by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The detective stood just inside the tape at the doorway to Grant’s office and surveyed the carnage.
Deep maroon fluid had been spattered over most surfaces, some of it obviously while still under pressure as it had reached the ceiling several meters above his head from which it now dripped from the elaborate tin relief.
A medieval suit of armor lay scattered about, the pole axe formerly adorning it now buried deep in the hardwood of the floor.
On one side of the blade lay two dark colored hands severed none too neatly at the wrists. On the other side stood the burnt remains of the Senator’s desk, recently extinguished and still smoking. Partially embedded in the smoldering furniture an incinerated corpse lay in repose, unnaturally shortened arms outstretched.
“Not much left of the Andy is there?” Detective Sykes shook a chemical cigarette from a pack, thumbed the igniter and sucked it noisily alight.
“Carter, you lift an ID off the inhibitor?” Sykes blew almost colorless exhaust into the air as he waited for the forensics agent to respond.
“Yep. One of Grant’s domestic units. Serial’s only a partial, but it matches the prints and there’s plenty of tracer in all the Andy juice to corroborate,” he waved around. “I’ll write it up. No human donors to the crime scene, so unless the Senator wants to shake the insurance company down for the cleanup and a new desk, I’d say we’re pretty much done here.”
Sykes turned his back on the room and addressed the figure lurking in the shadows of the hallway behind him.
“Senator, I think it might be best if you cleaned this up privately.” He took a long drag on his cigarette and continued. “This makes three of your Andy’s we’ve found diced up this year. Now another dead Andy doesn’t matter much to me, but if those equal rights bleeding hearts get wind of this…”, he left the thought hanging.
“We’ll clean this up internally detective, your concern is duly noted.” The Senator’s voice dripped with derision. “Once you’re satisfied no real crime has occurred here, my staff can get to work.”
Sykes chuckled, “Bit morbid don’t you think, having your Andy’s clean up what’s left of one of their own?”
Grant rolled his eyes, “Please, detective, it’s not like they actually feel anything, the bloody things barely think.”
“Still, Senator, someone got in here and did this. We’ve seen other cases besides yours, all Andy’s, so you might not be worried but it is a serial offender we’re looking for. If you know anything, or think of anything,” Sykes produced a card from his breast pocket and passed it to the Senator, who accepted it with apparent disinterest.
“I’ll be sure to let you know detective.” Turning he spoke over his shoulder as he walked away, “Let yourself out, will you?”
—
Levi turned off the paved road onto little more than a dirt lane between the trees, slowing as he guided the old hauler towards the farmhouse near the river and parked in the barn behind.
Closing the outside doors first, he returned to open the trunk and smiled at the worried face staring up at him.
“Come out Doris, you’re safe now.” He helped the still shaking android from the trunk, careful not to disturb the caps on her neatly severed wrists.
“First thing we’ll do is get you some hands grafted back on.” He pulled two empty fluid bladders from the trunk, then his portable transfusion unit and carried them to the workbench that filled one side of the room.
Doris followed him, blinking as the dim sodium lights were eclipsed by brighter halogen work-lights. Levi turned to face her, reaching out to probe gingerly at the cut at the side of her neck. Doris flinched at the raised hand, but stood her ground.
“That bypass should seal up nicely in a few days.” Turning back to his bench he continued, “With the inhibitor gone there won’t be any trouble getting you over the border. I’ve got friends up there that will find you a place to stay.”
Levi looked through the collection of hands floating in jars as he talked, looking for a good match.
“Couple of days, Doris, and you’ll be home free.”
Doris hugged herself with her truncated limbs, watching Levi.
“Free,” was all she said. “Free.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Mark stood a few feet from the doorman and presented his ID, which was accepted with apparent derision.
The heavily muscled bouncer glanced over the details of the badly forged photo card and tossed it back.
“One point eight meters? No way you’re that tall. Take a hike.”
Mark caught the card with his off hand without breaking eye contact and held the stare for a moment before looking down at the photo card.
“Funny, that’s about the only thing on here that is right. How about you let me in anyways? I’ve got a lot of drinking to do, and this night’s not getting any younger.”
The doorman’s face split in a wide grin, metal capped teeth catching the streetlight as he ran his hands back over the stubble on his head and stepped forward.
“How’s about you bugger off, mate, before you get hurt?” He exhaled through clenched teeth as he placed both hands flat on Mark’s chest and pressed him violently into the street, tossing him like a rag doll to where he landed in a heap.
Mark pushed himself slowly upright, then got his feet back under him while fingering the torn shirt sleeve where he’d skidded across the blacktop.
“Shouldn’t have done that meathead,” he licked his lips, breaking into a low jog and dropping his shoulder as he impacted the startled bouncer, running with him the couple of meters to the building wall and slamming him into the brick with a clearly audible outrush of air.
Mark stepped back, leaving the bigger man to catch his breath.
“I’ve gotta warn you shithead,” the bouncer wheezed, “I’m hardened mech, not your average meatbag doorman, and I’m quite capable and licensed to put you in the hospital or a body bag.” Having recovered alarmingly quickly the doorman stepped back into the fray with purpose. “Or for that matter, the dumpster out back if you push the wrong buttons.” Mark barely had time to take a defensive stance before the angered man was on him, raining a flurry of blows to his ribs as Mark tucked in his elbows and covered his face with his fists. The doorman beat him back off the sidewalk, onlookers moving quickly away to make room while several opportunists started taking bets.
Having driven Mark into the street, the doorman again pushed him away. “I’m not someone you’ll want to piss off,” and with that he stepped forward and drove his fist between Mark’s still raised hands and into his face, knocking him off his feet and into a pile once more on the asphalt.
Leaving him unmoving in the road, the bouncer turned and started back to his post at the door.
Mark exploded from the ground and reached the retreating man in barely a heartbeat, landing multiple blows to his lower back before torquing in a perfectly executed roundhouse kick to the side of his head, knocking him hard to the ground.
When the bouncer had struggled back upright, he found Mark bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, grinning like he’d just eaten the neighbour’s cat.
“If you’re mech, then you’re just my type, sweetheart.” Mark thumbed the side of his nose, then shook his hands at his sides before taking up a boxer’s stance again. “Get’s boring as hell tossing meatbags for a living, doesn’t it?”
The bouncer felt something turn inside and, his post forgotten, stepped off the curb and cracked his knuckles.
“I’m guessing Marquess of Queensberry’s not quite your style?”
Mark laughed out loud.
“How about MCMAP?”
The bouncer’s grin returned. “Oorah,” was all he replied.
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Lewis sprinted the last few yards across the wasteland and dove head first into the trench. He clutched his rifle tight against his chest as he lay in the dirt, chest heaving, heart pounding out of sync with the artillery barrage overhead.
Move, Lewis, get up and move.
A shell exploded nearby, showering him with sticky blue dirt. Ears ringing he pulled himself to his feet and, hugging the facing wall of the trench, half walked, half ran forward. He didn’t stop to pick a direction, didn’t reason which way was most likely to take him back towards friendlies, he simply ran.
Minutes stretched like hours, hours like days, energy weapon discharge cracked overhead and a constant pounding of artillery kept a beat and kept it strong. Lewis just ran, rifle clenched in his fists like the lifeline basic had taught him it would be.
His legs burning, eyes stinging from the smoke, Lewis ran past an advancement point in the trench. Here, a tee intersection had been cut out, hardened spray-plastigel buttressed the sides and a downed landing craft bridging the trench above blocked out what little sun was visible overhead. The trench continued on the way he’d been heading, but another trench met at right angles, heading towards the enemy. From ahead Lewis could hear gunfire, and not just the staccato blast of the enemy’s shard guns, but also the heavy thump, thump, thump of energy weapons like the one he still clutched white knuckled.
Lewis didn’t stop to think, just turned and ran towards the gunfire.
Within moments, he found himself at the back of a frightened young man huddled into a slit in the wall of the trench. If not for his shaking and the barrel of his weapon protruding, he might have run right past him.
“Soldier, let’s go, cover me.” Lewis barked at the frightened young man, glancing furtively along the trench.
“Sir, s-s-s-sir,” the soldier stammered, “I’m out of ammunition sir. I’m no use to anyone now sir.”
Lewis paused a moment, thinking for the first time of his own weapon, and the moments before he was sent diving for cover in the trench. He thought of the impotent whine that meant his rifle was fully discharged as well. Listening, he realized the staccato cracking of gunfire from farther up the trench had also stopped, and not even pausing to think he pulled the shaking soldier out of the hole in the trench wall and barked simply, “Barrel up, cover me.”
Together they marched up the trench, one empty rifle and one empty heavy repeater pointed towards an enemy they hoped was more scared than they were.
Within minutes, they stepped past a haphazard barrier of crates and plasteel panels, and found themselves staring down three of the enemy soldiers, guns levelled, mandibles clacking, multifaceted eyes reflecting the two commandos back a thousand-fold.
Lewis didn’t hesitate, just jammed the barrel of his rifle into the closest face he could find.
“Surrender. Surrender or I blow your fucking head off.” The force of his words for the moment drove out the fear in his heart.
Seconds ticked away like hours before the enemy soldier tossed his weapon aside and bowed down into the dirt.
“Surrender”, it said, in poorly translated mechanical English, “please, surrender.”
Lewis and the still shaking soldier stood over their prisoners for hours before reinforcements came up the trench and relieved them. Lewis walked twenty or so meters away from his prisoners before vomiting into the dirt.
by Stephen R. Smith | Feb 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Tensevn broke cover on the fourth floor landing and sprinted flat out across the entire expanse of the building, hurdling the refuse of a hundred years of vacancy to take refuge in the fire escape on the South side. Beneath and behind him he could feel and hear his pursuer’s weapon reach through the concrete floor slabs, reducing the iron rebar inside to molten liquid and vapour.
“Quit running puppet, you’re only wasting my time.” The voice amplified, modulated, designed to strike fear into the enemy. It just pissed T off.
The fire escape still tenaciously gripped the exterior of the building. T wasn’t sure he’d reach the fifth floor before it too was dripping down to the broken asphalt below.
He found a fist sized chunk of rubble, tossed it far into the middle of the room then took the stairs three at a time to the next floor just as the trooper below realized the distraction and brought his cannon to bear on the space he’d just vacated. The metal sublimated in a hot mist, leaving T panting in an open doorway with reentry his only option.
“You’re fast, little puppet, unnaturally fast. It’s a shame I have to eliminate you, it would be interesting to take you apart and learn how you tick.”
T scanned the gloom of the floor in front of him, the middle littered with furniture and old filing cabinets, vacant desks lining the outside walls where windows, once filled with glass and sunshine were now just so many gaping wounds in the old corporate facade.
Taking a deep breath, he started a slow jog around the perimeter. Beneath him, the trooper’s weapon whined to life and started tracing his path just a few steps behind him. He could feel the energy, even through two floors and so many meters of concrete, the effect was painful. His heart fluttered, his breathing laboured as the weapon made it harder for his blood to move oxygen from his lungs. He sped up, trying to keep just ahead of the beam as he ran a complete lap of the floor, surveying the East and West fire escapes as he passed them, then half way around again to the same Northside stairwell he’d vacated on the floor below.
Here he waited and listened to the shuffle of heavy feet from the ground floor. His pursuer wasn’t following, just holding court in the atrium space turning slow circles, listening for any sign of his prey.
The building creaked and moaned, the stench of vapourized iron filling his nostrils.
“Why won’t you die, fucker? Why will you not die?” The voice was strained, T could hear the frustration even through the modulation. It made him smile.
He broke cover again and ran another lap, this time in the opposite direction. Again the rising whine, louder this time. The hunter turning up the output, no longer playing games. Behind him hot rivulets of orange metal burst steaming from the ceiling, above him sharp cracks as the superheated rebar shattered the concrete structure. T accelerated, then jumped through the opening onto the East side fire escape as the entire floor above sheared along the fault lines he’d tricked the trooper into tracing as he ran, the weapon weakening the structure until it could no longer hold its own weight. The sixth floor pancaked onto the fifth, tearing it free, then together they picked up the fourth floor, accelerating through the atrium space to crush the unprepared hunter into the basement below.
“Naturally fast, asshole. Naturally smart too. Comes from being a meat brain you metal headed fuck.”
Tensevn clung panting to the battered fire escape until the wind had cleared the dust and he could see the ground. He couldn’t afford to slip here, a fall would hurt like hell.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile.
“Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.”
Across the table, The Tsak-Tulian Envoy huffed in and out several times, expelling great gusts of pungent air as he did so. Those directly across from him shifted uncomfortably in their seats until he spoke.
“Ambassador, you speak of high costs, and yet you pay nothing for our goods and they command high prices amongst your buyers. You would appear to be taking…”, the envoy paused, waiting for the correct word to bubble up through his consciousness, “advantage of what you assume to be our ignorance.”
Shaylin raised his hands and eyebrows at the affront.
“Envoy, you insult us. We’ve opened your doors to interstellar trade, brought you cultural knowledge and business from outside your planetary boundaries and you repay us with accusations and insults?”
It was the Envoy’s turn to smile.
“Knowledge? You bring us stories, select fragments of your history, tales of your heroism in the stars, of your benevolence and grace. You feed us your stories of Matthew, John and Luke and yet your knowledge is so clearly…”, again he paused, waiting for the correct word to present itself.
“Fascinating?” Shaylin offered.
“Sanitary.” Tsak-tuk finished the thought. “Your history as you present it hides the contributions of your Napoleons, Sun Tzus and Ghengis Khans.”
Ambassador Shaylin sat straight up in his chair, listening intently to his earpiece for some explanation of this information breach and receiving only static.
Tsak-Tuk laughed, a low rolling belly laugh that Shaylin felt rumble through his ribcage.
“You wonder how we know things you don’t show us? We have those among us for whom barriers and safeguards are of no consequence, you have your… John Drapers, we have ours.” He raised one worn appendage, noting how pitted and cracked the dermal plates were. Too long at work. “We have learned a great many things from you, about your ruthless subjugation of the weak, your wars, your failed societal systems, we’ve learned of your politics and insatiable lust for power.” He looked pointedly from delegate to delegate, weighing their discomfort. “Why don’t you provide us with your ships, and we’ll take our goods to the stars ourselves and broker our own deals?”
A melodic tone began sounding from outside, Shaylin recognizing it as the midday chiming of the towers in the city square.
Tsak-Tuk narrowed his eyes. “You come to us promising opportunity, your assistance and equal prosperity and yet you take advantage of us and seem intent on keeping us powerless. The time has come to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.”
The Ambassador moved forward in his seat, reddening in the face.
“How dare you…”, he started as Tsak-Tuk cut him off.
Shaylin, focused too on the envoys cracked and pitted appendage still held aloft suddenly realized the other held a short but impressive looking handgun.
“Today’s chiming unites all of our people against all of yours.” Around them, weapons appeared, amply covering the off-world delegation.”I believe it was your Mao Tse-Tung who said ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’?”
Shaylin shrunk back into his seat in a pool of his own sweat.
“He wasn’t ours, exactly.” Was all he could think to say.
