Opus X

Chapter 6

Halfway through their charge, Erik and Jia flung their grenades in almost perfect unison. Without exchanging a word, they both targeted the wall for a bounce but chose different locations. This wasn’t the first time they’d sent grenades around a corner.

The guards shouted as the pair continued moving forward. The partners tossed another pair of stun grenades, slinging their rifles over their shoulders and drawing their stun pistols.

When they moved around the corner, men lay on the floor, unmoving. Two survivors near the rear of the security guards backpedaled, their eyes wide and their confidence shaken by their downed comrades. Erik and Jia put two quick blasts into them and sent them to join their friends.

They continued running past the guards toward the entry window. With everything jammed, it was their best chance of finding Emma and the MX 60. It was a good plan except for the sound of metal striking something hard in rapid succession coming from somewhere in front of them.

“Sounds like another bot swarm,” Erik suggested, swapping his stun pistol for his rifle. “These guys don’t know when they’ve lost.”

Despite his confident speech, he had already burned through half his ammo. The mission wasn’t supposed to turn into a huge assault. Jia was more selective with her fire, so she might have more, but they weren’t going to win a battle of attrition if it involved taking on hundreds of bots.

They slowed as they approached the next intersection, and the sound of the approaching enemy grew closer. Their new foe emerged about twenty meters away, making it closer to their window.

It wasn’t a swarm of spider bots like Erik suspected, but rather a dark serpentine bot with ten legs. A long barrel stuck out of the front of the three-meter body. With a resounding c***k, the bot fired.

Erik hissed in pain as a round struck his shoulder. His tactical suit stopped it from penetrating, but it still felt like a hammer blow, and his shoulder throbbed. He ducked into a side hallway under cover of a burst from his rifle. Jia jumped to the other side and fired two shots.

Their bullets bounced off the shell of the bot with sparks. The machine replied with another blast that ripped into the wall.

“What the hell is that thing?” Erik barked. “I’ve never seen a bot like that.”

“A T902 Torch Dragon,” Jia explained. “I’ve read about them. Newer design, just came out this year.” She let out a bitter laugh. “They were designed to make up for the deficiencies of heavy security bots in restricted environments like hallways, including improved AI targeting to determine friend or foe. Originally, they were supposed to be anti-terror weapons.”

The torch dragon’s next shot ripped a corner off the wall near Jia. Erik hadn’t gotten a great look at the barrel, but the destructive power and roar suggested it wasn’t a small weapon. If he hadn’t been wearing his tactical suit, he might have lost a good chunk of his shoulder.

Erik took a couple deep breaths. His arm throbbed, and there was a good chance the impact had cracked a bone. They wouldn’t win a sustained fight against the bot.

He grabbed his only remaining grenade, which was plasma, and armed it. “I need you to draw its attention so I can toss the grenade. Or will this go down to an EMP?”

The torch dragon punctuated Erik’s sentence for him by shooting the floor near him. He was surprised the thing wasn’t advancing faster.

“It’s hardened against EMP,” Jia explained. “Okay, I’m giving you your window on three, two, one.”

She spun around the corner to squeeze off a burst and immediately ducked back behind the wall. The torch dragon fired twice and reduced the amount of corner she could hide behind. Jia hissed in pain.

Erik took his opportunity clearing his own corner to confirm the location of the bot before hurling his grenade and hurrying back behind the wall. A round whizzed by his head; he didn’t want to test the effectiveness of the helmet.

The hallway lit up with the explosion, but any pride in the attack vanished as the bot fired twice more, once toward Erik and once toward Jia. He ducked around the corner for less than a second to confirm the position and damage to the torch dragon.

Though there were some scorch marks on the body, the bot had closed in and was otherwise undamaged. Erik didn’t stay exposed long enough to confirm much more.

“It must be a T903,” Jia muttered as she crouched.

“Huh?”

“They’ve got an experimental anti-grenade point-defense system,” she explained ruefully. “So much for taking us alive.”

“Everything’s got a weakness,” Erik countered. “That thing can’t be perfect.”

“It’s ironic, actually. It’s got an even more restricted angle of fire than King Sentries and weaker armor on the bottom. If we could get past the cannon and keep mobile, we could probably take it out with sustained AP fire.” Her voice trailed off, her breathing labored.

“What’s wrong?”

She pointed to a hole in her vest and a round flattened against her chest. “It didn’t make it through, but it still hurts.”

“I know the feeling.” Erik replaced his current magazine with AP rounds. “So, we’ve got to charge this bastard and light him up while we’re right next to him.”

“That cannon isn’t rapid-fire, but it packs a punch.”

“I know.” Erik grinned. “All we have to do is not die.”

“Oh. Is it that simple?” Jia commented as she swapped in an AP magazine. “That should be our plan every time.”

“If I go first, I can take the brunt of it and give you time to close the distance. You’re more agile than me, and you’ve studied the bot.”

She hissed when her body twitched. “This plan is insane.”

“As compared to most of our plans?” he asked her.

“True enough,” she agreed. “Stupid Wednesdays.”

More torch dragon rounds blasted off chunks of the wall. It was closing the distance, judging by the sound of its pointed legs on the metal floor and its firing.

“We could try retreating and finding our way out of the building some other way,” Jia suggested.

Erik shook his head. “Emma’s not going to be able to stop every drone or vehicle that might come to investigate the MX 60 next to the building, and the longer we wait, the more surprises might show up.”

Jia stood from her crouch and blew out a breath. “You sure about this?”

As if answering her, two loud thuds echoed from behind them in the distance.

“Yeah.” Erik nodded. “I’m more sure about this than waiting. Ready?”

“Ready,” Jia replied.

“Three, two, one.”

Erik roared in defiance and jumped around the corner. He didn’t bother firing, instead concentrating on jerky and erratic movement. His efforts paid off, with the first torch dragon shots missing but almost skimming his armor, they were so close.

Jia emerged from her cover without doing a barbarian impression. She sprinted forward, staying near the wall. The bot ignored her and continued to shoot at Erik.

Sharp pain suffused his thigh when a round struck his armor there, but he kept up his movements. Fire blazed through his left arm as another shot ripped through the tactical suit and grazed the limb.

The torch dragon advanced, undulating like a metal wave. Erik continued barreling forward, ignoring the pain. Next time, he was bringing a rocket launcher. Screw this sneaking around.

ScrewNow only a couple of meters away and hugging the wall, Erik escaped the next shot from the torch dragon. The round pierced the wall behind him. The bot turned toward Jia, not that far behind Erik on the opposite side of the wall and fired again, but it was too late.

It thrashed, its AI understanding it had no clear shot. Jia threw herself to the ground sliding feet-first and pointed her rifle. She didn’t hold the trigger down or scream out a challenge; she aimed, waited, and took careful but quick single shots as she moved down the length of the torch dragon’s body.

Erik aimed near the head and fired a burst, hoping to distract the bot. It whipped its rear body at him, slamming him against the wall before rounding on Jia. She fired four more times, and the body thrashed even harder.

Jia hopped to her feet and reloaded.

Erik ignored his pain and held down his trigger, emptying his magazine into the nearby head. Sparks and metal flew as his bullets perforated the bot’s barrel.

Jia circled the trunk, avoiding its legs as it thrashed and again chose careful shots. Erik could see now she was targeting certain leg junctions.

He avoided a stab from a torch dragon leg with a quick jump to the side and reloaded. He aimed, then raked the side farthest from Jia with bullets while she continued her precision work. The surgeon and the butcher might have different jobs, but they both knew how to handle sharp instruments. The torch dragon collapsed to the ground, dark smoke rising from different spots on its body and pieces of metal littering the hallway.

Erik didn’t take the time to offer any triumphant observations.

He hurried forward, heading for the intersection that would take them back to their entrance window. Fiery pain suffused through his side, and blood dripped to the floor with each step. He wasn’t sure when the torch dragon had nailed him, but the bot had managed to get through the suit. At least it was a clean through-and-through.

Jia followed him, almost shoulder to shoulder. She wasn’t bleeding that he could see, but there were crushed rounds embedded in her suit and at least one hole.

“Almost there,” Jia offered through clenched teeth. “Assuming no one shot Emma down while we were playing in here.”

Erik let out a grim chuckle. “Something to look forward to.”

He let out a shout after they turned the corner. The window was open, and the MX 60 hovered in front. They continued their desperate sprint. The now-familiar sound of torch dragon legs striking the hard floor of the hallway filled the air right behind them.

“Both of you run along the wall,” Emma transmitted.

They must have been close enough to beat the jamming, or she was using the laser comm. Erik didn’t care. He was glad to hear her voice and complied with her order.

The bottom of the MX 60 slid open, the turret dropped, and the weapon roared to life, spewing its heavy, deadly rounds into the narrow hallway.

Emma swept back and forth until Erik and Jia were at the window. Erik finally spared a glance backward. Another torch dragon lay on the ground smoking and disabled, massive holes riddling its body.

“Sometimes it’s best to make your point loudly and lethally,” Emma offered, maneuvering the MX 60 next to the window with the doors open. “Even if that means announcing who you are.”

Erik and Jia jumped into the vehicle, each grimacing from their wounds. The MX 60 pulled away, the turret retracting as Jia pulled off her helmet and readied a medpatch.

“We didn’t get much time with the rod,” Jia mentioned with a grimace.

“We didn’t get a huge amount before the jamming,” Malcom replied over the comm. “But at least it wasn’t as bad as Cairo.”

“Says the guy safe in a hotel room across town,” Erik muttered.

“At least I’m in town. Someone could come and kill me.”

Erik took a deep breath as he applied a medpatch to his side wound. “I hope minutes of data-scraping will be enough. There’s no way we’re getting back in there after all this.”

“Are you going to be okay for the party?” Jia asked, her eyes half-closed, and her face pale. “I don’t think I have anything that won’t be under control with medpatches and a couple of days of rest.”

Erik turned toward her, his brow wrinkled in disbelief. “We just got shot up, and you’re worried about your mom’s dinner party?”

“We already canceled the last couple of times.” Jia hissed, then let out a deep breath. “She’ll get annoyed and suspicious.”

Erik laughed, the pain now seeming distant. “Yeah, I should be okay. Let’s drop this stupid rod off tomorrow and get back to Neo SoCal.”

“I’m excited to get back to Neo SoCal,” Malcolm offered with glee. “Camila’s back in town for a while.”

Erik put a stop to his sudden excitement. “First, we need to drop it off with the local agent. You’re not going anywhere until we do.”

July 8, 2230, Wales, Cardiff, Red Dragon Inn

July 8, 2230, Wales, Cardiff, Red Dragon InnThe face of the dark-haired woman standing in front of the door contorted with displeasure. Erik already knew what the ID agent was going to say, but he’d long since learned letting angry people vent made the conversation go faster.

He sat on the edge of his bed, shirt off, exposing the medpatches applied to his wounds. Jia watched the new arrival, her eyes narrowed in anticipatory irritation. Malcolm sat in a chair in front of his desk, eyes averted.

Erik gestured to the data rod in her hand. “Like we said, not a full dump, but between the direct interface and what Emma yanked, it wasn’t like we didn’t get anything, Agent Davies.”

“You weren’t supposed to make any damned noise,” the agent snarled. “Instead, you’ve riled up half the damned city. I had to fake a terrorist incident to keep the police from showing up.”

“Oh, that was you? Nice. Thanks.”

“I wondered if I was being too paranoid, but I wasn’t paranoid enough. I’ll have to do a lot of cleanup to bury the incident.” Agent Davies waved her hand dismissively. “Was there really no other way you could have done this, other than being loud?”

Erik offered her a slight grin. “I think Alina hired us because we’re loud.”

Agent Davies scoffed. “You know that even with ID help, you’re not always going to get away cleanly. Sometimes things will catch up with you, like your enemies.”

Jia stepped toward the woman. “What did you expect us to do? Die?”

She quieted at a slight shake of the head from Erik.

“I expected you to be more professional,” Agent Davies replied.

Erik shrugged. “This is how we do things. We tried to keep it quiet. It didn’t happen. As for our enemies, if they want to come looking for us, that’s a good thing.”

She asked, “How is that a good thing?”

“Because it saves us the trouble of looking for them,” Erik offered in a low, threatening tone.

Agent Davies wrinkled her nose and tucked the rod into her pocket. “You’re going to get yourselves killed. You know that?”

“Not before we take down the conspiracy.”

Agent Davies opened the door and turned around. “I sincerely hope never to see you again.”

She stepped through and closed the door.

Malcolm clapped once. “I don’t think she likes you.”

“You figure?” Erik snickered.