog, wondering where their backup was and why she could not stand up. Sensing a change in light, she turned. Vincent skidded into view, rolling to a marionette halt a few feet away. A thunderous crash followed as the vendomat that hit him struck and bent a lamppost before coming to rest upon the island in the road, embedded in displaced bricks. A gouge yawned open along its side from where the psycho’s blade had hauled it aloft.

  The shockwave through the ground brought Nina back to the moment.

  Vincent stared at her through bloody fragments of crushed helmet. He reached toward her, trying to speak―but only managed a weak gurgle. Driven by fear and guilt, she forced herself up, ignoring the pain that lanced through her side. She struggled with the now ponderous weight of her sidearm, using both hands in order to lift it. ‘Punctured lung detected―please remain immobile’ flashed through her field of vision. Blood seeped from her mouth as she turned to face the monstrosity that had hurt Vincent.

  He was only an arm’s length away.

  Her determined glower melted into the vacant stare of a deer in the face of oncoming traffic. The skin on either side of his mohawk wrinkled into a stack of ridges, lifted by a demon’s grin. His metal irises made a sharp whirr, widening as he soaked in her fear. The sound of banded metal cables rubbing over each other drowned out her pounding heartbeat, and his sinister phlegmatic laughter snapped her out of her paralysis.

  She fired the rest of her magazine, all six shots, into his abdomen at point-blank range. The slugs stalled in bloody puffs as frayed strands of Myofiber-reinforced muscles burst out of the skin around where they struck. He continued the smile of someone watching a stupid person repeat a task that had no chance of success, pleased that his assumption of failure was proven correct.

  Her need to protect Vincent destroyed reason and she lunged at the aug with her stun rod. He caught her with his still-natural arm and lifted her into the air. His fingers closed around her neck. The slow crunch of her armor failing flooded the helmet as the Myoboosts embedded in his arms swelled through his skin; the synthetic muscle fibers lent his body superhuman strength.

  A wash of sourness choked her breath away as her helmet’s seal broke and the diseased air of the grey zone reached her. Metal, rot, urine, booze, chemicals, and sweat all battled for prominence. Gagging, she thrashed around in his grip like a caught fish. Nina’s kicks to his chest amused him more than shooting him did; he did not react aside from that same evil laugh.

  He pulled her close. The unblinking lenses peered into
her eyes while a distorted twist of a smile curled his lips like a cat toward a mouse. The sight of her face reflected in the cold glass paralyzed her, even as he caressed her cheek with his thumb. The irises narrowed as he savored the helpless dread in her voice and tilted his head back as if enjoying a beautiful symphony.

  Her faculties returned long enough to take advantage of the distraction her looks caused. Had not she been terrified, the expression he made as her stun rod touched his crotch would have made her laugh. The dark blue sparks crawling up the sides of his head only added to the humorous effect, though Nina was far from appreciative. To her horror, the shock did not weaken his grip but rather caused him to slam her into the pavement once a wave of involuntary convulsions passed.

  H-he’s still moving after taking a stunrod to the nuts. H-how?

  A distinct crunch accompanied her landing; she felt her left arm break at the shoulder. With her right, she clawed at the road and dragged herself towards Vincent. Blood leaked from his twitching body. His eyes no longer focused on her―they stared into nowhere. Nina cried and screamed his name as everything around her ceased existing except for him. She no longer cared about the monster behind her.

  She just wanted to touch him before she died.

  She jerked as something hit her. The smell of seared flesh added to the awfulness in the air but she did not look back to see what the vibroblade had done to her. Vincent was only inches away when another impact shook her body and stopped her forward motion. The blade went all the way through her into the metal road. If she had the mental faculties to consider it, she would have been grateful that shock spared her feeling the searing hot edge. The street blurred into a patch of grey, and then flashed without warning into white blindness. The sound of a heavy vehicle was followed by loud rapports of weapon fire, men shouting, an explosion, and the faint sensation of hot flecks of something brushing across her cheek. A bestial roar of pain boomed above her, and the blade lurched out of her, burning this time. The gunfire faded to silence and numbness. Her fingers closed around his arm.