The giant Mongolian stepped forward almost reluctantly, his combat suit making a swishing sound with each stride. Colonel Shakia tried to get out of her command chair and inexplicably found her arms and legs turning to mush, as her own PMD reacted to the sudden, full onslaught of Karma’s electronic assault. Hamilcar watched her military-grade nervous system try to shrug it off and then the shadow of the Mongolian fell over him.
He raised his hand and half caught the armor-powered fist. It smashed through his wrist, splintering it, and even then the blow to his collar bone was heavy enough to break it, folding his body in two. A titanium-booted foot stomped on his knee, effectively wrecking it, leaving him twitching like a half-crushed insect pinned to a board.
His PMD was reacting like a groggy alcoholic, flooding his body with painkillers and adrenaline, while at the same time dealing very ineffectively with whatever viral weapons Karma had rained on it. I should have got the upgrades.
Mr. Khunbish was not a cruel man. He reached down and almost gently cradled Hamilcar’s head between his hands, a deft touch despite the armor, and the servo motors in the suit hummed, a prelude to the vise that would no doubt pulp his skull. Half hanging from the Mongolian’s grip, Hamilcar saw Kanelia marshal her unruly limbs. The ancient-looking revolver bloomed in her hand, blessedly free from electronics, momentarily immune to whatever Karma was hitting them with.
The gun fired, once, twice, and then she emptied the chambers. The noise was crazy loud, Hamilcar could hear it even through the metal hands encasing his head. The large-caliber bullets hit the Mongolian at point-blank range, and the giant warrior flinched back, even his battle suit not immune to the sheer kinetic power of mid-twenty-first-century lethality.
Kanelia threw the gun away and leapt over Hamilcar, not a wobble on her, the instinctive need to gore a momentarily stunned opponent driving her forward, muscle memory stamped into her body from her cage-fighting days. Her knife appeared in her left hand and she went low under the armpit for a sleeve joint, well aware of battle suits and their foibles.
Mr. Khunbish kicked her off with brutal power, and she landed on her back a few meters away. Very deliberately, she got to her feet and dusted herself off. She glanced once at Hamilcar, but he could see almost no recognition in her eyes, just an incandescent rage.
“Stand down, Colonel Shakia, this is an order,” Doje said.
“I take no orders from you, fucker,” she spat out. Her knife made a lazy orbit from Mr. Khunbish to Doje.
“Now, now, that’s a mouth on you,” Doje smiled. “Karma?”
“Stand down, Colonel Shakia,” Karma said. Her words had a palpable gravity, as if the very pores of the room were filled with her substance. If she hadn’t been fully engaged before, it was clear that the entirety of her mind was here now, focused on this one moment.
“Fuck off,” the colonel snarled.
This time her head snapped straight up, and she went rigid. The PMD was a dumb mule, meant to resist outside influence. The Echo was a different kind of beast. Karma hit her with a psychic blast of data that Hamilcar could feel from meters away, a roaring river that would have swept away a lesser mind. Kanelia Shakia resisted for half a second, a lone fisher standing against the tsunami, and then finally, reluctantly, slid to one knee. Her knife fell from nerveless fingers.
Doje stepped over and slapped her across the face, hard enough to make blood gout from her split lips. The terrible old man picked up the knife, and Hamilcar watched in sickened panic, unable to look away.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” ReGi poked the djinn king in the back. “Fucking do something.”
“Fucking stop!” Melek Ahmar shouted, raising one hand.
His power billowed out of him, almost a visible wave, and for the first time in his life Hamilcar Pande saw and felt the force of an elder djinn. If Karma’s assault had been a gale, this was a nova, a roiling expansion of forces beyond the ken of human understanding. Time itself slowed into a trickle; movement was impossible, the air solidified, he could almost see the sonic ripple of Melek Ahmar’s shouted command, waves in the dust. We are flies in amber. What manner of creature is this? We have severely underestimated Rustic One . . . Karma, you’re a fool to have let him in.
Karma came back online, because she existed everywhere, but even her voice was tinny and weak, emanating from a single drone just out of the distortion field.
“Melek Ahmar, stand down, this does not concern you,” Karma said. “Lest I deploy forces beyond even your control.”
“You’ll do fuck all,” Melek Ahmar said. “I am the Eater of Worlds. Try me, I beg you.”
“This does not concern you.” Could a machine sound exasperated?
The Lady ReGi came up behind the djinn king, almost swimming through the gelid air with exaggerated motions. Somehow she had rolled and lit a lopsided cigarette, and in between rather ineffective puffs, she whispered in his ear. Hamilcar felt a slight loosening of the pressure around his chest, and his ears popped, as time and space released their rictus grin. Pain came flooding back to his body. Melek Ahmar listened and frowned, then nodded, then looked around shrewdly, and then finally smiled.
“Karma!” His voice boomed up to the steeple. “I have a wager for you.”
“What?”
“A wager. A bet. We djinn love a good bet. Are you in?”
“Do I have a choice?” Karma somehow managed to sound tart and irritable through her one distant mouthpiece.
“Your champion over there versus mine. Duel, one on one. No fancy stuff, just blood and guts fighting to the death. The old way, you know?”
“Am I to understand you are in the corner of my traitorous sheriff?”
“Yes, we like turncoats, we do,” Melek Ahmar said. “Especially ones who betray kings. Funny thing, that, djinn don’t actually like kings much. Damned interfering high and mighty bastards, I’d get rid of the lot of them . . . We invented republicanism, did ya know that?”
“But . . . but you’re a . . .”
“Right, right, King of Mars, One of Seven, so on, but well, there you go. Life is full of ironies. Still, that’s ReGi’s bet. And if you knew how much she can nag and pester, well, it’s just easier to go along with it. Your man versus ours. Your big fella wins, we go away forever.”
“And if the traitor wins?” Karma asks.
“One boon for each of us, you cannot refuse,” ReGi said. “Anything we want, and no retaliation later on down the road. We get emissary status for life, yours or ours, whichever lasts longer. Contracts signed both here and with the Celestial Courts of the Djinn.”
“Fine, I agree, provided your wishes do not harm my core programming,” Karma said. “Release your field and I will restore functionality to the colonel and the sheriff. Although they appear slightly the worse for wear. I cannot help that.”
Melek Ahmar sucked back his power, and normal physics returned with a hesitancy that showed it had been well and truly spanked and was now not nearly as smugly certain of its seat at the table. Hamilcar lifted his head up, noticing in a detached way that his right hand was dangling most curiously from the end of his broken wrist.
Colonel Shakia got to her feet and spat blood. She lurched over to the djinn. “Thanks. I got this.”
Bhan Gurung smiled. “No, Colonel saab, rest. I’ve got this.”
She stared at the old man. “You have no augments. He’s in a fucking battle suit.”
Gurung tapped his head. “No Echo. No PMD. Nothing to go awry at the critical moment. You trust Karma? I wasn’t the one weeping blood when she turned up her juice.”
Colonel Shakia sighed. “Armpit and back of the knee. Don’t bother with the head, it’s a solid piece. Take my knife, it’s poisoned.”
“So is mine, Colonel sir.”
ReGi pushed up and kissed the Gurkha’s leathery cheek. “Good luck, Uncle Gurung. You’re a little bit scary, but I love you all the same.”
Gurung looked at her a bit confused, and then handed her a packet. “Just hold these for a minute.”
“What the hell is it?” Colonel Shakia asked.
“This?” ReGi shook the bag. “Pistachios, I think.”
Gurung didn’t swagger so much as slink his way toward the center mat, so casual that his knife wasn’t even out yet when Mr. Khunbish swung for him. Gurung wasn’t there. When the Mongolian straightened, his arm piece fell off, cut through along some invisible joint. Gurung smiled. Mr. Khunbish bulled forward for a double leg, an old wrestling move. Gurung flitted around, took one knee first and then the next, somehow appearing behind the armored giant. More pieces of hardware fell off. Two more passes, and Gurung was untouched, not even sweating, but his kukri was sweating blood, and there were deep furrows on the Mongolian’s exposed limbs, cuts that dripped dark blue liquid.
Khunbish, aware now his armor was useless, stripped off his helmet and paused for a second, bellowing hard.
“He’s sixty years old, for god’s sake, just kill the fucker!” Doje shouted. There was a manic look on his face, fear seeping in now, as the old specter of Gurung rose once again before him, all too real and much too close.
Mr. Khunbish dropped his chest plate to the ground. He clapped his hands together and the electric eel nodes along his spine burst to life, enveloping him in a nimbus of blue light. He advanced in a classic Muay Thai stance, a flaming blue giant, foot snapping out in a teep, the front push kick used like a jab, followed by a series of heavy knees and elbows, looking for the fatal grapple. Gurung stepped into this flurry of blows, unafraid, took the battering and slid into the giant’s reach, into the Thai plum, the Muay Thai neck clinch, and as those burning hands grasped him, as the stench of seared flesh wafted up, he wriggled his knife and slipped away, leaving a flaming carcass, a body slowly toppling over, throat sliced open, neck sawed in half and hanging by a gristle. Mr. Khunbish gave a strangled cry and died.
Gurung smiled, his face and body burned, cloth and skin flaking off. He reached over and wrenched the Mongolian’s head off, placing it upright gently on the floor. Then he twirled his moustache with one bloody hand, turning the tips red.
“Lucky day, Karma,” he said. “Two for one today.”
“Karma! Karma!” Doje screamed, as Bhan Gurung walked him down.
No one stopped him. Karma didn’t say a word.