13


Emerging from the pipe into stagnant water wasn’t my finest moment, especially since I had gone face first with my own vomit liberally smeared down the front of my gear.
“Don’t open your mouth,” X-37 said.
For an artificial intelligence designed to make me the most efficient killer and infiltration specialist in the galaxy, X-37 had some weird hang-ups. Why should it care about whether or not I gagged on the sludge splashing all around me? I was more worried about water snakes or whatever might live in this slop.
I saw the room in layers of shadow that even my cybernetic optics couldn’t sort out. When I stood up, I was almost waist deep. A filmy layer that looked like the skin of some rotting alien beast covered everything. The smell drove my stomach into new convulsions.
Turning right, turning left, I looked for the cause of a splashing sound. “What was that?”
“I have no data on what might or might not be in the sewer.” X-37 seemed distracted.
“All right. This isn’t so bad. Probably just rats. More scared of me than I am of them.” I did a circuit of the room to be sure there were no real dangers and put my imagination in timeout. None of the spec ops soldiers, including the main asshole who thought he was such a bad ass, had elected to follow me this way.
I bent at the waist and put my hands on my knees, not sure if I needed to puke or scream. My bones ached, probably from flexing against the carbon fiber sheath that had kept me from being crippled ten times during this shit mission.
“X, I have water leaking into everything.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Well, no shit, X. But that doesn’t mean I want sludge down my shorts.”
“At least you didn’t open your mouth until you emerged.”
“Good point. What is that smell?”
“Take a guess, or better yet, don’t worry about it. My suggestion is to get moving as soon as possible.”
Once I’d climbed out of the sewer, I tried to remove all my weapons and clean them. The compact first aid pack and gun-cleaning kit were waterproof. The problem was I didn’t have any weapons.
The arm blade eventually responded to some tender loving care with the gun-cleaning kit, thunking out a little slower than usual but locking into place without a major problem. I left it extended until I was certain the housing was dry, then retracted it as I marched through an unlit section of Dreadmax.
No one had been through this area in a long time. Even before the station became a maximum-security prison, it probably was mostly maintained by bots and drones.
“Take the next ladder. There is a transportation tube above this section.”
“I’m about done with trains and train tracks,” I muttered as I poked my head over the top of the ladder and looked around.
“It’s the best, and cheapest, way to move anything on a station this large.”
“Thanks for that extremely valuable information, X.” I climbed out of the pipe, moved away from the opening, and sat against the wall. “How long have we been separated from the principal?”
“Four point five hours. Six hours remain before the mission clock expires.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Don’t argue with me, Reaper Cain. You’ve been hit on the head several times. Trust me, I’m here to help.”
“Then help.” It felt like a dick thing to say, but I wasn’t in the mood to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ or explain exactly what I expected the limited AI to do.
The tracks were narrower than what I’d encountered before getting separated from my team—probably one of the personnel lines that had moved crewman, pilots, and soldiers to every part of the battle station before everything went sideways.
There were actual lights in places—dim but functioning. I found a set of locked escalators and ran up to the next sub-level. “How far down am I, X?”
“Technically, you have never left the first sub-level. Each layer of the ring is fifty meters thick and contains its own infrastructure. The closer you get to the spire in the center, the less like a space station and the more like a naval vessel it becomes.”
I jogged along the track, unburned by weapons, ammunition, or supplies. “What is the structural integrity of my armor after jerk-face kicked my ass?”
“You’d be better off ditching it.”
“Thanks, X.”
I stripped down to my soaked jumpsuit and under-layers before picking up the pace. What I found at the top of the stairs was a way point, a terminal where workers could disembark and head into various work areas.
“What are you looking for?” X-37 asked.
“Bathroom. With running water if possible.”
What I found was even better, a temporary dormitory with functional showers and an actual kitchen—not some laboratory for making gray slime.
“That other place was definitely not a kitchen,” I said.
“Which causes one to wonder exactly what you ate two helpings of.”
“Let’s never talk about that again.”
I showered, shaved, and, well, did other things that needed doing. In one locker, I found a jumpsuit, work belt, and boots that fit. On the way out, I smashed open a vending machine and ate the oldest powdered sugar donut in the galaxy—which tasted glorious.
“There is good news,” X-37 said. “While you were screwing off, I continued to analyze station schematics and probable travel routes of your lost group.”
“That is good news, X. Thanks. I’ll put a little something extra in your next paycheck.” Running in dry boots felt like a luxury. “Tell me the rest.”
“Continue this direction, avoid confrontations with gangs, cannibals, or spec ops soldiers who want to kill you, and you should arrive at your destination in less than one hour,” X-37 said.
It took me forty-two minutes. I watched the platform that Grady had barricaded for another five minutes before making my approach. My old friend had seen action since we parted. He had bandages on his face, left arm, and a splint on his leg—the same leg that had been shot earlier. It was a new injury and caused him to limp badly.
“Grady, I’m coming to you,” I announced before I approached. The radio sounded more garbled each time I used it.
“I see you. We’ve been attacked three times since you went off gallivanting,” he said. “You’re going to have a hell of a time reaching us without crossing a kill zone.”
I studied Grady from a distance. He was as tough as any spec ops soldier, but he had more wounds than I did. X-37 kept tabs on my hormonal output and all my bodily functions. The Reaper AI could, and often did, tweak things a bit to make sure I recovered quickly and grew as strong as possible from whatever exercise routine I had access to. That was one of the reasons I’d been able to stay strong during my confinement. Aggressive hormone regulation.
With my artificial left arm enhanced by bionic servos, the advanced optics of my left eye, and the carbon fiber sheaths protecting my bones, I had a better chance of surviving this mission than he did.
Unless he had been upgraded, which certainly would have explained his faster-than-normal healing. I thought I would know if he’d undergone anything close to the transformation I’d suffered. Seventy-eight percent of the subjects brought into the Reaper Corps went crazy from the pain of the treatments long before they were ever put into the field.
Grady was tough, but he wasn’t that tough. I had wiring that was less than five molecules wide twisted through my nerves. The doctors had promised to avoid pain centers, but they were full of shit about a lot of things. And they had lied more than they breathed.
“I didn’t think the RSG or the NG could make it this far,” I said. “Who the hell’s been attacking you? Can I get across the kill zone if I move fast?”
This was a test question. Did my friend really want me to survive this mission?
“No, they’ve got a sniper and their close quarters team has unlimited ammunition, apparently. What’s an NG? Never mind. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I think there’s a spec ops team trying to take us out.”
“You mean that wasn’t part of the plan?”
“Where have you been?” he asked after a short pause.
“Here and there. Ate something questionable. The usual stuff you’d expect on a suicide mission.” I saw Elise and the doctor. Tension I didn’t realize I was holding slipped away, relaxing my shoulders and arms. “I ran into some spec ops soldiers who tried to kill me. That makes sense, given my situation. I’m surprised they’d try to take you out and risk damaging the principal.”
“Trust me, I’ve been surprised by a lot of things since I jumped down into this mess.”
“You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,” I said.
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“Stand by. I may have a way to reach your position,” I said.
“Negative. I can take the doctor and the girl and meet you at the landing bay,” Grady said.
“I want to get squared away before that. Ten to one odds the pick-up will be sketchy.”
What, no response, you back-stabbing asshole?
Grady’s mic clicked a few times, indicating he was starting and stopping the transmission, probably at a loss for words. “You’re not the only one getting screwed here.”