Brigends (The Final War Series Book 1) (15 page)

Kroll floated into the club.

“You,” she greeted the latest invader.

He looked at her, almost astonished to see her associating with scum. “This is a small world. I never thought I would see you again.”

“It can’t be.”

Yet, there he stood. Max’s troubles were worse than she imagined.

“General Pavel, I am here for you only. Surrender and I promise no harm will befall your friends.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Zoe called out. “He’s lying.”

“Piss off,” Emil replied.

The assassin scanned the room, examining each participant with his mind. When he entered the club, Marta had sensed his sickening imminence and raised her head to seek out the cause. His scrutiny fell on her and he recognized her neural signature as the same mysterious pulse from the tower.

She felt him probing her mind. It wasn’t mild or inconspicuous. The sensation made her eyes and ears burn. She collapsed. Her scream sent out an invisible wave, forcing the him to break the link. He shrugged off the disorientation, realizing the girl was no aberration; she was something entirely different.

“Change of plans,” he said to Faso. “Bring the girl and Pavel to me alive. Eliminate the rest.”

“Like hell I will. Boss Cho wants the boy alive so he can kill him himself.”

The brute didn’t understand the proper chain of command, so Kroll wasn’t going to hold the insubordination against him. There were easier ways to coerce stubborn humans.

“I will triple the reward,” he offered.

Faso’s loyal convictions vanished with the right price. Boss Cho would just have to forgive the disobedience. He signaled to his men, “Okay, you heard the man! Get the girl and the Russian; take out everyone else!”

For the Vegas, caught in the line of fire, it was the end for them. Paz begged, “Dont kel us!”

Faso shrugged. “Sorry, bros. The money’s too good to pass up.”

As bullets sliced the air, Tank pulled the brothers on top of himself and Patti. The first volley killed Burke. Emil and Scar crouched behind the pillars and returned gunfire. Zoe dodged in-and-out, taking three of Faso’s men permanently out of the fight with lightning fast headshots.

The violence escalated as the hunters lobbed explosive charges willy-nilly. Splintered wood and shattered glass polluted the air.

Faso ran along the line, slapping his men. “
Pendejos
! Watch your fire! We want those two alive!”

Kroll used his ora to form a field around his body, deflecting bullets and shrapnel. At his leisure, he blasted streams of intense energy at those standing in his way.

Tank tossed the brothers aside to evade the Zolarian’s attacks. Protecting Patti with his massive frame, they took shelter under the staircase.

Faso crawled to the Vegas and with a flick of a knife, cut them loose. Paz slugged him. “
Yu poco mere
!”

“Hey, you want five percent or not?” Faso asked, wiping blood from his busted lip.

“Seven,” he countered.

“Four.”

“Deal,” the dullard accepted.

Cho’s lieutenant smirked as he armed the two buffoons. With bygones settled, Paz and Paco joined the fight.

Under cover-fire from Zoe, Emil rolled to Burke’s body and grabbed the
big gun
from the man’s dead hands. But, before he could get to his feet and use it, Faso tackled him and they wrestled for control of the weapon.

The younger man growled and spewed his stinking breath in the General’s face. “You’re mine, old man.”

The stench coming from the hunter’s mouth was unbearable. Emil kneed the groin and beat him senseless with crushing head-butts. Rolling to the side, he shot Faso through the sternum, propelling the thug several meters away.

“Think again, kid,” Emil quipped.

On his feet, he opened full auto-fire, mowing down the enemy with hundreds of rounds. He advanced, unaware that the crimson ora was no longer snug in his pocket, but on the floor next to the bar.

Broken glass from exploding bottles showered on Max and Marta’s heads. He tried to cover her, but in a panic, she scurried from him. She only stopped when she got to the end and there was nowhere else to go.

There she saw the shimmering crystal. It sang to her, producing an elemental memory. A visceral curiosity overruled her fear and she seized the object. Then the world became eerily silent, devoid of bloodshed and angry combatants committing violence.

For almost everyone else, the fight went on without the slightest detection. But, for Kroll and Patti, a high pitch frequency drowned out the gunfire and explosions. Both of them looked for the girl.

Max scurried to her. The hand holding the crystal twitched hysterically from an unseen burn.

“Hey, wake up,” he called as he patted her cheeks. “No, don’t do this now. Wake up!”

Isolated inside a different realm, she couldn’t hear him. In the air above her, an apparition descended. Sensing a relation to its warmth, she reached to touch it. The figure of pure light extended for her as well. As their fingertips were about to become one, a force yanked Marta back to reality.

She looked at Max, who was yelling at her with silent words. He had pried the ora from her rigid fingers and now held it in his hand. While she regained consciousness, he tucked the crystal in his pocket.

“Come on. Get up.”

Kroll appeared at the end of the bar. Max didn’t wait for Marta to recover; he started dragging her in the opposite direction. The demon would’ve had them, if not for Zoe firing on him, forcing him to abandon pursuit. The diversion was enough for the kids to get away and disappear down the service hall.

She spent the entire magazine and when she paused to reload, Kroll hurled a gust, catapulting her across the room. The wave traveled and smashed through the staircase. Patti and Tank vaulted to safety just as the support beams collapsed. Falling debris crushed two bounty hunters and half buried Zoe. Fire erupted and spread fast because of the alcohol soaked wood, consuming most of the second level.

With Cho’s men either dead or wounded, the Vegas ditched the lost fight and ran out the front. Emil, Tank, and Scar picked off the few holdouts.

Patti Luma staggered into the middle of her nightclub. Everything she had built with her life’s blood was burning.

“We got to go,” Tank shouted.

She didn’t want to move, but a single thought reclaimed her focus. “Where’s Max?”

“He got out with the girl. We’ll find him, but I got to get you out of here first.”

She pointed to Zoe. “Grab her.”

He pulled the cataleptic woman from the rubble and threw her over his shoulder. As they raced to the front, Patti turned back to the Romanian, who was frantically searching for the missing ora. She would have preferred to leave him behind.

“You coming or what?”

With the ceiling crashing down around him, he gave up and joined them as they ran for their lives.

Boss Cho, stunned to see the old woman alive, braced for her wrath. Tank and Scar escorted her straight toward his ground-limo. Much to his confused relief, she ignored him. The Vegas retreated, letting Patti’s men commandeer the car. Tank laid Zoe in the backseat. Emil climbed in next to her.

“I swear, this is not what I wanted,” the gangster insisted.

She looked through him and he shrank like a scolded dog. “You let my place burn; I’m taking your ride. Consider it your down payment.”
Patti boarded the limo. The fancy car drove away, leaving Cho alone with the flaming Luma Lounge to serve as a testament to his rapacious ambition.

Hiding out

Max and Marta ran down the narrow passage. The lights flickered, creating a strobe effect which pushed their anxiety to a fever pitch.

They got to the door and he struggled to free the wedged crossbar. The Zolarian’s fiery silhouette found them. She held on to her protector, digging her fingers into his arm.

Max didn’t dare look; he focused on the task at hand. The bar dislodged with one strenuous tug, but it was too late. As he turned to fight, a blast pushed him into the wall.

Defenseless, Marta confronted the threat. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his eyes examining her, seeking to learn who or what she was. He made his move and she screamed, shattering the electrical lights along the length of the hallway with its intensity. The shadow man fell, protecting his ears from the fierce shriek.

Handling the crossbar like a mace, Max rose up behind him and swung. It hit with a loud thump against the villain’s head. Kroll went over and didn’t get back up.

Together they burst through the door and out into the alley. Assuming there would be a dozen bounty hunters waiting, he came out swinging the bar. Fortune was theirs; the alley was deserted. The next problem — transportation; they couldn’t hope to escape on foot. By providence, there was a mint condition Trezor Talon parked along the wall. He tossed the weapon and went for the motorbike.

Talons were renowned for their speed, but they had one supreme drawback — a third-rate security system. He deactivated the antitheft device with one hooked finger. Straddling the bike’s seat, he pounded the kick-start. The engine roared.

“Come on.”

She got on and held him tight. He gunned the bike and they zipped toward the street. In a flash, a K9E leapt from the darkness and almost snagged them with its metallic jaws. Alerted by the commotion, four more drones joined the first one in giving chase.

Max drove the cluttered streets, dodging obstacles at breakneck haste. No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the lead robot. It snapped its lockjaw, vying to catch anything that would stop the bike. He pressed the throttle back to the point of breaking the polymer grip, but he wasn’t able to gain distance.

The chase cleared the lower streets and detoured up a ramp leading to the Lo-5’s mid-levels, where the elevated stages were cleaner and less cluttered. The engine’s roar resonated, as did the clicking of twenty metal claws scratching the walkways.

The leader got within a meter from the back tire. A long scaffold blocked the road ahead. Max through the new hindrance. Three of the robots separated and pursued from different vantages. The other two were farther behind. The leader rammed through, demolishing the scaffold’s foundation and slowing its pace. Metal bars showered with an awful clanging onto one of the trailing robots.

One down. Four remained.

The two drones tracking from opposite sides of the jetty did so along the ledges of the buildings. Their claws sprayed jagged brick everywhere. The path shrank to a tight tunnel. Max didn’t let up on the speed as the bike inserted into the opening with no room to spare. Both of the K9Es leapt from the heights just as the kids disappeared inside the gap. The two automatons collided in an explosion of metal fragments.

Two more down.

The other drones entered in a single file formation. The claustrophobic walls blurred as the bike raced through. Marta glanced back to see the lead drone making its move and bearing its jaws. She screeched. A shockwave ripped into the beast, shorting out its circuits.

Forth one down.

The last K9E jumped over the fallen robot, continuing the chase undeterred. They cleared the passage and sped onto a catwalk high above the center of a humongous aero-port. Here, miles on top of miles of connecting walkways overlapped countless platforms and docking ports. Hundreds of airships, moored and underway, clogged the openings between the footbridges.

“How many?”

She looked. “One.”

“I’m getting sick of this crap. Hold on.”

“What are you going to do?”

Max steered the bike headlong at the open gate of a nearby platform. Marta closed her eyes. With nothing but vacant space in front of them, the bike flew off the ledge to what should have been their doom. But, they sloped into a parabolic freefall at the instant an enormous freighter surfaced in the crevice. The wheels slammed atop of the ship’s hull. He regained control and brought the bike to a safe stop. She dared to look. Discovering where they were, she quickly wished she hadn’t.

Up on a catwalk, the drone patrolled, calculating its next action. It jumped to a series of angling platforms, maneuvering to an elevation higher than the airship. When its logic circuits determined it was time to pounce, the machine leapt and landed on the hull fifty meters from them.

Max’s shoulders slumped and a defeated exhale deflated his lungs. He peeled the bike one-eighty and raced off in the opposing direction. The lumpy surface made it impossible to build up speed, giving the drone a chance in overtaking its prey.

Marta watched helplessly as he aimed for a sloping exhaust vent near the edge of the hull. The bike hit the makeshift ramp and they soared skyward. The drone bounded for them, but lost its prize when the bike’s rear tire hit the deck of a nearby platform. Missing the landing, it smacked its rigid skull against the ledge.

The last drone tumbled head over tail into the industrial abyss.

Max rode out of the port and covered several kilometers to assure their escape. He stopped. Marta cried. He wished he could’ve wept, but it wouldn’t have been his style.

He was angry. Angry at the world and angry at the brigends for getting him mixed up in their crusade. Moreover, he was angry with himself for not avoiding this predicament in the first place. The girl buried her face in his jacket and trembled. He had something else to feel guilty about — helping those who put her in danger.

He flipped out the kickstand and got off the seat. He couldn’t calm his breathing. Sweat trickled down his back.

“Why did you stop? Please, don’t go. Please?”

Her panic nagged at his empathy. He wanted to ditch her and vanish.

Someone will find her wandering the streets and take her back to her home in the clouds
.

No, he couldn’t do that. He knew he couldn’t. She wasn’t safe alone.

No, he wasn’t going to leave her.

He got back on the bike. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face again between his shoulder blades. He kicked the stand in and revved the engine.

There was only one place left for them to find refuge.

The neighborhood was lifeless, thanks mainly to the biohazard warning signs plastered on every vertical edifice. To the public, venturing into this toxic dump was a surefire way to die from some long forgotten contamination. To a select few who knew the truth, the misleading signs were a way to keep out intrusive vagabonds and greedy squatters.

They rolled up on a mini-fortress reinforced with metal plates on all the windows and doors. Max parked on the edge of the curve and got off. “Wait here,” he told Marta as he went to the front door of the centuries old firehouse.

He rapped hard on the steel plates. No answer. He pounded again.

A shrilled voice came from the other side. “Yeah? What do you want?”

“Open the door. It’s me.”

“Me who?”

“Me Max.”

“Don’t know any Max. Go away!”

“Dinx, open the mucking door!”

The door’s dozen lock tumblers clanked one by one. A crack widened just enough for a vague shape to appear through the black opening. “What are you doing here? Everyone’s after you.”

“Let us in.”

“Us?” he highlighted. “Who’s that over there?”

“Dinx, Marta. Marta, this is Dinx.”

“They got your image everywhere. I ain’t letting you in. Go away!” The shape tried to slam the door, but Max forced it open. Dinx, a wiry nineteen year old with disheveled hair shoved back in vain.

Frustrated, Max snapped, “Stop it! We need your help. Please?” He pushed the door fully open.

The fidgety kid verged on a complete freak out. His baggy shirt flopped when he flailed his arms. “I can’t believe this. Ah man, they’re going to come here looking for you.”

“Well, the longer we stand out here, the more likely we’ll get spotted.”

The boy lowered his head and stood aside, inviting his uninvited guests inside.

Max waved her over and they entered the building. The kid slammed the panel closed and secured the locks in a hurry.

“What have they been saying on the network?”

Dinx hyperventilated. “I’m... going... to die. Or worse — end up in a reintegration center. I’m too small to be in prison.”

“Hey, concentrate. What are they saying on the net about us?”

“Something about you and an old ‘codge. They said you killed Markus Nerees.”

Marta twitched at the mention of her father’s name.

“I always knew you were bad news. I should’ve never been your friend. No — no — no — no. This aint’ happening to me.”

Max ignored the tantrum and escorted Marta upstairs. With no one around to hear him throw the fit, Dinx gave up and trudged after them.

The loft was roomy for a Lo-5 dwelling, yet cluttered with outdated and surplus electronics. Through the skylight, an outside security lamp painted a jaundice circle on the cluttered workstation. Hanging from rails were several viewer screens, each displaying a holo-image of Max’s face.

New York’s newest fugitive skirted stacks of biobit processors to get to a partitioned section in the far corner. Separated by a rickety metal frame, tin plates, and bed sheets, the makeshift room served as a crude bedroom.

He yelled from behind the flimsy wall, “Check the network and see if there’s anything about the shootout at Patti’s”.

“Shootout?”

“Cho’s guys jumped us there.”

“What? Ah, man.” The squirmy boy was in danger of a mental overload.

Max came back in carrying a wad of clothes. He handed it to Marta. “Here, try this. You two look about the same size. You can use the bedroom over there.”

While she went to change, he skipped over the clutter to get to the workstation. Spent gelrat packs littered the desktop. From the smell, it meant they had been recently melted to extract the concentrated fructose. Because of their chemical composition, the rush from the caramelized sugar amounted to freebasing. Dinx’s tweaking confirmed it — he was
ratting
.

Max swiped away the used packs and waved entries on the waveboard. His mug shot on the screens faded, replaced with live video feeds and streaming text of current news events. The Clarion Call was broadcasting stories about the World First Celebration. A few of the text feeds ran the all-alert, but there was nothing indicating the riot at the Luma Lounge.

“Not one mucking thing anywhere,” he lamented.

“That’s not good. If there’s nothing, then someone’s keeping it quiet. What’s going on? Who is this girl?”

“She’s Markus Nerees’s daughter.”

Dinx’s head spun at the mention of the name. He braced against the desk and looted through a separate pile of discards for leftover gel. He found one and sucked out the remaining drops.

Once the sugar-fix kicked in, he flung his arms as if he was swatting at a bug buzzing his head. “You gotta leave! You gotta go, now!”

“No. Cho doesn’t know about you. We’re safe here.” At least Max hoped the gangster didn’t know about the firehouse.

The boy pushed him out of the chair, sat down, and went to work opening security feeds and communication transmissions throughout the district. “I hate you. I hope you know that.”

“I’m sorry to drop this on you.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t care about anybody but yourself.”

Max didn’t have a comeback. He kept quiet and let his friend work digital magic on the network lines.

“What happened with Angelita? You trade up or something?”

He suppressed any thought of his old flame. “She has her thing... I got mine.”

“Typical you. Always using people.”

He didn’t want to talk about Angie. “Hey, you got any of my clothes around here?”

“In there.”

Max went to the bedroom and pulled aside the curtain. Marta snatched the sheet from the bedroll and covered herself with it. Embarrassed by his mistake, yet enamored by her bare skin, he stared dumbfounded.

“Crap! I’m sorry. Sorry. I forgot.” He stumbled out of the room, knocking his head on the low hanging portion of the frame. He dropped hard to the floor.

She rushed to him. Wiggling his head to clear the double vision, he focused on her shimmering hair cascading on his face.

He said without thinking, “You’re beautiful.”

She didn’t know how to accept his compliment.

Realizing what he had blurted out, he flushed bright red and bobbed to his feet. “I gotta go do... something.”