CHAPTER XXI
FREEZE AND DIE
Ruzik and I waded through the meadow, separated by a few meters. The midmorning sun shone in a sky with drifting puffs of cloud. A fat gibbous moon the color of a lavender-rose hung above the horizon opposite from the sun. It was a glorious scene, the type that the tourist bureau used to great effect on their mesh sites, but all that streaming sunlight did nothing to illuminate why the drone fired. These fields of knee-high grass that looked so idyllic were a royal pain to walk through. The guardian drone purred above us, spinning along, following our path as we made our way back and forth across the field where it had fired.
“Max,” I said. “Can you connect yet to the guardian?”
“I did for a few moments,” he said. “I lost the link. I’m going through verification with PAC security to get back in. However, I managed to double-check the location where it fired before the link dropped. We’re in the right place. Its log lists it as firing at a ‘person or person-like’ object.”
Person-like indeed. “Is the shroud still hiding our person-like presence?”
“Yes, for both you and Ruzik. Its optical range is limited, however. The holo-images it creates using your clothes and the holo-dust on your skin only work around your body. When you leave a trail in the grass, it shows after you move away from it.”
I waved at Ruzik, and he came over, leaving a path of trampled grass in his wake. He stopped next to me. “See nothing.” Putting his hands on his hips, he gazed over the field. “Not person, not beast, not thing.”
“Same here.” I hooked my thumb at the drone spinning above us, its engine making the barest hum. “If it shot someone, or at a robot that looked like a person, it must not have hit them.” A shot from the high-powered guns in the drone would rip apart its target even if it only grazed them. It could sedate them, though. “Maybe shot sleep stuff.”
Ruzik glanced toward the distant forest. “Maybe target hides.”
“I have a link to the drone again,” Max said. “It fired when it detected the signal of someone in the meadow loading a pulse rifle in the grass.”
Well, shit. “It thought someone was about to fire at us?” I considered the forest, which stood about half a kilometer distant, then turned to the road, which ran by about ten meters away. “Here?”
“Roughly,” Max said. “A meter east and toward the forest from your location.”
I waded through the ocean of grass. “Max, why is traffic so sparse on the highway? Not one vehicle has driven by since we started searching this meadow.”
“With Selei City under lockdown, people are staying home.”
“Ah. Good.” The fewer people exposed to danger, the better.
Ruzik walked at my side, matching my pace so automatically that I wouldn’t have noticed if the thick grass hadn’t kept interfering. I’d never realized until I left the Undercity how the members of dust gangs matched pace with one another when we walked or ran together. It was the antithesis of a competition, where you wanted to pass people. We couldn’t run in this grass, though; it fought us for every step.
I focused on the surroundings, listening. A bird trilled and the sawing of clack-crickets filled the air. Delicate scents drifted past my nose. Even after all these years, it never stopped surprising me how nice flowers could smell. The distant rumble of Selei City created a background I’d become so used to hearing, I noticed it only when I listened for the sound.
Bhaaj, Max thought. I think I’m getting life signs from people up ahead.
How confident are you of your detection?
Almost certain. They are within a few hundred meters and appear to be crossing back and forth in the meadow. The pattern suggests they are searching for something.
Us, maybe?
Possibly. If the drone shot one of them, however, they may be searching for that person.
What can you tell about them?
One has biomech augmentation, also tech-mech that creates a damping field. It’s affecting the guardian drone, enough that it has stopped following us. I’m also having trouble reaching it through the damping field.
Keep trying. Let me know if we get too close to the people out here. Ruzik and I continued on, approaching the forest, until Max thought, You’re within about five meters of them.
I drew Ruzik to a stop. At his puzzled expression, I motioned for silence. As I unholstered my pistol, he pulled out his knife.
Take care, Max thought. The sunlight is washing out the holos camouflaging your presence. Your jammer is shrouding you from other types of signals, however. I don’t think they know you’re here.
Ruzik touched my temple with a questioning look. He wanted to know if I was talking with Max. I nodded, then gave hand signals to indicate rival combatants in the area. Max, can you direct me toward the people sneaking around out there?
Technically, you and Ruzik are the people sneaking around. Before I could respond, he added, They stopped up ahead, slightly to the left. I wouldn’t advise going more than a few steps closer.
Got it. I took a single step with Ruzik at my side.
Got it, bought it, Max thought.
What? That made no sense.
My apology. I’m glitching a bit as I do repairs.
Ruzik touched my shoulder, then pointed to our left and tapped his ear.
I nodded. Max, can you crank up my hearing?
Done.
Sounds jumped into prominence—including voices.
“—where she went,” a woman said.
“They’re probably in the city by now,” a man said. “When their shroud went down, I detected them as heading in that direction.”
Do you think they’re talking about me or the cyclist? I thought. Or both?
Probably you, Max answered. Ruzik never lowered his shroud, and you did when you talked to Colonel Majda.
Ruzik indicated several trees up ahead, a trio of old wizen-oaks hunched together like leafy magicians casting a spell. Looking more closely, I made out five people standing under them, three women and two men. Although they had no shrouds, they wore clothes with leafy green patterns that helped them blend with the scenery.
They’re so young. I felt older by the minute.
I’d estimate in their twenties, Max answered.
One of the men tapped at his wrist gauntlet. “She shot at us with some type of gun.”
“It was a sedative meant to knock out, not kill,” a woman said.
The other man spoke dryly. “Yes, well, Chuk is still asleep.”
Ho! Looking closer, I saw a sixth person, a man sitting crumpled against a tree. Max, how many sedative shots can the drone fire?
It has nine doses left. It also has a round of six bullets.
Ruzik signed a question to me: Do we fight?
No fight, I signed. Got to ken. I wanted to know their identities and who they worked for.
Ruzik nodded, his body tensed in a defense posture that he could easily turn into offense.
Max, make every record you can of their conversation, I thought.
I’m on it.
“It’s that PI,” one of the women was saying. “Lajon screwed up. We have to finish the job.”
“We never agreed to murder.” The new speaker sounded uneasy. “Just capture.”
I stiffened, aware of our vulnerability out here, spying on them. Their voices blended together, similar enough that I couldn’t easily distinguish them, but with a recording from Max, we could do an analysis.
“We agreed to stop her,” another woman said. “She’s helping the technocrat killers.”
“All that business about her solving the murders and acting heroic is fake news.”
“The police are trying to rack up points with the Progs.”
“She’s spinning for the Royalists.”
“That bitch can’t really work for the Majdas. Not that boy either. You saw what he looked like, all sexed up and tattooed. He’s asking to get fucked.”
Someone laughed. “You sound like a Trad, my Modernist friend.”
“Yah, well, they’re vermin. Those people have scuttled down there for generations, homeless dregs, drug dealers. No one important will care if they die.”
“We’ll make it look like they shot each other.”
Ruzik raised his middle finger to them in a sign that needed no interpretation.
I struggled to control my anger. That’s quite a feat, I thought to Max. Supposedly I helped plan murders when I wasn’t even on the planet. I’m spinning for Royalists and Majdas, yet Ruzik and I are scum so low that no one will care if we die, and Ruzik is asking for whatever because they find him sexually attractive. On top of it all, we are somehow benefiting from the nonexistent influence of the party most opposed to the Royalists. Even the Modernists are getting in on it now.
I have a record of it all, Max thought.
Good. Send it to Hadar. It’s proof that they are plotting murders. At least my murder, and Ruzik’s as well. Ask Hadar if he can send a police unit out here.
I can’t reach the station. The damping field is blocking me.
“What the hell?” one of the men said, tapping at his gauntlet. “I’m getting a signal from close by. A life sign, it looks like. Maybe two of them.”
I froze, barely breathing. As Ruzik tensed to fight, I shook my head at him. We were two against five, one with biomech. We crouched in the grass, extra cover in case they could see us through the holos that made us look like part of the scenery.
The group studied the land, their gazes passing over us. “No one is here,” a woman said.
“They’re here.” Biomech turned in our direction. “Shrouded, I’d bet. Lay down suppressive fire, covering this area. We’re bound to hit them.”
Shit. Ruzik met my look with the same one of his own. I signed Use “avoid pattern.”
The taller woman raised her arm—and I’d recognize a pulse rifle anywhere. Ruzik and I launched into runs, crouched in the grass, racing in opposite directions.
“There!” someone yelled. A rifle shot cracked, and the ground a few handspans from me exploded with dirt clods and grass flying into the air.
I dropped and rolled, firing in their direction, sending serrated bullets whizzing through the air, along with an EM pulse to screw up their tech. Biomech would have protection for his web, but I could mess with his other tech.
Another shot blasted the day, nowhere near me this time. I fired again, letting the targeting system on the pistol lock into the sound of the other gun. Another shot hit the ground ahead, sending up a spray of dirt. Even as it hit, I was rolling to the side. I pushed into a crouch and ran zigzag through the meadow. The waving grass didn’t reveal my location until after I passed. I dropped to my stomach and wiggled forward, then to the side, trying to disturb the meadow as little as possible while moving away from my previous trajectory. Another shot blasted, but wherever it went, it missed me.
Combat mode on, Max thought belatedly, given that I was already using it.
“Where is he?” a woman said. Even with augmented hearing, I barely heard her.
“I’m not sure,” Biomech said. “He’s stopped moving. I’m not getting any life signs.”
Fury washed over me. Had they killed Ruzik?
His shroud hides his life signs, Max said. Same with yours. He may be doing exactly what you’re doing, using stealth.
Yah. But the guy with the biomech detected us anyway.
No shroud is perfect. The farther you get, the more you look like a clump of grass.
Did you reach the cops yet?
Sorry, no. The guardian drone is still hovering, but it moved closer when they started firing. The damping is interfering with its behavior.
I grimaced. These people were more adept than I wanted to acknowledge, if they had the savvy to damp the behavior of a guardian drone.
“I’m pretty sure I hit the man,” one of the women said.
“We need to be certain,” Biomech told her. “You two go check for him. You others, come with me to find the PI.”
If we could reach the road, we could run for our lives. I’d outpace any of them, even Biomech, particularly with my shroud making it harder for them to get a good shot. Unless they were trained runners, they most likely couldn’t catch Ruzik, either—except for Biomech.
A muffled cry came from a distance, and then a shout.
“What the hell?” Biomech said. “Kala? Hayard? Come in.”
A woman answered with the tinny sound of a bad comm link. “The bastard—he knifed Hayard . . . bleeding . . . doesn’t look good.”
Ruzik! He was still alive. I continued to crawl through the grass, on my stomach but tensed to jump into a run or defend myself.
“The grass is disturbed here,” a woman said from nearby.
“She can’t be far,” a man answered.
I stayed low and didn’t move, letting the holos disguise me.
Highcloud wants to talk to you, Max thought.
Max, this isn’t the time! Shroud us! I stayed low, holding my breath as they walked closer.
“I don’t see her,” the man said.
“She has to be here.” The high grass rustled as they moved in my direction.
I tensed as they came into view, their heads visible against the sky.
Highcloud says its important, Max thought.
In the same instant the woman said, “She’s here!” I jumped to my feet, kicking my leg at the man while I hurtled into the woman. As she twisted away, my boot connected with the man’s stomach and he stumbled back with a grunt, struggling for balance. I grabbed the woman and swung her hard, hurtling her into the man. They crashed together, and I took off, racing for the road, at least as fast as I could go through the grass. An instant later, the air rippled, and I could see a blurred outline of a tall man running at my side, like wind in sunlight—
And the damn rocks in the field tripped me, sending me stumbling into Ruzik.
“They’re headed for the road,” a woman called. “Cut them off!”
Your red beetle found Angel, Max thought.
Max, shroud your signals! I thumped Ruzik’s arm and indicated a swell of land on our right. We veered toward its marginal cover.
You need to talk to Highcloud, Max thought.
Max, you’re glitching again. Ruzik and I scrambled over the hill and slid down the other side. If you have a wireless link, comm the police for help! Then cut your wireless and hide.
“I knifed one,” Ruzik said in a low voice. “Left him alive, not awake.”
“Hit two, but they can still fight.” I crouched behind the hill, peering through the grass. My augmented vision showed our pursuers moving low in the grass, using tactics similar to ours. Three were approaching the hill, the two I’d knocked over and one other woman. The man I’d kicked now moved with a limp. Behind the trio, Biomech was jogging to catch up with them.
I spoke in a low voice. “I get bio-man. Also tall woman.”
He nodded. “I get other two.”
We moved to the side, preparing to fight.
Bhaaj, I’m sorry, but you need to talk to Highcloud, Max thought.
I can’t. I watched our pursuers intently. We have no link.
Use your gauntlet comm.
Are you crazy? Talking out loud will target me. Ruzik and I kept moving, going in different directions so we could come at our pursuers from both sides. You’re not working right.
Max answered in combat mode, his words accelerated, coming like shorts bursts of energy. I’m not malfunctioning. Red found Angel. Angel found more dust. I did turn off my wireless. First, though, I commed Colonel Majda and gave her Angel’s location. I couldn’t reach the police.
Good work. I nodded to Ruzik, who had crouched behind a clump of dog-flower bushes.
The head of a man and a woman showed against the sky. Even as I raised my gun, they dropped to the ground, taking away my targets.
Bhaaj, wait! Max thought. You can’t kill any of these people. Do you understand? You must leave them alive, like you did with Captain Lajon’s team at the cabin.
I can’t promise that. Give me the heads-up display for my gun.
The display appeared like a translucent holo floating before me. I focused the targeting system, trying to locate the two people I’d seen for an instant.
Bhaaj, listen! Max’s voice came with urgency. Don’t kill any of them. You have to trust me. DO NOT KILL THEM.
I gripped my gun, hyper-focused on the scene. You know I can’t promise that. It may come down to their lives or mine.
I understand. I’m sorry.
You’re asking me to give my life for these people who want to whack me and Ruzik? You want me to trust you, when you’ve been malfunctioning all day? I studied the hill, scanning for motion in the grass. Ruzik drew his mammoth knife, ready to throw the blade.
Yes, that’s what I’m asking, Max thought.
Saints almighty, WHY?
I can’t tell you. Bhaaj, trust me. We’ve worked together for decades. Trust in that.
My thoughts spun. Why would he ask me to save people who wanted to murder us?
The grass flickered on the hill’s crest. My gun locked onto the location and my finger twitched on the trigger. I had to decide now. Trust a possibly damaged Max with my life, yes or no?
I knew the answer. When my gun calculated a possible target for me to shoot, I held back. Even if I shot only to disable, I didn’t have a clear shot. I might kill them.
I signed to Ruzik with my free hand. Not kill. Disable.
Might have to kill, he signed.
Nahya, I signed. Must not.
He answered with a sharp motion. Why?
I wished I knew. Must swear. Even if we die.
For a moment he stayed utterly still. Then he signed, Shit.
My thoughts exactly.
Grass swayed on the hill. Our four pursuers were coming over the crest from different directions. Max. Can you locate the one with biomech?
I’ll have to activate my wireless. It means he might locate you, too.
I’ll take the risk.
Done. He’s coming over the center of the hill, with two people to his left and two to his right. They are spread out by about sixty meters.
We needed a distraction. Where’s the guardian drone?
Toward the road, about eighty meters to the right. It’s searching for you and Ruzik.
I peered where he indicated. Yah, I could see it, or at least sunlight reflecting off its burnished surface. Can you bring it over here to shoot these assholes?
Not through this damping. It’s effective. The drone doesn’t realize you’re in trouble.
Can you reach the army base or police?
Me, no. The drone can reach the base if it knows to try. Bhaaj, a signal just pinged off my security shield.
In the same instant I lunged to the side, a shot hit the place where I’d been crouching. I kept moving, keeping my body low. Leaning forward, I sprinted up the hill, covering distance as fast as the grass would let me move.
Guardian, my apologies, I thought—and aimed at the glinting orb. When I fired, a crack broke the silence and the drone exploded in a burst of light, noise, and sparks.
Now it has a reason to contact someone, I thought.
The moment it exploded, a signal went to the PAC lab and PARS base, Max thought. Bhaaj, veer to your right. The biomech man is moving.
As I swerved right, grass fluttered to my left. I jumped and spun in the air, coming down where the grass had moved. A woman gasped as I collided with her. She tried to grab me, but I twisted out of her grip even as I clenched my hands together and brought them up hard into her solar plexus. She grunted, stumbling back, and I lunged. I wanted to hit her again and again and again for calling me less than human, scum, vermin. Instead I socked her once, knocking her to the ground. Before she could recover, I flipped her over and knelt on her legs, pulling back her arms. I had no hand-locks, so I yanked off my belt, moving so fast I broke the clasp. I bound her wrists, then jumped up—
A weight smashed me from the side and sent me sprawling in the grass. As I hit the ground, I twisted and vaulted to my feet, facing whoever had struck me. It was Biomech, his leg up and already stretching out in a kick. I kept twisting, using the force from my leap to spin away from the blow. Biomech only caught me on the hip, but hard, throwing me off-balance, his body blurred by camouflage holos. He fought with perfect form, like a work of art, deadly and fast.
I was faster.
My combat libraries calculated both the expected damage of his kick and the trajectory for mine. In that instant, I knew his blow would kill me if it hit home. His elbow strike would come straight down on my throat. With his body in the air, gravity would add enough force to his blow to break my neck. Then I saw the rest—my kick would also get him in the throat, and I’d broken solid cement blocks with that strike. My leg was longer than his arm; I’d get him first.
I would kill him.
I was already turning, but instead of kicking, I pulled back and twisted away. His elbow got me in the arm, and the crack of my bone breaking sounded like a gunshot to my enhanced hearing. I hit the ground, rolling over stones and weeds. I couldn’t feel anything yet, but I couldn’t react with the speed I needed. With my time sense slowed, I saw Biomech coming in for another blow, raising his hand. A dart whistled out from a tube on his wrist gauntlet and hit my neck like a tarantula-hawk stinger. He had a Thunder-240 revolver in his other hand. I kept trying to get up, but my traitorous body wouldn’t respond. In an instant, I saw it all: the serrated bullets in his gun would tear apart my torso, sending shock waves through my body. My last thought, as he aimed his gun, was that I’d never know what Max considered so important that I had to die for it.
In the same instant that Biomech’s finger touched the firing stud, a shadow slammed into his knees. His shot went wild, exploding the dirt behind me, and cracks split open the night, rat-tat-tat, like breaking bones. He screamed and collapsed, his legs buckling. I kept trying to get up, holding my broken arm against my body, but nothing worked. Biomech had also shot me with some drug, a poison that flooded my system, slowing my already strained combat mode, shutting me down. I couldn’t breathe. As I pushed onto my knees, I saw what had hit my would-be killer.
Ruzik.
He knelt over Biomech like an avenging war god. In motion that looked surreally slow, even though I knew he had incredible speed, Ruzik raised his knife into the air with both hands gripped on its massive hilt. Biomech tried to throw him off, but with his legs bent at unnatural angles, he couldn’t get the leverage to move the giant who had him pinned to the ground. Ruzik’s knife glinted in the sunlight. I could see exactly where it would hit; he was going to stab Biomech through the heart.
“Ruzik, stop!” I shouted. I didn’t know why I was trying to save Biomech, this killer who may have succeeded in finishing me off with whatever poison coursed through my body, but I yelled anyway. “Don’t kill him! STOP!”
Ruzik froze with his arm raised high, his entire body poised for the final blow. I knew then, in these last moments of my life, that I truly was an empath, because I felt how much Ruzik wanted to plunge that knife into Biomech’s chest. Battle fury surged through him. Biomech stared at him, his face pale, his gaze terrified.
Ruzik lowered the knife.
He was breathing hard, not from exertion but from the strain of holding back. He stood up, staring at Biomech, who wasn’t going anywhere with two shattered knees.
Ruzik strode over and knelt down, touching my arm. “How bad?”
“Broke.” I collapsed onto my back. “Arm heal. Body die. No air . . .”
“What?” Ruzik leaned over me. “Bhaaj, not ken!”
Max spoke fast. “She was shot with a poison called multitubocurarine. It causes paralysis. She can’t breathe.”
“Bhaaj!” Ruzik grabbed my gauntlet and smacked the comm. I had no way to tell him how to use it, but it didn’t matter. He must have watched me contact people hundreds of times.
“Lavinda Majda here,” Lavinda said. “Bhaaj, why am I getting such a patchy signal? And who shot that drone?”
“Bhaaj is dying!” Ruzik said. “Send help.”
Max spoke. “Colonel Majda, they shot her with neuro-freeze. She needs the antidote now. It’s affecting her biomech. I’m losing internal contact with her web and nanomeds.”
Lavinda swore far more colorfully than I’d ever managed. “We already have a Quetzal headed to where the drone exploded. Are you there?”
“Yah,” Ruzik said. “Very close.”
“In a field by the highway,” Max said.
“I’m letting the pilot know your location and that they need the antidote.”
“Tell them six hostiles are scattered around here,” Max said. “All armed. One unconscious man is in the trees about half a kilometer distant, a man with biomech is collapsed a few paces from our location, and three women and another man are close to our location, unconscious or tied up.”
“Goddess,” Lavinda muttered. Someone spoke to her in the background, and then she came back on. “How long since Bhaaj was shot? If it’s a fatal dose, they say she’ll die within minutes.”
“Still alive,” Ruzik said. “No breath.”
“Do you know CPR?” Lavinda asked. “Can you give it to her?”
“Yah, can give,” Ruzik said.
Well, what do you know, my insistence that the Knights get an education was bearing fruit. My mind drifted as I suffocated. Of course they needed CPR . . . our people died all too often . . .
I was dimly aware of Ruzik giving me breaths, then compressions, breaths, compressions, again and again. The world blurred. When Ruzik lifted his head, I whispered. “Wait. Got to swear.”
“What? Bhaaj, got to breathe for you.”
I grasped his arm, using the last movements left in me. “You take charge of Dust Knights. You hear me? You sabneem now. You top teacher.”
“Nahya! You sabneem.” He went back to CPR, working, working, working . . .
The roar of Quetzal fans intruded on my dimming thoughts. I could no longer reach Max . . . too much noise . . .
When Ruzik stopped for a breath, I whispered, “Max?”
“I’m here,” Max said.
“What was so important about not killing . . . that I had to die for it?”
He said, “The survival of the human race.”
That sounded too dramatic to be true. With a sigh, I closed my eyes—and died.