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“Ready?” Ken Jackson, the cybernetics technician, asked from behind the thick armored glass partition.
“Ready,” Reaper replied.
“Any time, then.”
Reaper stared at her left palm, and the two naked electrical contacts implanted there. Then she placed it against the grip held in a vise attached to the electrical workbench, and without further hesitation, triggered the discharge.
Her whole body jolted as electricity bled through her hand and out her palm, but most of it went where it was supposed to: into the device, whose current function was to measure its efficacy.
“Excellent! Over ninety-nine percent delivery to target. How do you feel?”
“A bit tingly, but nothing I can’t handle. Healing already.” More importantly, it appeared her new, heavily insulated cybernetics had come through without difficulty. Hopefully the cyborg Shadow Men she might target with the blast would not be so immune.
“That’s just a raw discharge,” Jackson said as he stepped into the room with her. He detached the test cables from the device in the vise, then opened its grip and removed it from its hold. “Try this. Safety, trigger.” He handed it to her sideways, rather than butt-first.
Reaper turned the bulky pistol-thing over in her hands. “Palm contacts meet up with the grip studs.”
“Right. You fire the discharge, which dumps the power into the weapon’s capacitors. Pulling the trigger fires an electromagnetic pulse tuned to what we believe are the Shadow Men systems.”
“Why so complicated? Why not just put batteries in the thing?”
The tech looked at her askance. “I’ll show you. Give it to me. Remember, it’s unpowered now, so don’t freak out.” He took it from her, then suddenly turned it on her and pulled the trigger. “Pow,” he said. “Oh, look, I can’t use it. Only you can. In fact, that gun only knows you. Not even another friendly can use it.”
“Amusing. So EMP will screw me up too?”
“Assuredly.” Jackson handed the gun back to her. “You wouldn’t be incapacitated but you will lose all your cybernetics for at least a minute. Back to Eden Plague and nano, and an extra ten kilos of useless crap to carry around. It should reset after that, but...”
“Got it. How often can I use it?”
“Your bio-generator should recharge within fifteen seconds or so. I know, that’s a long time, so we have some other anti-Shadow goodies.” The tech opened a padded case and took out a baseball-sized object. “This is just a mockup, but it’s fully modeled, so you can practice. EMP grenade. Roll one into a room and pow, it will shut down everything with a computer or unshielded electronics. Best you not be there with it, of course.”
Reaper nodded. “Okay. Anything else?”
“New Personal Weapon Twenties with the new heavy Needleshock ammo. Fifty caliber. Five times the kinetic energy, ten times the electrical discharge.”
“Sounds lethal. That could be a problem, with the normals.”
Jackson pursed his lips and looked away. “There’s a risk. Eighty percent of normals should survive one hit. Ninety-five percent of Edens.”
“Hmm. I can live with that if I have to. I can always carry a PW5 for the easy shots. Anything else?”
Jackson perked up again, a kid showing off his toys. “Yeah, we have a whole bunch of stuff, more than you can really carry.” He looked through the armored glass and remarked, “I see your partner is here.”
“Partner?” Reaper turned around to see a familiar pretty face. “Rock!”
Roger “Rock” Muzik stepped through the door, an Adonis with weary eyes. “Good to see you, Reap. I guess we’re doing this thing together.”
“Great to see you too, sir.” She grabbed his right hand and shook it warmly, but with a slight hesitation, looking at his left. “Your arm...”
“Yeah, it’s regrown. Good as new. Took me a few months...like your legs, I imagine.”
“Don’t remind me. So, other than new limbs, how are you, Colonel?”
“Not Colonel, right now. My commission’s been inactivated. We’ve both been handed over to the minions of Hell,” he said drily.
“What?”
Muzik shooed the technician out of the chamber, closed the door and lowered his voice. “By Presidential order, we’re now part of the Agency.”
“Agency. CIA?” Reaper rubbed her arms, as if a chill had come into the room. She didn’t like the feeling of being detached from the military, as if suddenly unbalanced, with a piece missing.
“Yes. And that also means I’m working for you this time.”
A slow smile crept across her face.
“I see that suits you,” Muzik said.
“Well, McKenna had said I was going to be in charge. Then when you showed up...”
Muzik waved his hands. “Don’t worry. I’m fine with it. Besides, you have a lot more experience with all this cyberware inside us.”
“Us? They augmented you?”
“Yep.” He held up a hand, showing the palm contacts. “Amazing stuff. My cyberware is only set to ten percent right now, to keep me from jumping off the ground and banging my head on the ceiling by mistake. They’ll ramp it up over time as I get trained. Takes some getting used to.”
Reaper laughed. “Welcome to another transformation.” She looked over and waved at Jackson through the window. “Might as well continue with the presentation.”
The tech nodded and came back in. “Of course. Through here.” He led the way to the next room, a big place with more bustling techs and many workbenches.
“Here’s your armor. With your increased strength, it should be no problem to carry. It’s based on the Space Marine design, but with no need to be airtight, we were able to add a few things...”
