‘What do you want?’ MacFarlane asked, apparently growing bored.
‘You bought something from a park rang-’ I managed to get out.
‘Kill him,’ MacFarlane said. Oh for fuck’s sake, I thought as the world around me slowed down again. The Mastodon was in my right hand, the laser in my left. A ruby-red beam joined the muzzle of the laser pistol to one of MacFarlane’s bodyguards as he tried to stand up. There was the sharp bang of exploding superheated air molecules and a scream from the guard as some of his flesh became red steam.
I swung the Mastodon under my extended left arm and pulled the trigger. The huge revolver round caught one of MacFarlane’s men as he tried to bring a sub-machine gun to bear. The bullet hitting him with such force it blew him through the bridge window and sent him tumbling to the deck below. My shoulder-mounted laser pushed itself through the break-open panel on my long coat. The split-screen targeting system appeared on my internal visual display, imposing crosshairs on the two gunmen diving for cover behind the bar. The laser hit one of them in mid-air; the second gunman managed to get behind the bar. The shoulder laser tracking him took an informed guess as to where he was and fired again, the ruby beam stabbing through the bar. There was a howl of pain.
Guided by the smartgun link, I fired the Tyler twice more at MacFarlane’s two remaining guards, catching one in the temple, turning the back of his head into a steaming mess on the wall. MacFarlane was screaming, trying to use the two terrified girls as cover. The other guard tumbled out of the way. I’d underestimated him, or his ware anyway.
I swung to the left. The two gunmen at the table by the broken window were trying to bring their weapons to bear. The Mastodon fired again, catching one of them in the chest, and three bright red beams fired in quick succession took the other one down.
Then things became interesting for me as low-calibre, high-velocity, rapidly fired rounds began impacting on my long coat. Most of their kinetic energy was absorbed but a few of them were making their way through to my dermal plating. I started running and dived behind the bar. Trying to work out where the fire was coming from. I landed hard behind the bar. Bottles exploded, showering me in cheap unpleasant booze.
Looking up I found the gunman who had dived over the bar previously, whimpering. He was clutching a wounded leg where half of his thigh had been seared off by my shoulder-mounted laser’s blind fire. Moving more on instinct and boosted reflexes than anything else, I let the Mastodon drop to the floor and reached forward, my right metallic hand a clenched fist. The four nine-inch knuckle blades extended from their housing. They pierced the top of the wounded gunman’s skull and drove down with such force that his facial features contorted. I retracted the blades in a spray of blood, bones and grey matter and picked up my revolver again.
Moving through the visual spectrum to thermographics, I looked through the bar to see who was shooting at me. I saw an orange blossom of muzzle flash from the table where the salary man had been sitting. The bodyguards had decided that I was a threat to their employer. The red beam of my laser seared my thermographic vision momentarily as I burned through the bar and into the salary man’s head. There was a cessation in the gunfire.
‘Your client’s safe now!’ I shouted angrily. ‘Mind your own fucking business!’ There was no return fire. The heat outlines of the salary man’s bodyguards told me they were staying in cover, their guns cooling.
I stood up. Further down the bar the barman was watching me. He inclined his head toward the port stairway to the bridge. Filtering through the noise I heard boots ringing off metal stairs. I was still worried about the whereabouts of MacFarlane’s remaining bodyguard. I’d somehow managed to lose track of him.
I ignored the wild shot from MacFarlane’s underpowered but still very fashionable, last year, automatic pistol. Walking to the doorway, still using my thermographics, I was suddenly treated to the silhouetted spectacle of mass, impoverished rutting. The containers were giving off a lot of heat into the summer night air. However, I had more pressing matters as reinforcements came pounding up the stairs. I reached the top of the stairs and began firing down with both the revolver and the laser. Firing rapidly but accurately thanks to the smartgun links. Shooting through one gunman to get the one behind him. My shoulder laser stabbed out repeatedly into the containers at those guards who thought sniping would be a safer option. Glass exploded around me and a few bullets hit my coat, penetrating but being stopped painfully by my dermal armour.
The firing stopped and I swung back behind part of the bulkhead, both my weapons hot and empty. The speed and strength of the wired and boosted enhanced kick that caught me in the side of the face had sufficient force to spin me round. It was rank amateurishness on my part that the kick had caught me out. Then the other guy made a mistake. He did not press his advantage.
I tried to shake off the ringing in my head and looked up at my opponent. MacFarlane’s final guard wore a knock-off expensive suit that was big enough to allow him to move. He had no hair at all anywhere on his gleaming skull. A few tattoos crept up past his collar line. His movements suggested that his ware was top-notch and he actually had skill. He was bouncing easily on the balls of his feet, his hands in a lazy guard. This was MacFarlane’s showpiece fighter, his fashionable martial artist, the best reactions, muscle and skills that the street economy could provide.
‘Square go?’ MacFarlane’s pet martial artist asked. Tradition, see? It didn’t matter that we both had high-end skills developed initially in the Far East, this was still Dundee. I should have shot him, but I looked around at the carnage I had wrought on my own, just me, nobody else. I felt the buzz. I holstered my guns. The combat high stupidly making me feel invincible. My shoulder laser tucked itself away.
The fighter smiled and threw something at me as I began moving, but he was wired almost as well as I was. The lighter hit me and I went up in flames from all the cheap booze I had been covered in. Was this supposed to stop me? It wouldn’t even hurt until I slowed down. Red warning symbols had come up on my visual display as I moved towards my opponent. MacFarlane’s martial artist swung out with his fist at me. I spun out of its way.
One of the first things I’d been taught in the SAS is that you never use a kick in a serious fight. They’re too slow and anyone who knew what they were doing would take you down before your foot got anywhere near them. However my mother had brought me up to use Muay Thai, and I was wired, and I was angry and I was on fire.
The spinning roundhouse kick hooked into the back of the boosted martial artist’s skull. Staggering him, the flames forcing him to move out of the way. A side kick to the torso knocking him further back. I slapped his counter-attack out of the way, vaguely aware that my hair was on fire now. I leapt into the air, my burning knee catching the martial artist hard under the chin. He flew back, and while still in mid-air I extended my leg out and kicked him in the chest.
Landing, I closed the distance and elbowed him on either side of his head. He tried to recover, kicking me, but I raised my leg to block him and then kicked him in the knee. The knee broke and he hit the ground. As he tried to get up I kicked him in the sternum, flipping him over. My claws went through his chest and into the metal floor beneath him.
I stood up. Despite dampened nerves and internal painkillers, the flames were becoming too much. The chemical retardant of the fire extinguisher came as a welcome release. The barman put the extinguisher back beneath the bar. On the bar was a dirty glass of the same muck we’d drunk earlier. I picked it up, knocked it back and made a disgusted noise.