377: Drop Off (Patreon)

The shrill whine of drones on fast approach told Nicolai his time was up. He leapt off the tower and dove straight down, moments before the place where he’d stood exploded.

With his body pointed straight down and arms pressed flat to his sides, he was as aerodynamic as a human could be. He augmented the pull of gravity with rapid beats of his wings, flinging himself toward the ground. In only seconds the whine of the wind had become a shrill scream, and the ground was approaching very fast indeed.

He flung his wings out, catching air like a parachute, and he burned Oma into his Pegasi rings while snapping out an arm, reaching for an open window with the Claw and catching it as he plummeted past.

Teeth clenched, muscles tight like wires against the pivot of the Spectral Claw, he dragged himself into a dive-bomber curve, skimming within inches of the street. He came out of it and shot off, arrowing down an empty boulevard. The route he’d taken through the air was marked out by all the shots which’d come at him and missed. Now he’d slowed, if only slightly, and he knew the next wouldn’t miss.

He tilted his body, angled his wings, and abruptly veered sideways into an alleyway. He punched through it and shot out the other side, banking into the new street.

There were hunter-killer drones on his tail. They hadn’t been able to keep up initially, but now they were closing the distance. Cyberwarfare attempted to wrest control of them, but they’d all been cut off from Local—given his targeting data then ordered to operate purely autonomously. Even so, out in the open of this street, they were only a minor threat. His remaining gunlimb flicked from one to the next, sending a single bullet at each, and in less than two seconds Aiming had put a neat hole through the centre of every one of them.

Broken drones tumbled out of the sky, smashing into walls and the ground, some exploding when their payloads detonated.

Out of the plumes of smoke that rose burst a familiar figure, charging in Nicolai’s wake.

The rest of the assassins were still struggling to reposition, caught out by his sudden burst of speed. Severin was the only one who’d reacted in time to stick with him, but even he was quite far off. Nicolai had a lead of at least ten seconds.

He spotted his destination, a flight of stairs that disappeared into the ground like the entrance to a subway.

Wings buzzing like a small army of wasps, he reached it and burrowed down inside, still flying, keeping himself dead-centre so the tips of his spiritual wings just barely brushed the walls. The stairwell curved but he’d pinged it with sonar on approach and was ready, banking at exactly the angle needed to plunge through safely.

He shot out into an open underground area. The catacombs, the defence system had called this place, an area where bodies were stored for later reanimation.

For him, these underground tunnels represented an opportunity to shake his pursuers and cause them some trouble, if only for a time.  They were working together on the shakiest pretence of an alliance, but one that held well enough out there, in the open. If they wanted to follow him down here they’d be forced into close contact, and their natural suspicion of one another would act as a handy distraction.

His skinsuit’s sonar emitter pulsed continuously, and his flight curved through the air toward a tunnel. As he went, the Big Mouth opened wide and spewed out block-after-block of metal; rectangles the size of a briefcase. They sprung open mid-air, unfolding into GRECKON-style light droids.

Each one landed the same, bending their knees to absorb the force of the short drop then rising and orientating while their hands worked, a series of cracking noises ringing out as they snapped their collapsible carbines into shape. Slotted into each one’s chest were two grenades, four magazines, and a knife. The Modules imparted directions and the droids lunged into action, sprinting around the room and taking up positions.

In the moment before he reached his chosen tunnel he dropped a couple of smoke grenades—not the multi-spectrum type Severin employed, basic versions, but the droids had sonar and thermal so it would serve well enough—then activated his Hornet Stealth Symbiote, switched his reactor-setup to cool running, then pulled a sonar-jammer from his storage.

The tunnel was tight, open on the sides but those open areas were packed with bones, impinging on the walkspace between. It was too narrow for flight, so he folded his spiritual wings and landed, skid turning into a sprint, and he tossed the jammer into a pile of grinning skulls as he shot past. It immediately began letting out an irritating whine, one which would interfere with sonar equipment anywhere nearby.

He was out of the first room only seconds after he’d arrived, leaving it full up with smoke and armed droids. He slid around a few corners, worming his way deeper into the maze-like catacombs, and after ten seconds heard gunfire erupt. The first of the assassins, Severin likely amongst them, had arrived.

He hefted the box he’d taken, then, following the instructions from the defence system, spent a moment arranging his Soul Sense into a complex shape, like a key. He pressed that key slowly into the box and twisted it.

The endless, irritating shrieking the box was emanating cut off. A good start, but Nicolai frowned. He could feel that this would take some time, the spiritual mechanisms slow to open even when you held the key.

###

Severin pressed down the tunnel, eyes boring into a fast-moving shape. Nicolai, only thirty metres ahead of him.

At last, the rat was out of distractions. The droids had tied him up for a time, but only because of all the idiots who followed him down here. At least he’d padded his eliminations as a result.

He was gaining on Nicolai, narrowing the space between them both physically and on the eliminations board. But there was one area he was well behind. A flick of his wrist brought up his Mark’s display, the scoreboard.

Longest Orb Holding Time

1. Nicolai: 1:19…

2. Yin: 0:45

3. Pilchard: 0:30

4. Severin: 0:23

5. …

Nicolai disappeared up a flight of stairs, and Severin was there a moment later, tearing up and out. He burst out onto an empty street and saw his target right ahead, leaping into the air.

Severin activated jets, and with all the speed of his run up the stairs and his perfectly executed leap, he closed in, almost into the twenty-metre range he needed.

He smelt the panic of his prey. Saw it in the movement of his body. Still, he was surprised when Nicolai hurled the box. It tumbled in the direction of an undead guardian on a rooftop.

For an instant Severin hesitated, torn two ways. But that number, 1:19, flashed through his mind. Eliminating Nicolai would put him comfortably at the top of the eliminations board, but he was closing in anyway. The Orb was the real goal and so far he’d ignored it, to his detriment. He dearly wished to take down his rival here, but if he had the Orb, and then if he began killing whoever he could, he might be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

It was the fact that eliminating Nicolai wouldn’t be real that swung it. An elimination wasn’t a kill. He wanted to win, to prove himself, and then to kill him.

He veered to the side and snatched the screeching box, while Nicolai jetted on up into the air.

Severin let him go, immediately heading in the direction of the end-zone. He didn’t need to pursue kills, now. The kills would come to him.

Before even a minute had passed, Severin’s state of mind underwent a total reversal.

He initially scored a few quick kills, only to find the remaining triallists began avoiding him. Some kept pace, but remained at a distance where he couldn’t easily close. He’d expected them to all band together and seek to bring him down, just as he and they had done against Nicolai.

There were at least ten to fifteen triallists remaining, but before long none of them were even keeping pace with him, even though the box was crying out as always.

He shook his head, scowling, telling himself it was no matter. He held the Orb, and the trial couldn’t end until he delivered it. If they wanted to hide from him, no matter. He’d simply wait until his timer had surpassed Nicolai’s and go to the drop-off point. They would have no choice but to attack him, then, and if they didn’t? He’d win. He was sure the nobles put the most stock in who held the Orb for the longest, and who dropped it off. He—

The dreadful feeling creeping up inside him wasn’t fading. He knew something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones and his teeth and his nails. He experienced a sudden flare of… not panic, exactly, because panic wasn’t something Severin had experienced since he was ten years old. It was a sense that the ground he stood upon had become shaky, treacherous, and it caused him to bring up his Mark’s UI once again.

Longest Orb Holding Time

1. Nicolai: 1:52…

2. Yin: 0:45

3. Pilchard: 0:30

4. Severin: 0:23

…

Under his disbelieving eyes, the number beside Nicolai ticked up. 1:53… 1:54…

Severin raised the screeching box, stared at it. Then with a snap of his arm he hurled the useless, pointless thing aside. His steps sped up, fuelled by the fury writhing where he’d once possessed guts.

A few leaps later and he crested the final rooftop, looked out over the compound’s wall and the street beyond, the large building which stood over there. The drop-off, according to his map, the place he and everyone else had been heading toward.

And he saw a familiar skinsuited figure dashing toward the. The distant figure paused, glanced over his shoulder, and through helmet visors their eyes met. He saw in Nicolai’s fist something shaped much like an Orb.

Severin was quite sure, at that moment, that he had never wanted to kill someone so badly.

###

Nicolai’s head snapped back around when the door in front of him burst open, a figure launching out.

He recognised them. The plain-clothed man who’d spoken to him in the lobby. He’d kicked the door and was fully readied, arms raised, grip tight on a stubby pistol. A MAJ-SoC 23, high-powered, subsonic, armour-piercing, a killer’s weapon. He hadn’t sensed any indication this man was there, in fact he’d scanned the building, sent in drones and even the Infiltrator, and though he’d entirely mapped the place—enough to realise this front entrance was the only route inside—neither he nor the Modules had seen any sign of this man.

He should have nothing to fear from that pistol, wrapped in his Shield, and yet in the frozen instant where the gunbarrel sighted him he knew it’s bullets would go straight through, knew this one was equipped with something unusual.

The Dark Spirit burst out from his Soul, looking like a horror from the depths of the ocean, and dove at the assassin. But before it reached him the assassin fired twice, and Nicolai knew they were both headshots, and that there was no possible way to avoid the shots at this range.

The bullets caught him in the head with a vast numbing shock, like he’d been smacked around the skull by an electrified frying pan the size of a car. Half his vision disappeared, and he experienced a physical certainty that there was something wrong about the shape of his face, like something was stuck to it.

The strings between his mind and his body snapped, and for a moment he fell but the Modules were there, reaching out, even as his awareness fractured.

The world came at him in jagged moments, like TV on a bad connection, bursts of noise and movement that fell abruptly silent, the images smearing and greying out, until another burst overwrote them with shocking loudness.

In these bursts his point-of-view moved forward. He saw the pistol-toting assassin, frozen mid-fall, clawing at his face, the black stain of the Dark Spirit knifing through his Soul.

He felt the presence of the Modules, their endless chatter and processes, knew they had taken control.

In the next burst his hand was raised, shoving the tube of a Rejuvenating Orb into his mouth, but he struggled to pull on it. His lungs refused to move.

Another burst and he stood before a figure, which had a hand outstretched. Suspicion and paranoia warred with necessity, a sense that he hadn’t done his proper checks, an endless wariness, but he felt Threat Analysis there, doing its job, and calmed.

There was someone coming up fast from behind. He felt them as a murderous rage, a hungry desire to see him dead, and knew they were coming fast. He stopped fighting and let the Modules decide, and in the next burst saw him hand the Orb of Trouble over.

A blast of golden light and he saw a being half-angelic, half-arachnid, lunging at him.

There was darkness, then light. He awoke and he was merged with the Modules and through them learned what had happened. It was over. They’d handed the Orb over to someone the Modules were 99% sure had been the NPC they were supposed to have given it to. He opened his eyes and saw he was inside a blue orb of force and the world of the Trial was fading, tumbling apart like a dream upon waking.

He could feel Psychology monitoring, prodding him, checking for signs the brief scrambling of his brain had had any kind of longer-term negative effects. He ignored it, because his mind was full of pressing thoughts.

Did the Trial/Heaven consider me to have died?

The Modules were pretty sure it hadn’t.

In that case, did we win?

They were pretty sure that had been a win.

I want that pistol.

It was at this point Psychology concluded he was fine.