Tagged: Writing

“The Expansion Wars? That has been mentioned a lot, seems like I need to catch up on a lot of stuff. Both you and the Legal, Krennar, talked about it. Where is he? I mean, what, they? where are they?”

“They are in another room, making a full recovery. They just don’t have your stamina, you’re pretty healthy for someone who has probably been on ice for over a thousand years, give or take a few centuries. As forhe Expansion Wars were probably the most terrible time in humanity’s history, and let’s face it they have some stiff competition for that. Everyone uses them as a benchmark as they were the point where everything, I mean literally everything, changed. Nothing was the same after they were over. But I am getting severely distracted. It has been a while since I just, well, talked to someone, without it being meaningless or work related.”

“Well you can talk a little more if you like?” Marsh smiled that easy smile he had eyes staring languidly.

“I am not sure. There probably isn’t that much that I would talk about.”

“I find that hard to believe, you’re so loquacious, surely a talented conversationalist. You’re clearly out of practice.” The smiles was broader and slowly faded,  So what do you present as?”

“Pardon?” Drick was taken aback by the sudden switch to a serious question.

“I know that your icons on your wrist display say something, though they are weird as they move and you call them tattoos but that’s a different kettle of squid.”

“I present as asexual, ungendered for most people. I don’t have that much time for, or usually any interest in, sex or relationships.”

“So you’re married.”

“What, married, as in civil union? No. Why would you say that?”

“It was a joke. Based on how you present. It reminded me of both of my parents.”

“Did they not like each other?”

“Sure they did. They were just together for so long that they had moved beyond the whole messy part of a relationship into some kind of a lifelong friendship.”

“But no intimate pairing?”

“Not in my mind,” a dry laugh, “well, I guess the occasional thing, I don’t really know, they were old fashioned, as in really traditional. And, also, old so there is that. It is pretty icky to think of them doing anything in bed aside from watch holovids. I swear they were born in the wrong century is what… Shit.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just realised, I am never going to see her again.”

“Her> Who is she? A partner?”

“My sister. I have, well I guess it is now had, a sister, a younger sister.”

“So your parents had sex at least once more after you were born then.”

“Really? Too soon Drick.” Marsh shook his head the tousled hair waving gently as they did, “I am a bit cut up about this.”

“I can see. But I don’t mix much with organics and emotions. I forget what is good to say so I just go with the flippancy.”

“I will never see her, or know what happened to her. I won’t know what happened to my parents, to friends. To anyone. They are all gone, as if they never really existed, they could be a figment of my imagination, they are the shadow of my memories.”

“There might be some trace. A lot of information has been lost over time, but some still exists. If I can get the right connection I can try and request data packets for you from the Terran system. They might have some records. But there isn’t much chance, I am sorry.”

“Hell, it hurts a little. The thought of not seeing her again, any of them hurts a lot, but the physical pain is real as well. I know it is now history but it is fresh for me. This is all new and everything I knew is gone. Even my memory.”

“How is your memory?” 

“Bits more of that at least seem to be coming back I guess.”

“It will come. We have a specialist coming to help you out. Also a neurosurgeon for the web in your skull.”

“Thanks, I was wondering if I could get it removed.”

“What? Why the hell would we do that. The surgeon is here to take the restrictions out so you can use it properly. Removing it would be difficult and potentially dangerous. Your fairly unique even for a born organic. There is no way that there is any DNA matches for you, there is going to be nothing with strong trace of your biology. Cloning your brain or worse your spinal column would be very difficult. You are going to have to contribute a lot of material to the banks so they can start the process of building a gene history to make parts from that will be compatible.”

“Why would I need that?”

“Organ failure, accidental damage, substance abuse, age. All of those take a toll on the body so you might want to think about investing in enough material in storage to act as replacement parts.”

“Wow. I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Did we hit upon another thing that makes you want to tear parts of your body off?”

“I have no idea. How much of me is me?”

“Well we only have the low level medical reports but it looks like you are all you, Marsh. Aside from the small amount of fused circuitry in your brain.”

“Is it broke?”

“Your brain?”

“No, the circuitry, you said it was fused.”

“Yes, fused as in welded, to your synapses.”

“Wonderful.”

“It is, it is very advanced and once we pull the restrictions I can teach you how to use it.”

“What can it do?”

“You think the tattoos are pretty amazing, right?”

“They are something to behold, yes.”

“Wait till you find out what the device in your head can do.”

“Lie back and maybe close your eyes and I will tell you. Don’t expect this to be fancy or well told I will just fill in what I know in the manner in which it drops out of my mind.” Drick noted that Marsh had closed his eyes again. He must still be suffering from the drugs, they were pretty harsh and normally intended for deep spaceflight. If your body wasn’t used to them, and there was no way his was, then they would hit harder.

“Jesus, Drick, just tell the damned story. Let me give you the critical score. Selling yourself short isn’t going to win a sympathy vote from this audience.” There was a trace of mirth amidst the grumbling baritone. Drick was suprised at the fluid notes of Marsh’s voice. It seemed that the more that time passed the more of the person returned and that coloured everything about them, and in a not unpleasant manner.

“Right. You seem to have found some measure of attitude. I guess a few hours alone with people who generally give me crap has perked you up. Don’t pick up their sense of dismay. Build your own.” Drick snapped the lines a little but felt no real malice or anger. It was good to hear Marsh gain a little confidence.

“I was made like this. I think this is a bit more of me. Not that it makes sense. Jeez, what the hell does make sense at the moment, I still can’t properly recall the events of the last thirty six hours never mind the rest of my life.”

“Well the real you seems to have a touch of flippancy. Did Krennar explain how things work on this system, in fact throughout much of the systems in regards to people and how they present? I only ask as you seem to be showing more of who you are and it is probably going to confuse you if you don’t know how things are.” Drick noted that Marsh was staring through slitted eyes. “It is just that you probably want to have some sense of how to portray yourself and your inner state at any point, to people.”

“Nope, they didn’t explain any of what you just said, well not in that way. In fact all of that was just, well, words, that seemed to fall out of your mouth. As if you just opened it and they tumbled out.”

“My mind. I said I was just going to talk.”

“Really! Seriously that collection of words was near your mind at some point? I honestly thought this was the preamble before the main wander. This is the wander, okay, expectations set.” Marsh smiled and Drick noted that the smile was both warm and generous, when Marsh smiled they did it for people and not just for themselves. It was a good smile.

“Nice. Sarcasm and a take down. Did you want me to explain? Or would you like to take a big shit somewhere as you seem to be carry a lot.”

Marsh laughed a deep laugh and coughed a little. They took a breath. “If you could explain a little more, yes please.”

“There is no gender here. No sexes to speak of. Well there are but not in the way you might understand. There are as many variants as what you likely had, when you came from. But there is no fixed gender. People are grown. Even those that are grown outside of a tube are products of careful choice. We are sexless up until the time we choose to take a sex, or a gender. We choose how we present. It is common to put how you present, as icons, on your tube tag. But it isn’t required and many choose not too.”

“I see, well I think I do.” Marsh had closed his eyes and settled back on the couch, “and I would say that I am a man who prefers people of the opposite gender, but if there are multiple genders?”

“You can easily have a tag that shows as male preferring females. Hell you can present as little or as much information as you like. It is neither right nor wrong to do so.”

“Well for any future reference, until I change my mind which I doubt, I am male and I prefer females. Though the whole idea of gender was not so much a problem but a series of armed conflicts. That’s not that much of an exaggeration. I mean that it absolutely polarised people, They still fought over it in the time I came from. There were religious and political restrictions in some nations. It was random and mindless to many, and the last vestige of morality and sense to others.”

“Well i guess that makes some sense. The change in society, in culture, wasn’t easy for us and was not won by weight of words. The excesses of the Expansion Wars created a different perspective that altered all of our history, irrevocably,”

“Are you awake?” There was a dry cough and the figure suddenly jerked upwards. A strong hand held them still, “calm down, you’re safe.”

“Where, what? Where am I? What happened”

Drick gently pushed them back into a lying position as they struggled to remain sat upright, hacking up dry lungfuls of air. “You need to slow down or I am going to have to restrain you with straps. Try taking deep breaths and calm down. Your muscles will feel tight, there will still be some torpor and rigidity. Don’t try and move too much just yet, give the drugs some time to do their thing. You shouldn’t try to open your eyes. You could try blinking, your eyes will be dry and itchy but you will be unable to focus for a few minutes, the paralysis has not completely left your system.”

“What happened? I mean, did we succeed?”

“Well that’s a question that isn’t easy to answer.” Drick snorted mirthlessly.

“What?” head moving in a slow rotation from side to side. The eyes had started to stream tears. 

“Look you need to try and keep still. We gave you something to help with the removal of the paralysis and to help with any nausea but you are not fully out of the effects. You recover quickly though.”

Drick watched as they took a few minutes to stop coughing and to settle. After a few more moments their eyes cleared and seemed to stop randomly moving. The muscles were beginning to work again and they  would be able to focus, perhaps enough to sit up properly.

 They tried to look at Drick, blinking profusely. They were still good looking even more so as the puffiness had gone and the busted lip had been healed. The food they had eaten in the between time would have also helped, despite the recent events. Nose could still be a little shorter. Hair was less of a tangled mess but still look tousled.

“I have an awful sense of Deja Vu. Where am I? Please don’t say in the back of a Judicial spaceship.”

“Safe. Well, mostly safe. You are at a private residence. It isn’t connected to me or anyone they could trace as being connected to me.”

“So it worked?”

“It worked. You are officially dead, Marsh. Should keep the heat off you for a little while, at least until they work out that we hoodwinked them, which is less likely as the deaths were very convincing.”

“Yeah, they felt like it as well. How exactly did you fake my death? I would have assumed that any fake death you could attempt would be detectable.”

“Well that was easy. We didn’t fake it. We let them kill you.”

“What now?”

“They killed you. The emergency team that came to you found what they, and we, wanted. A corpse. After they pronounced you dead all we had to do was bring you back to life, but make it look as if you were still dead.”

“And how did you do that? Also I am a little sketchy as to why you had to do that.”

“Well things were starting to get very tense. To be honest I stirred up a bigger hornet’s nest than I expected way quicker than I would have liked. I was hoping to provoke a response and I did. A big response. Whomever was previously trying to obtain you, likely to get rid of you, had switched tactic. They wanted you dead, immediately, in custody.”

“So you had to stop them?”

“That would be pointless. We had to let them succeed. That way they would stop looking for you.”

“How did you know that they were going to do that?”

“We managed to get a line into their comms. Thanks to a small heart to heart, well more mind to mind, with a member of one of their strike teams.”

“Any chance you could just tell me the whole story. My head still feels like a shed.”

“Like a what?”

“A shed, like the fourth day of a three day pass.”

“Right. Well not all of it is my story as there were a number of players. But let me see if I can summarise it for you.”

The lights in the elevator came back on full, and the emergency lighting went out, as the power relays were restored to the building. Drick checked the internal chronometer for the encounter. It was running at just a little over three minutes since Drick had entered through the doors above. The clubs alarm systems would have informed the local judiciary station of an issue at the venue, but Drick was monitoring their response and they were still four minutes away. Far more interesting would be private security. If they were lucky Drick’s team had maybe ninety seconds before outside help arrived. That was not a lot of time to get away but it was possible.

 â€œYou’re a dead person, you know that?” the target spat into Drick’s visor, they were visibly shaking with anger.

Drick cocked their head to one side, “it is most likely someone is going to kill me, that is certain. But you will not be the one to do it.” 

“You think killing me is going to achieve anything?” they snarled and laughed.

“No.”

“Then surrender. You are a dead person. But if you give yourself and your companions up I will make it quick for you. I may even just cripple those who are helping you.”

“That’s not going to happen. As you already indicated I am a dead person and quick or slow it has the same outcome, so why would I consider any offer you present.” Drick plugged a hard-wired jack into the elevator’s interface which was a direct link to the system command pad. This gave Drick an uninterruptible connection and allowed Rodero access using Drick’s internal uplink. 

The minute that the security had been triggered, this entire section was transferred to a special security system. It wasn’t easily accessible to the other systems in the club and almost unbreachable except via a direct route such as this.

“Then what is your big plan? Doesn’t matter if you hack lifts and doors, you are not getting out of this shaft.”

“You’ll discover. Let’s just say that since I am marked for termination that maybe I intend to take the fight and bring down as much of the opposition as possible. I am an extremely resourceful individual and I have a lot of influence to bear.”

“Then use it wisely and save yourself if you can.”

“No. I also want to know as much as possible.”

“Well you will not get anything from me.”

“I never said I needed anything from you. All that you know is already in my possession.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

The elevator jerked into sudden life and continued its descent to the garage level. The man suddenly laughed. “You realise that’s my private garage. I have at least twenty of my best people down there. When the doors open they will riddle you with shots.”

“Fair enough,” said Drick. As the elevator slowed Drick made sure to move the target to one side so Drick could face the doorway alone, “don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You’re brave, I have to give you that. Dumb as lizard cack, but brave.”

The doors opened slowly and Drick turned the visor to stare at the man, “there were eleven guards in your private garage,” Drick said as they stepped out and nodded at Boomer, “silence and wrap that piece of shit for me will you.”

“Gladly,” said Boomer firing a jet of paralysing darts right into the target’s neck and chest.

Drick had left the gravitational compensators on the suit turned high but not at maximum to resist some of the acceleration of the fall. The overlay that was being relayed from Rodero indicated that there were five organics in the elevator compartment. Drick was guessing that it would be four of the best security guards and the target.

The elevator was originally forty metres down but Drick was falling at greater than double the speed it was moving. When Drick was fewer than ten metres from the top of the vehicle they indicated to Boomer’s team to make their move.

There was a second in which Drick was almost at the roof and then the lights went out in the shaft and the elevator below came to an emergency stop. Drick had been expecting it and had already fired a shot at the maintenance hatchway on the elevators rooftop. The shot was set to soft with maximum force. It easily punched the slim lock open and half tore the hatchway from the ceiling of the lift.

Drick dropped neatly through the hole as the emergency lighting started to flicker into life. Drick had been correct there were four heavily armed and suited guards. The armour was a much more restrictive version of the suit that Drick was wearing. It more closely resembled harsh atmosphere combat radiation suits than battle dress. There were multiple hard points and weapons mounts on the exterior surface, and doubtless there were many enhancements with augmentation on the inside. 

The guards all carried heavy blaster, short barrel, rifles. Blaster rifles, effectively plasma ejectors, were effective weapons for short range devetstation or long range precision burning. They were messy for crowd control, and in the tight confines of the elevator they were impractical. Drick wasn’t going to let any of the guards use the rifles and they would not have the time, if Drick had their way, to draw any other weapon.

The first guard fell instantly as Drick had re-keyed the shotgun to highest impact, maximum hardness, full power. Drick stuck the gun under the base of their helmet and fired. The recoil, even with the magnetic compensation and pressure nullifying mechanism in the stock, almost tore Drick’s arm off. The guard was much less fortunate. The blast lifted them bodily from the ground and thrust their head back with enough force that it snapped their neck with their own skull. There was a tearing and ripping sound that accompanied the brutal snap and blood sprayed over the inside of their visor plate.

Drick hadn’t even bothered to watch as they were already swinging the shotgun straight into the visor of the guard immediately to the right of the first one. Another shot at maximum force which at point blank range tore through the faceplate and exploded the guards head as if it were a ripe melon.

Drick dropped into a set of splits as the two other guards, who were now behind them, moved around Drick’s quarry. The guards were dropping their rifles and drawing hand lasers and a monofilament sword each. 

The guards’ hands never got the weapons from holsters as Drick had primed forearm ejectors with mini-engineers cutters. A single thought activated the high-intensity gas ejection torches that Drick had set to armour cutting. Drick knew that the gas would be consumed in less than two seconds, but that was adequate time for the cutters to tear a hole fist sized through the groin section of the suits and into the lower stomach of the guards inside. They both screamed in a horrible manner as their intestines cooked in seconds. They fell sideways and were dead or dying before they reached the floor.

Drick was still moving as in the same fluid motion that started with dropping into this confined space. They had rolled backwards, bringing their legs together, tucking them neatly into a ball and then thrusting upwards into a handstand. The kick was aimed at the stomach and chin of the organic target. The creature responsible for the hit set upon Drick in the Spaceport. Drick suspected that they also had some influence over the events that had transpired at Judicial central.

Drick’s kick knocked them backwards. They were presenting as a large male with expensive clothes and too much jewelry on their hands and ankles. A tiny bit of research from contacts with the Union had provided the useful info about their manner and Drick would be using that to the best advantage. Drick flipped onto their feet coming upwards to face the organic who looked up winded but with a face twisted into a snarl. 

“Do you know who I am?” the target screamed in a voice thick with anger and pain.

“I bet that’s not the only dumb thing you’re going to say to me today,” Drick replied.

As Drick plummeted through the hole in the floor they activated the suits systems to switch from increased gravity to as low a gravity as the suit could manage. Drick readied their whole body, going from an arrow to pass through the floor, into a relaxed shape for impact. It was seconds before Drick was taking most of the force of the fall with feet that curled into a roll along the corridor Drick came up into a run ignoring the shock waves of pain that were coursing through their frame.

Drick flicked the shotgun to small shot with low impact as they rounded the corner of the corridor they had crashed into. Drick was already rolling sideways as they reached the corner and firing, it took three shots to hit the target which was a surprised looking guard who was running towards the sound of the noise. Drick’s first shot had gone wild, the second grazed their stomach, but the third hit them square in the face knocking their head backwards and them into unconsciousness.

Drick bounced a shoulder off the wall and used the support of the smooth surface to keep them steady as they continued racing down the new corridor. With half an eye to the overlay of positions and the layout of the complex on the internal monitor Drick guessed that they had a few moments to get to their quarry. Already more guards were converging on one single position. A floor down and two hundred metres away. It was a large room with its own private elevator to every floor including the floor one hundred metres down that exited to a private causeway with an unknown exit to the public freeway.

If Drick’s intended mark made it to their vehicle they would be out of reach for any sensible purposes, they would either go low or acquire too much security or likely both. Drick had to take them in this club. Right now Rodero would be blocking all outside communications from the secure network, if Boomer was doing their job right all other feeds would be out as well. Which meant they had to get out of this area to make any call for backup.

No doubt the club had contingency plans, Drick knew of two at least thanks to some insider information provided by a Union looking to keep them alive to collect on a favour. But there could be others. So speed was the key. The only solution was a heavy assault and immediate resolution.

Drick took a disc from a back pouch and flicked it to active. It was a semi-guided missile keyed to Drick’s own internal systems. The missile had a limited ani-grav stability system and utilised the same motors to propel it at sufficiently worrisome speeds at a target. It had been designed and intended for building assaults.

With a mere thought Drick sent the disc spinning away from them and around the next corner less than ten metres away. Twenty metres down that corridor was a security station and armoured door. For the time being.

Drick armed the missile and activated a power burst to propulsion turning off all other systems. The effect was to leave Drick without any control, monitoring or knowledge, from the missile. It also meant the missiles systems and course couldn’t be interfered with anymore except by direct physical intervention. It was no longer guided, it was a straight line certainty.

Drick slowed their pace and turned the suit’s systems to high gravity effect once more as they dropped to the ground with bare moments to spare. There was a colossal explosion. As if in symphony with Drick’s actions there was a rumble from above and motes of dust fell from the ceiling and walls. In the distance there were screams of surprise and terror. 

Drick recognised the effect of a rumble pack. It was a weapon intended for fear and confusion. A damaging sound, a deep rumbling bass, was the signature. A lot of intense light but it was broad spectrum and not harmful to most people. The major effect was to shake solid surfaces. It rumbled. As it did it vibrated large surfaces using low level frequency generation, that was harmless to organics but caused ripples in anything broad flat and weighing more than a few hundred kilogrammes. The building literally shook with the force of a low frequency, high energy, sound weapon. 

Drick guessed that the majority of the staff would be heading to the epicentre of that explosion, it was hardly relevant to Drick at this moment. Drick was moving at their fastest rate. With the lowered gravitational effect from the suit they were able to run up the walls to take corners from the wall opposite, landing in rolls that bounced them metres down a corridor into pouncing runs that became upright.

Drick ran through two staff members spinning them into a wall or floor with sheer momentum. On the next corridor that was long and straight Drick used three shots from the shotgun. One was fortunate, straight to the back of the head, then two to the stomach of the other guard took out any thoughts of resistance.

Another corner and Drick backflipped from a high point of the wall and as they came upright used a maximum spread of the gel shotgun that sent a wall of low impact force down the corridor. 

The four guards who were waiting outside of the elevator were firing at the same moment, but their shots were absorbed by the non-reactive substance of the gel round as it enveloped them knocking them backwards. The next impact the guards felt was from the thousands of darts that Drick unleashed from the other handgun.

The guards were all down on this level and Drick casually walked towards the armoured doors that led to the private elevator, the other floors and garage. Drick used a small powered expansion tool to open the doors as Rodero deactivated all door sensors and locked this area down. 

Drick looked down. The quarry had clearly decided to evacuate, the monitors gave that away. It was a lazy eleven seconds before the elevator ascended from the garage to the floor below and Drick’s screen showed the security enter the lift. The quarry was unmonitored, it was still a little bit of guesswork to think they were with these guards. But well informed guesses.

 Drick watched it start to move and then leapt down the elevator shaft.

Hooper escorted the two mortuary stretchers as they hovered down the corridor on the pre-programmed route to the secure area that had held Marsh and Krennar. The stretchers were from a privately maintained mortuary and were fully automatic. Hooper idly wondered how much smarter than his apartment they were likely to be? Krennar was a legal, probably pulled in more in a year than Hooper could expect to earn in a lifetime so the insurance would be delightfully bespoke. 

The stretchers reached the doorway and Hooper used a keycard to override the security. Krennar and Marsh were lying on the floor where the med team had left them after declaring them deceased. Hooper watched showing no expression as the stretchers hovered over the bodies and a hatchway opened in the base of each one. They lowered over the bodies and then closed the hatch sealing the bodies inside.

Hooper waited as the stretchers, more mobile coffins now, identified and then instantly administered care. in this case it would be to hold them in a state of grace. Hooper made sure to get the confirmation codes that officially handed over the two organics to the private medical company and then escorted them out of the room.

Hooper almost walked into Perf who was outside in the corridor. “Heya Hooper.”

“Perf.”

“I came down to see if it was true. So they are actually dead?”

“That’s what it says on the med sheet.”

“Holy heck, what happened?”

“Damndest thing, the air circulator had a short and a fatal shut down. Some form of software glitch. I would have sworn it was impossible, in fact, my first thought was that someone had tried to cover up a murder. But the techs assure me it was all a massive series of related incidents. They called it a cascade failure. A small issue that spirals into a large issue, each one contributing to a larger end effect.”

“Wow. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, these rooms are supposed to be ultra safe and secure.”

“Tell me about it. Going to be a heck of a stink about this. I already had three different oversight bodies contact me, and I hate to think what the investigator assigned is going to say.”

“I hear they’re a bit of a firebrand.”

“They are a massive pain in the arse is what they are.”

“I thought you guys were a little tighter than that?”

“Not that tight, I owe them and they have been using that for a long time.”

“Sorry to hear that. Look do you want me to do the filing of the paperwork for you?”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I’d be happy to, hell that’s ninety percent of my job so it wouldn’t be a real stress.”

“Thanks Perf, I owe you. Means I can escort the stretchers and then go off shift.” Hooper passed a data card to Perf.

“I’ll walk down to the hanger with you,” said Perf, “we can go over your picks for a fantasy team in next year’s league, fully round out something good.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Hooper, “I hate babysitting corpses.”

Drick spun lazily in the air. Below them the revellers fell at a greater speed many of them screaming and twisting in terror. Drick would have preferred to alert them to the fact that the safety systems would save them, at the most they would have small bruises and scrapes. But the added noise and confusion would help cause a distraction.

Drick took careful aim and fired single shots with both weapons at the security guards below. Drick enjoyed the fact that multiple bodies were falling in front of them and between them and the club’s guards, even if Drick wished them no harm. The guards had lost targeting systems and needed to find a convenient gap in the falling bodies to aim and fire at Drick. However Drick had their exact position and full targeting and threat detection systems. With the enhanced combat diagnostics and heightened reflexes it was a one sided battle that favoured just the one. Drick made sure to utilise it well and had shot seven of the guards before needing to focus on the next stage of the plan.

The first of the revellers falling from the ceiling had already been shifted to safe drop zones and auto-inflating buffer cushions before Drick had even fallen ten metres. The suits compensators had slowed Drick’s fall to less than a third of the other patrons. This was the moment to change tactic.

Drick flicked the shotgun open and formed themselves into a ball so that the momentum carrying them towards the bar, which was the direction they had headed towards just after triggering the acid bomb, was accelerated. Drick pulled a gel concoction of their own creation and loaded it into the stock of the gun. A quick flick of a switch auto-ejected any residue gel in the gun then loaded and charged the new round. 

Drick took a careful note of the target. It was a section of floor close to a wall behind the bar. As they swung head over feet Drick took a careful count of the rotational movement and the distance and angles to the target. Already there were increased sounds of plasma discharges, they hadn’t managed to get close to Drick but they were within a few metres as Drick could feel the heat from the weapons. The closeness of Drick to the guards coupled with the number of patrons now saved by the clubs automatic safety systems was making the airspace much more of a threat.

But still Drick waited until there was only ten metres from the floor and less than fifteen from the target before they switched the suit from ultra low simulations to high gravity. Drick accelerated and at the same moment fired the gel round on large stream maximum pressure. The effect was to propel a huge crimson ball of gel at the floor, at it impacted it exploded in a series of increasingly violent blue flashes. The shockwaves passed over Drick followed by a walls of increasingly searing heat that singed exposed flesh.

By the time that Drick would have impacted against the target a hole had appeared in the floor over two metres across revealing a room below. Drick shot through that hole through a wave of green plasma fire from the few guards still awake in the main room to track Drick’s movements.

Drick landed in the dead centre of the dance floor bending legs to take the impact which was drastically lessened by the suits neutralisers. Drick felt the strong tug of the artificial gravity generator below their feet. The main unit that provided the dome with its unique dancing surface was directly below the apex. The plans for this building flashed onto Drick’s retina showing the main power conduit, it was less than one metre to the left.

Drick took a small canister from a jacket pocket and stuck it to the ground. By now the security forces below would have started to ascend the elevators and would also be scanning for Drick’s form with sensors. Drick activated the cannister on the ground above the power cable and stepped quickly backwards as a spray of sparks erupted from the bottom of the device. In moments a hole nearly sixty centimetres across was bubbling below the canister and then the whole of the ceiling fell inwards. 

Drick started to move at a low crouch through the crowd, they had to move slowly as the weight neutralisers were turned to maximum, it would only be a moment before the action got busy. There was a feed being relayed to Drick’s eyes from the well positioned angels in the club. Drick took note of the sixteen guards the angels could see who had moved into various positions. 

A moment later and a new feed was overlaid showing the position of all the club’s staff by their comms units. Rodero had managed to hack into the club’s security feeds. Drick smiled and was rewarded with a sudden explosion from the centre of the ceiling. The acid bomb had worked its way to the power units and eaten right through them. It was a moment in which time seemed to hold its breath and then the entire of the dance floor was suddenly filled with people falling from it.

This was just as Drick planned. The falling people would now be the highest priority to the nightclub’s computer systems. It would focus all of its efforts on tracking and catching the falling people using emergency systems. It was a common occurrence for people to fall from an inversion elevator while drunk, so clubs like this had emergency devices that could slow a falling body. However slowing several hundred and working out the most logical and safe way to do that would require a lot of processing power. Safety systems overrode security systems. The club’s security would be crippled for at least thirty seconds. Drick would have to use that to the best possible advantage.

Drick stopped the roll and finished with a left foot and right knee touching the ground. Drick had drawn two weapons as they came upright. The first was a short needle gun with high impact darts filled with a neurotoxin that caused almost instant paralysis. The weapon had hundreds of darts and could fire a single shot or a steady spray using pressure propulsion. The second was a shortened gel shotgun, a crowd control and anti vehicle weapon favoured by the Judicial forces of a half millennia before. The gel, that was fired via an accelerated pressure wave, could be configured by a thumb switch. It changed from a soft putty that would punch a person to the ground, all the way to a solid ball of plasticrete like canon shot that would punch a hole through armour plating and an engine casing. 

The gel shotgun was out of favour in a civilisation dominated by laser weaponry and plasma blasters but Drick was extremely fond of it for the sheer versatility and extreme message giving capabilities. Drick had kept this weapon in personal possission for a very long time and had even taken the time to learn how to construct, repair and replace every component of the gun. Drick even took the time to brew their own flavour of gel in a couple of distinct varieties.

Drick stood quickly and sprayed the six bodyguards who had moved in from each side of the door with the needler. Drick took a step up onto a chair and power-flipped using the suits altered gravity field to perform an impossible manoeuvre that shot them ten metres further into the club to land amongst a set of tables whose patrons hadn’t even had the chance to react to the slamming doors.

The club was a dome of around two hundred metres in length. The roof started at a mere three metres but reached a height of sixty metres at the apex before falling back to a parallel height of three metres on the other side. The centre of the dome was an inverted dance floor. Clever gravity generators and reversing field tubes allowed you to ascend and flip upside down half way through that ascent to literally dance on the ceiling. 

Drick was already sprinting and silently hoping that the angels had been watching. A second of concern was all that was needed before a prayer was answered. Drick internal screens showed a moment of brief static and many screens in the bar flicked off. Some of the lighting systems and the more esoteric liquid crystal display clothing of the revellers flicked with static or went off. It was a medium powered electro magnetic pulse from an emp grenade.

Drick would have smiled if they were not busy moving to keep their opposition busy. There were already eight security moving on Drick’s position, they were fast, no doubt using threat recognition and tracking software. Hopefully it would be currently resetting along with the rest of the security in the building. That had been why Drick had asked for the EMP grenade to be triggered.

Modern security systems, and certainly the ones carried by the team in here would be shielded from any pulse from a handheld device like a grenade. In truth half of the patrons in the club likely had comms units that were shielded. Internal computers would have reset clocks. An electromagnetic pulse was an inconvenience and not a strong deterrent. But that wasn’t why Drick had requested for it to be discharged.

Drick had an angel with a shielded monitor array waiting. The minute the pulse was sent they should have been able to plug into the fibre backbone of the security relays. Everyone with high security used a secondary hard connection, it stopped being taken out by over-the-air interference. The pulse would have stunned all the systems for a moment, but that was enough time to inject a probe into the fibre line and jack a monitoring system into it. On the other end of the system was a very secure link to Drick’s internal comms unit and the slicer Drick had connected on a secure frequency. Rodero would be able to piggyback into the network as they had into the security guards mind, except this time Drick was not required as anything other than a conduit and could focus all attention on their own issues.

“Tell me something good.” Drick flashed the message to the secure channel the team was using.

“I’m in.” was Rodero’s response.

“System secure and disguised,” flashed the text from the angel, “heading to my cover position.”

Drick rolled under a table as four of the security merged on their position. A quick flisk with a wrist mounted engineers cutting torch was all it took to slice through the table’s single, middle, support. Drick then launched upwards with the table casting drinks everywhere and pitching it directly into the faces of two of the guards. Drick fired the gel gun into the table with a soft round at maximum velocity. It had the effect of propelling the one metre circular block of resin and steel into the two guards at one hundred kilometres an hour. There would be broken bones and a number of bruises at the very least, if not more permanent damage, to the guards and anyone within the ten metres the table went before stopping.

Drick didn’t even look at the devastation. They were too distracted at firing two single shots into the faces of the two other guards. Both had glasses on. But neither wore masks and were yelling. Drick flicked a wrist and shot them both into the mouth, they were choking and stiffening before they hit the ground. 

Drick started to run again taking mighty leaps and fast rolls in seemingly random directions. But the path was purposeful and those above on the ceiling could see that each random turn still took Drick towards the centre of the dome. As Drick reached the point below the dome’s apex they launched upwards flipping in mid air. The leap was almost thirty-five metres in height. As Drick spun in the air to look down they fired the gel gun into the head of a guard knocking them face first into a table and sent a spray of shots that took out two others and maybe a dozen bystanders with paralysing needles. They would be alive but stiff for a few hours.

The leap was enough to catch Drick in the reversed gravity and although Drick looked like they were held in mid air from directly below they were in fact falling at high speed towards the dance floor above.