He emerged out of the smoke and flame, running over the top of the car that du Bois had blown up, heading towards the Range Rover. Most of the clown mask was gone; underneath was some monstrous face out of a TV show but somehow rendered horribly real. He was coming straight at Beth. She levelled the .45 through the gap between the door and the car, the door battering into her legs with each impact from the running monster’s massive handgun. Beth fired the .45 rapidly, emptying the pistol into him. He staggered with every shot but kept coming.
King Jeremy hunkered down behind the van as the blond guy fired at him. From his position he could see Dracimus cowering behind a car further along the road.
‘Get up and shoot!’ King Jeremy shouted over their internal link.
‘I’m shot!’ Dracimus answered.
‘Don’t be such a fucking pussy; it can’t kill you.’
‘You haven’t been shot. It really hurts!’
King Jeremy turned to point the modified AR-15 at Dracimus.
‘Stand up and fucking shoot!’
Inflictor barrelled into the door of the Range Rover, slamming it so hard into Beth that it knocked her insensible for a moment. He opened the door and grabbed her, turning as he threw her through the air. Beth hit the ground some eight feet away. Dazed for a moment, she was quickly scrabbling for the shotgun still on its sling.
Du Bois turned to see the clown lift the massive Desert Eagle and point it at Beth.
He moved wide to get a shot, bringing the FAL carbine to his shoulder. Behind him the gun clown who’d taken cover, the one du Bois was sure he’d shot, rose from behind the car. Too late du Bois realised his mistake and turned back to face him.
Dracimus fired. His first shots were a long undisciplined burst, but then the skills they’d hard-wired into themselves kicked in. He brought the gun under control and fired a short burst and then another. He grinned as he made the blond guy – who in his augmented view of things was his most hated goody-two-shoes superhero – dance in the middle of huge explosions of blood.
As the monstrous clown brought the Desert Eagle up, Beth knew that she’d never bring the shotgun to bear in time. The flame from the pistol’s muzzle looked enormous, and she actually saw its slide shoot back and the ejected cartridge fly out the side. Then again, but the slide stayed back this time. Good. He couldn’t shoot her any more.
She was dead before her head hit the ground.
King Jeremy and Baron Albedo moved across the street in a low crouch, weapons at the ready like they’d seen in films. King Jeremy went around the front of the Range Rover, Baron Albedo the back.
King Jeremy found Inflictor standing over the woman’s body. There were two massive entry wounds in her chest.
‘That was fucking insane, man!’ King Jeremy said, checking she was dead and clapping his friend on the back. Inflictor turned to look at him. He’s probably seeing a fellow demon, King Jeremy thought.
‘Let’s hurt it,’ he said, meaning the dead woman.
‘Er… she’s dead, dude.’ King Jeremy could hear sirens now.
‘Did you see that?! Did you see me fucking kill him?!’ Dracimus said as he ran across the road. He stopped to stand over the blond guy’s body. ‘Oh yeah! He’s all kinds of fucked up!’
King Jeremy resisted the urge to shoot Dracimus. He was pissed off that Dracimus, who’d been a pussy throughout the gunfight, had got the kill shot on the guy.
‘Check them for tech!’ King Jeremy barked.
‘Why, man?’ Dracimus said. Baron Albedo was already searching the blond guy.
‘Because I fucking said so. Inflictor? Inflictor!’
The demon-faced boy turned to look at King Jeremy.
‘Get the girl out of the back of the car and put her in the van.’
Inflictor nodded and went to do as he was bid.
‘King J?’ Baron Albedo said. He was holding up a small leather case. King Jeremy went over to look at it. Albedo had unzipped it by the time he got there. Inside were some vials, blood, a white fluid and some other bits and pieces that Jeremy didn’t immediately recognise. He shrugged but took the case.
‘Anything else?’
‘Not without looking harder.’
‘The sirens were getting louder. Across the road, Inflictor was tossing the heavy speakers of the sound system out of the van one-handed.
‘No time.’
King Jeremy, Dracimus and Baron Albedo ran across the street back to the van.
28. A Long Time After the Loss
The top of the arcology tree falling towards the planet had become so many burning meteorites. It was quite beautiful, Elite Scab thought as he watched the flaming matter crash through the inhabited branches far below. People who thought themselves good lied to themselves. When you’d seen it, done it, you could not deny the beauty of destruction on this scale, of mass murder, the music of screaming.
He was keeping his systems stealthed. He wasn’t going to make it easy for them when his death came, but not too hard either. They would be able to find him if they looked.
He felt calm, tranquil. He had always resisted the idea of fate. He liked to believe that he had made his own path, but he had been a slave too long, he now realised. He had thought that the inevitability of his death would feel like a trap, but it was quite the opposite. He felt liberated.
He watched the ponderous yet somehow strangely balletic approach of the massive capital ship over the planetary horizon of Game. It didn’t eclipse the G-type sun but its outline obscured a significant part of the bright star.
Thick fingers of light reached out for him, bending slightly due to the gravity well. Kinetic projectiles burned as they were shot through the bubble of the atmosphere. According to his suit’s scanners, or rather its instinctual understanding of space and the information contained in his neunonics, the capital ship had just fired every one of its AG-driven smart munitions. The munitions were accelerating to the limit of material science.
He knew the ship. It was called the Necronaught, a childish name to Elite Scab’s mind. A powerful AI helped run it. The AI had bonded with the crew, making the ship almost alive to them. They had a relationship with it. The Necronaught had wreaked havoc on the Pangean fleet during the Art Wars. It had been among the first ships through the planetary blockade and the ship most significantly responsible for the death of one of the Living Cities.
What a waste, Elite Scab thought. He was in a different physical state by the time the first beams reached him, too different for them to harm him. He took his time making his way towards the craft. He wanted to appreciate the display of firepower. He could make out the burn of other smaller faster ships making their way towards him.
He remembered the last time that he had seen a display of the Necronaught’s firepower, huddled in a crowded mercenary carrier broadcasting constant cries of surrender and pleas of clemency for independent contractors. He saw the bright lances reaching down from high orbit. Watched the sky become a canopy of fire as the kinetic payloads hit the atmosphere. Slowed down in his neunonics, he watched the AG smart munitions blossom into multiple sub-munitions and the wreckage of escaping craft start to rain down on the scarred rock surface. Scab, as he’d been then, had picked his escape craft based on the strength of its defences.
At some level all of them had felt the death of the Living City. Scab had disliked the violation, the suggestion that at some fundamental level there was an empathic connection between all living things. Instead he wondered if the crew of the Necronaught felt like gods. He wanted what they had.