Los Angeles 2170, page 13
It was eerie how quiet that machine was, but the newest models were being marketed as assassination tools, and not just security toys for corporation. And it wasn’t like the corporations had to worry about laws anymore with full extraterritoriality.
It was like running a mine and happily being able to ignore all the environmental laws of the old United States, Canada, and every damned tribe with a claim to these mountains.
Bastards.
The beast moved down the trail. She could see the pilot’s paranoia as he stopped every five feet to watch and probably listen. Once, he pivoted fully in place, just to bring all the good cameras and the turret on the chin around, just in case someone was going to sneak up on him.
She would never do that, right?
The flyer spun back and moved another twenty feet at a pace even Annamae might appreciate while hiking. At least until she was serious about the thunderthighs and oversized butt.
Lights ripped the night apart, spearing the little chip where she and Chappie had left it.
He paused for several seconds, perhaps smelling the trap? Too bad he didn’t have a nose.
Annamae gripped the bow tightly and pulled the blanket back. She rose to her knees like an old woman doing tai chi.
Drew an arrow back to her chin. Sighted down the yew shaft.
Offered a prayer to Artemis and released.
It felt wrong coming off the string. Too much excitement. Not enough practice for a kneeling shot.
She hit it. Hard to miss something the size of a cow at thirty-five feet, but it wasn’t a kill. One of the rotors failed as she put the arrow through the propeller shaft instead of the controller pod.
The rigger might not have been smart enough to dial down all the skin and pain sensors. Most weren’t. This one would have just felt an arrow enter their thigh.
Painful. Possibly debilitating.
She needed fatal.
The beast started to turn, slewing around to bring the guns to bear as it opened fire randomly.
She had time for one shot, and then maybe they would be holding a funeral service for her back home.
Annamae stood and drew as one. It wasn’t quite as natural as firing from horseback, but she had practiced this one standing shot ten thousand times, as the ancients commanded.
The gun continued to fire, but it was still wide and turning. Third or fourth shot would probably be fatal, once he got turned far enough that she was in the light, and not just movement in the darkness.
She breathed out and released, concentrating all her rage on the arrow as it flew.
Artemis was pleased.
The arrow entered the primary sensory controls, a case-hardened tip punching through the cheap aluminum and plastic housing to strike something important.
The machine collapsed and died.
For a vehicle rigger, it would be like getting your spine severed by a fine knife. You might live for a bit as things wound down, but you could not move and death was coming.
Annamae exploded from cover and circled the downed drone.
She pulled out her screwdriver and jammed it into the radio controls. One quick twist and the antenna came loose in her hand.
Good luck finding this thing before sunlight, bastards.
Annamae sucked oxygen deep into her lungs and let it try to burn off some of the extra padding around her bottom. Anything.
She pulled her two arrows out of the beast, feeling like a toreador collecting ears in an ancient bull ring. Back to her blanket, fold it up, bugs and all, and worry about cleaning it tomorrow. She stuffed it into her pack, slung it back, and managed a halfway decent jog to the clearing.
Whistling, she paused just long enough for Chappie to swoop down and land, clamping on so they could move through the forest ahead of any pursuit.
It was likely that they had other observation drones they could send after her, but she had killed the ready ones on the launchers on the roof, so she figured she had fifteen or twenty minutes before anyone got them out of storage and ready to come after her.
In that amount of time, she would be gone.
And if they wanted to chase her through the wilderness, Canada was only a day and a half away. The Mounties were still right bastards, but she could avoid them, most of the time, especially if she was leading someone else’s armed mercenaries into a trap.
She set out cross-country, laughing quietly at what somebody’s stock price was going to do when the news of this fiasco got out. No more trucks rumbling down that main street, filled with straw to spin into gold.
Maybe they would learn to leave the wilderness alone. Or at least behave.
Lessons Learned
She had the correct access badge to be present in this arcology, and in this park, enjoying this glorious day, so after hassling her the first time, and getting verbally abused with threats to get them fired, the local cops had decided to leave her alone.
They just weren’t prepared to have someone with a Class-Prime citizenship playing guitar in the park. Probably gave them flashbacks to rousting buskers in a transit center or something.
Daria could have stayed in her suite and practiced, like she had for the last month. All the physical wounds were healed, after all. It was what was messed up in her head that would take longer.
And the electric guitar on her hip helped. She had cranked the volume way down, to the point that you had to be within twelve meters to even realize she was playing, and much closer to make out the tune, so she wasn’t bothering anyone who couldn’t just walk on for another ten seconds to be out of range.
Today’s audience consisted of a late teens au pair taking a two-year-old for a stroller ride in the park. The older girl wasn’t much into blues, but the kinder was gurgling and swaying, clapping along to whatever rhythm was in her head. She wasn’t old enough to have that kind of sadness in her soul.
Not like Daria.
So they played the blues together, the two of them. It was safe enough in here. The security forces swooped by with a semi-autonomous drone every once in a while, but they didn’t stay long enough to listen. Maybe there was a boom mic trained on her from one of the trees, or something.
A new figure approached. Daria scowled, but she could pretend that it was the intensity of the music, and not the sourness she suddenly tasted.
He was shorter than her, but stocky. Daria was tall for a woman, and the man barely came up to her eyes. Against the extremely mild sun, he wore a floppy hat and dark lenses over his eyes. It was a lousy disguise, but she supposed you had to know the man to recognize him, and the hat and glasses would make it hard for witnesses to describe him later.
It also concealed his dark skin and cold, brooding eyes. Today he had a patch of sculpted stubble on his chin, but none elsewhere. She noted the few gray threads starting to appear.
He had muscles, she had seen them when he wore other outfits, but she supposed this was a disguise and the only real thing most people would key on was how badly the man could manage to wear a suit worth more than most people earned in a month. Steel blue pinstripes that hadn’t been in fashion since before Daria was born. Cut by the finest Japanese tailors and hand-sewn by some weird Zen priests who used needle and thread to commune with the Buddha. But even that wouldn’t identify him to most people, five minutes after he left.
But she knew his walk.
Idly, she wondered if the man was coming to finally finish her off. Medics had sewn and glued everything back together. Psychologists had tried to do the same for her mind, with lesser levels of success.
Maybe Corlin was here to put her out of her misery.
Did she care?
The song ended, and she let the last note trail off to the squeals of a delighted two-year-old. The au pair took the silence as an escape and pushed the stroller down the walkway.
Daria stepped back from the edge of the asphalt and onto the heavy grass, until the willow tree behind her provided an illusion of privacy. Best to get this over quickly. She pulled the guitar strap over her head and lifted open the case.
Had she been seriously busking, the case would have been open at her feet as an invitation, with her credit logo handy for you to push some cash her way.
She didn’t need the money.
Ten years in the business and Daria had made enough credit to afford a Class-Prime citizenship in this arcology. And a second-tier grand suite, where most people could barely afford a two-bedroom flat down in the bowels of the monumental stone pyramid.
She had only screwed up once in her career. And had still survived that, which had surprised the hell out of everyone, including the eleven-person tactical team that had lost eight members before they finally managed to take her down and kidnap her principal.
She had even survived, courtesy of a running firefight in a well-policed, populated space, and a really good medical contract with a company who understood how to extract a wounded patient in a hot landing zone.
So maybe Corlin was here to finish her off. Who wanted to hire a failed bodyguard?
“I was hoping you’d continue to play,” he said as he got close enough, hands obviously empty and well away from his body.
Daria studied him from under hooded brows. Her new eyes were entirely electronic. Cybernetic implants with all manner of enhancements. Like much of the rest of her. For no reason but whim, she had chosen the blue implants, rather than the hazel she had had when she was entirely organic.
“Why?” she countered with almost a growl.
She would not fuss. Let the man draw a gun and just shoot her right here, right now. And be done with it. The nightmares. The cold sweats. The screams in the dead of night as she awoke a failure again.
“We’ll, one, because you’re one of the best damned guitarists I know,” he said. “Two, figure it does you good to let some of that craziness out. You are still wound tighter than anyone I know.”
“Why are you here?” she cut to the chase, already tired of this conversation.
“Got a job for you, if you’re done being mopey and grouchy,” he scowled back. “Figured that if you had emerged into honest-to-God daylight then maybe you were.”
Corlin was a fixer. If you had a problem, you called him. And it got fixed.
Didn’t matter what the problem was, or how big, when you had enough money. For those kinds of folks, credit was like oxygen. They only noticed the lack of either.
For ten years, she had been in his rolodex of solutions. Or sharp instruments, when that was the problem you needed solving. Close-combat tactical expertise, chipped to the teeth with the latest, nearly-bleeding edge in cybernetic enhancements, regularly upgraded and tuned as new software or silicon became available.
You want the best? Expect to pay well for it. But I’ll get the job done.
Or had.
Threat profile had in no way indicated an entire assault team, with rigger support and inside information. The arcade with the antique bookstore had pretty much turned into a Hogan’s Alley for her. Every time she put one down, another mole popped up shooting.
Good armor and good genes had resulted in her surviving, in spite of four newly-healed holes in her skin.
“I failed,” Daria said angrily, slamming the case shut and picking it up by the handle.
She rose and glowered down at the man.
“Pumpkin, Bob’s people have already inquired if you’d like to come back under a better contract when you were fully healed,” Corlin said. “Wanna get coffee?”
Coffee? What?
The ground under her feet felt like the deck of a pirate ship lurching in churning, stormy seas. She almost lost her balance and fell into the man, but for reflexes so fast that hummingbirds got jealous.
Daria took a stride, and failed. Stopped. Looked at Corlin again. Blinked. Blinked a second time.
“What?” she managed.
“Coffee,” he said in an exasperated tone. “C’mon.”
And walked off, leaving her to trail in his wake.
If she dared.
For a spasm, she considered walking the other direction. Back into the building and up the elevator to the room where she had been hiding since she had been released from the special clinic where they fixed her kind. Been invisible, until this morning.
Fleeing.
Corlin must had sensed it. He paused long enough to glance back at her. That seemed to be enough to break the spell holding her in place.
Two long strides could have gotten her even with the man. She straggled along behind him instead, wondering where the hell that ice cold, death-dancing bodyguard had gotten lost to.
Like most arcologies these days, the same three global coffee chains competed with each other and a handful of looser, less corporate places. The kind of random joint where she might find an open mic night to play the blues, if she had felt up to it. Or flirt with some suit whose eyes would go deerlike if she ever told him what she really did for a living.
Like the last couple of tries.
Maybe she needed to hire her own fixer to find her a boyfriend in the industry. Or one recently enough retired that they wouldn’t end up on opposite sides of a contract, but that he would still be able to see through the pain to the woman who might yet be trapped inside all this hot silicon.
Vishnu, when did you get so morbid?
Corlin of course took her to the hippiest place inside the security perimeter. Long hair, patchouli oil, and strange, colorful posters she took for antique anime vids on the walls. Tables with mismatched chairs, mismatched mugs, and the homiest feeling she’d had in months.
Shit, have I completely lost it? Is it really time to retire? Twenty-nine’s getting up there in this industry, even with artificial reflexes and available replacement parts.
Daria concentrated on the mug in her hand and sipped at the darkly-roasted concoction it contained. Like maybe she could read her fortune if she drank it all and studied the remains at the bottom of “Santa Loves Me Best” on the outside.
Corlin mostly ignored her and fussed with his tea. Of course he had to have it so just-so that it was easier to hand the man a pot and the fixings and walk away. Most of the man’s life was like that.
It was only his suits that were treated like they were junior varsity.
He looked up finally, apparently satisfied that his tea would meet his rigid standards of whateverness. Their eyes locked across the table and she watched the muscles in his jaw work slowly. He had removed the hat and glasses inside, showing off the one centimeter Mohawk left when he saved the rest, allowing people to see the scars left on his skull from previous adventures.
She reminded him of death dipped in milk chocolate as a disguise.
“So I know you like killing things,” he began in a calm voice quiet enough that the kids at the next table over, playing games on their pocket secretaries, probably missed his context. “However, your people tell my people that you’re really not all back yet.”
Daria scowled.
“My people aren’t supposed to talk to your people without my permission,” she noted archly.
“And it wasn’t official,” he held up both manicured hands, palm out towards her. Maybe a placating gesture. Maybe a defensive one. Or both, knowing Corlin. “However, everybody owes me favors, or would like me to owe them one. That’s the nature of the business. Suffice it to say that I know you’re taking this harder than you should. Partly, I accept some of the blame for that. Bob’s people had inquired about adding to his security retinue, but none of the threat analysis outcomes predicted the kind of day you would have, so I told them at the time they were probably overreacting.”
Daria fixed him with a hard, implacable eye.
“Thus, when I was proven wrong, I found the strike team that rescued Bob in a little over eighteen hours,” Corlin admitted. “And at a discount by not taking my normal fee.”
“Why are we here?” she asked bluntly, steering the conversation back to the original task, she hoped.
It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, rather like the rest of her life lately. Ever since she woke up to people in scrubs and security uniforms, rather than robes and harps. Or maybe the horns and pitchforks she really deserved.
The last time she had spent that much time in a hospital bed had been getting most of the cyberware installed in her head and letting it grow into place. She had been excited to fire it up and use it.
Daria hadn’t been able to find any excitement in the last month. Even just playing her guitar enough to loosen up her fingers had been pushing it, at least until this morning, when she had decided that maybe she wanted to play outside for a change. It was still the blues.
“I might have found you a job,” Corlin replied simply, studying her face, like maybe he could see her soul the way she had been looking for truth in the coffee grounds,
But if it was written on her face, she’d have to stare at herself in the mirror, and wonder about the stranger staring back from it. The woman she remembered being hadn’t flatlined at any point.
Unlike the one in the mirror staring back.
“I was hoping that maybe you’d play a little more, back in the park, when I got there,” he continued, watching every twitch. “But obviously you got up on the wrong side of the palace this morning.”
Didn’t make any sense, but he was like that. Corlin could afford to indulge in his various anachronisms, unlike Daria, who needed to stay right out at the bleeding edge at all times, else it would blow past her and eventually relegate her to working as a bouncer in a cowboy bar somewhere as a retirement.
“What kind of job?” she finally allowed the least bit of hope to peek out from the closet where she had hidden it while lying in that hospital bed. “And does it involve killing people?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Corlin said with a fake smile that at least conveyed some level of warmth that never made it to his eyes.
Like maybe he wasn’t sure she hadn’t lost it completely, and he needed to call bars looking for goon help on ladies’ night.
