Peligroso Factory
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 2. 3. 20:52
Vienne and I nod and start drawing back toward the center of the roof. Weapons ready. Not that we know what we’re fighting against.
“Mimi?”
“I have no record of these harii.”
Slamming a clip into place in frustration, I take firing position to protect Charlotte and the EZ. A chief should never leave his crew guessing. Especially when they’re facing an enemy that scares the living wa kào out of him.
“What’s got him so terrified?” I ask Vienne.
“No idea,” she says, and pops the safety. “But Aziz is nobody’s coward.”
“Cowboy,” Mimi says, “I am detecting six humanoid biosignatures approaching at a rapid rate.”
“Approaching?” I say. “Come again? How’s that possible?”
My answer is a bone-chilling, bloodcurdling scream that I feel in the pit of my gut. “Shut your carfarging yaps!” Sarge cries out, and empties a clip into the darkness.
Silence.
“Maybe that scared them off,” I tell Vienne.
She shakes her head, as if to say, “Yeah, right, Turtle.”
“Get ready!” Aziz shouts.
Then, almost on cue, six figures leap over the railings. By frame and face they are wobblies, but they’re almost naked, and their skin is painted black and their heads are shaved bald. They crouch low, moving like jackals, slow but with concentrated power. They carry machetes and hacked-together metal shields with wicked edges that look sharp enough to slice you open.
“There,” I tell Mimi, “is your data.”
“Night vision!” Aziz yells from behind us. “And show the harii no fear!”
Vienne and I flip the night filter on our visors, and the six black figures glow fluorescent green. Their mouths are open—I can see teeth reflected in the moonlight. Globs of spittle ooze from their mouths. They’re growling now, pacing on all fours..
“Fire!” Aziz orders. “Hit the poxers before they can attack!”
Vienne and I both fire. Three-round bursts contained on the closest target. She aims at the head. Me, the chest. Through the night-vision lens, I see our bullets ripping through the air, exploding against the wall. It should have been a kill—an instant kill.
But it’s not.
The harii scatter so quickly we can’t trace their movements. Our target is a blur of motion, dropping to the deck and then rolling away, too fast for the night vision to keep up with. He is over the wall again before we can cease firing.
“Holy kuso,” I say. “I can’t believe anything moves that fast!”
Vienne pops her clip. “I can’t believe I missed.”
The night is quiet again.
Then I hear Sarge and Pinch moving to our left.
“Status,” Aziz calls.
“No casualties,” I say. “On either side.”
“Keep on your toes!” Aziz says.
A little late for that, Chief, I think.
“Cowboy,” Mimi says, “I detect movement on the south side of the building.”
“On our six!” I yell, and toss a spark grenade to the far wall.
It explodes, lighting up the roof as all six of the harii vault it and charge, impervious to the bright light that illuminates their faces, zeroing in on the EZ, where Aziz is kneeling beside Charlotte.
As I race forward to meet the harii, I feel something whistle past my head—a bullet fired by Vienne that strikes a harii, knocking him off his feet. He lands hard on the roof, flopping and frothing from the mouth.
An instant later, he’s dead.
Five harii left.
I hook-slide in the dirt and old guanite that coats the roof. Come up in firing position and flip my night-vision visor up. If the filter can’t keep up with the harii’s super-fast reflexes, then my human eyes will have to do.
My right eye on the sights, I take aim at the nearest target, my armalite set to full auto.
“May I remind you that your right eye is not human?” Mimi says.
“I’m busy!”
In the blip before I pull the trigger, everything slows down. I feel the cold stock against my cheek, the light rain hitting my skin, and the slight recoil that pushes my shoulder back. My bullets spray out in slow motion, striking the harii on the leg, then the chest, then the face.
He flies backward, and his machete goes skittering across the roof.
That’s four.
I jump over the fallen harii and am moving in on the closest target when he crumples before me. Three.
A quick glance back. Vienne’s flipped her visor, too, and is reloading. I change course to go after the harii closing in on Aziz, who is firing recklessly, not realizing that his lens is never going to allow him to hit the mark. I drop to one knee. Switch to semiauto to fire one bullet at a time. Don’t want to hit Charlotte by accident.
A bloodcurdling scream interrupts me. As I turn toward the source, I realize it’s Sarge, who is pinned to the roof under the harii’s black shield, the sharp edge pressing close to flesh. The harii jumps onto the shield with both knees, his weight forcing the shield closer and close to Sarge’s jugular.
Pull him toward you, I think, because the harii’s weight is overbalanced and one good tug would send him flying. But Sarge doesn’t budge, except to flail at the shield and kick his feet.
I take aim, but Sarge’s fat head is in my line of fire.
“Blöde gans!” I yell.
Without a second thought, I sprint toward them. Vault over Aziz. Lower my shoulder and crash into the harii. I slam into him as he stands his ground, taking the brute force of my attack. Then, rolling to his feet, he comes up swinging the machete, snarling and foaming at the mouth.
“Regulator!” I roar, and slam into him again, blasting him off his feet and pinning him against the wall.
I attack with a flurry of body blows. He counterpunches, then sidesteps and slams the tip of his shield into my helmet. I stumble backward, ears ringing. He launches at me, shrieking, and knocks me to my knees. But I dodge and grab him around the neck, then shove the barrel of my armalite into his bony chest.
“Move and I’ll shoot you!” I yell.
He grabs the barrel and holds it over his heart. “Do it!” he howls, his voice like metal grindings in an oil drum. “Kill me!”
I hesitate.
The look in his eyes charges from savage to pleading. A tear rolls down his cheek, lost in the rain falling on his face. “Kill me. Please. Before I kill you.”
“I can’t,” I say, staring into his face. It’s not the Tenets that forbid it. It’s the misery in his face. “I can’t.”
The harii grabs my hand, forcing my finger to squeeze the trigger. As the bullet enters his chest, he convulses. Someone screams—maybe him, maybe me, maybe both of us—and he’s dead.
By the time I get to my feet, too stunned to process what just happened, the remaining two harii are also dead. One lies lifeless with a combat knife in his back, near Aziz. The other is slumped against the wall with a hole in his forehead—Vienne’s signature kill shot.
“What the vitun just happened?” I say to Aziz, who is attending to Charlotte by draping a rain slicker over her. “What’re those harii and why didn’t you give us a heads-up?”
Aziz shakes his head. “I’m the chief. I don’t answer to my crew.”
I look at Charlotte, cold and scared out of her wits. I look at the harii who killed himself with my weapon. I look into the faces of Sarge and Pinch, who are just happy to be alive. I stare into Aziz’s eyes and see only fear and panic. “Why are you so afraid?”
Again he shakes his head, and something in me snaps. I charge toward him, fist raised, ready to beat an answer out of him. Then, quicker than I’ve ever seen her, Vienne steps in front of me and hip-throws me onto my back.
“Oof!” I say, even though the armor absorbs the impact.
Vienne plants a boot in my gut. “We are dalit, but we are still Regulators, and the Tenets forbid dissention in the ranks. Don’t shame us.”
“I’m not the one who should be ashamed,” I say, but I don’t fight against her. “Get your foot off me.”
But she doesn’t. Not until Aziz walks over and offers me his hand.
“The harii are berserkers,” he explains as he pulls me to my feet. “They were once workers in this factory, chosen for their athleticism, but over time, they became like rabid animals, strong and agile, too fast for anyone to shoot.” He looks at Vienne with deep respect, overlooking, I reckon, the fact that I’d taken down two of the six. “Until tonight. The Razor will be angry that you’ve killed his pets.”
“I feel just terrible for him,” Vienne says.
“Sarcasm!” Mimi says.
“Affirmative,” I reply. “You nailed that one.” Then to Aziz, I say, “That still doesn’t explain why—”
I never get the chance to finish my sentence, because earsplitting feedback from a PA system cuts me off cold.
“Aziz!” the Razor booms. “You have something that I want, and I have something you need. It is time to bargain if you are still alive!”
Aziz picks up a fallen harii. He carries the body to the wall and, with no hesitation, tosses it over. Seconds later, we hear a thump as it hits the ground.
“Am I still alive, Razor?” he yells down. “There is your answer!”
Below, a cry goes up.
Aziz spits over the edge. “And you have nothing I need!”
“I wish he hadn’t done that,” Vienne tells me as the whole crew joins Aziz.
“Why?”
“My knife was still in his back.”
“That was kind of heartless,” I say, looking down at the đibui gathered around the body.
“I’m a soldier,” she says, “not a humanitarian.”
“I didn’t know the two were mutually exclusive.”
“Aziz!” the Razor booms over the PA. “That means nothing! Give me Charlotte du Save, and I will let you and your davos go free!”
“No deal!” Aziz shouts down at him. “Why would I give her back to the man who kidnapped her?”
“Kidnapper?” The Razor laughs. “You are misinformed! Call me thief. Call me beggar. But no one can call me kidnapper!”
“If you’re not a kidnapper, then you won’t mind letting us go!” Aziz yells.
“Of course!” the Razor replies. “First let me talk to Charlotte, and if she would like to leave with you, you all may pass in safety!”
“No can do!” Aziz yells, and taps his earbud at the same time, receiving a message. “She’s tied up right now!”
“Have it your way!” the Razor bellows. “May your gods have mercy on you, because my đibui will not!”
A great cry goes up below, and in one mass, the wobblies charge the entrance, beating on the doors with every bit of rage they can muster.
“That barricade won’t hold forever, Aziz,” I say.
“They can’t get higher than the bottom floor, but it won’t matter,” he replies. “Our extraction vehicle just made contact. ETA is two minutes.”
Sarge pumps the shotgun attachment on his armalite. “So all we have to do is keep those collywobbles pinned down, and we’re home free.”
An explosion shakes the factory. Then a second, a third, and fourth. Smoke billows from the stairwells. Looks like the đibui have access to explosive material.
Oh, joy. “Care to revise that theory, Sarge?”
“Theories ain’t my bag, pretty boy,” he snarls. He throws his weapon to his shoulder and hoofs it to the west exits. “I deal in realities. Hey, Pinchie, you got the east doors, right?”
“Right,” Pinch says, and checks her weapon. Her face is blanched. “Đibui. Harii. The Razor. Rain. Mud. Now they’re got explosives. I never signed up for this kuso. You two watch yourselves.”
“Roger that,” Vienne says. “I’ll cover the north end. You get the south.”
“What if they break through before we can exfil?” I say.
Vienne shrugs. “Then we do what Mimi always told us—shoot until we’re out of ammo.”
“Mimi never said that.”
“Not to you, maybe.”
I move to position, covering the south exit doors, then check to make sure Charlotte is holding up. Aziz is beside her, talking on his mic. I can’t hear him, and in the darkness, I can’t read his lips, but he seems pretty buggered.
“Mimi, did you ever tell Vienne to shoot until we’re out of ammo?”
“Affirmative.”
“But you never said it to me.”
“Affirmative,” she says. “She is a soldier, and you are not.”
“No?” I say. “Then what am I?”
“A cowboy,” she says.
I feel my ears burn and my face flush. “Mimi—”
Boom!
A rumble shakes the stairwell, and the third-floor exit door expands and contracts, rattling in its hinges. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that the second-floor doors are gone.
My door is next.
“Chief!” I yell. “You’ve got about one minute till all hell breaks loose!”
A star shines in the distance.
No, not a star. It’s getting bigger by the second.
“Regulators! Fall back!” Aziz calls to us. “Extraction is immediate!”
But we’re not the only ones who can see the lights of the approaching velocicopter. Over the cacophony of explosions, the Razor roars over the PA. “You have one minute, or I will kill you all! Aziz! Answer me!”
Aziz? I round on the chief. “He knows your name?”
“He should,” Aziz says, the searchlight of the copter shining down in his face, forming a halo of light on his helmet. “He’s my brother.”