Chains of Loss (20 page)

***

The people in the second building were wretched to a degree that he’d never seen before.  They were huddled together on the floor for warmth, with neither cushion nor blanket.  Their clothes were ragged, and every one of them wore an iron collar fastened around the neck with a permanent bolt.  A thick chain – Derek estimated one’s weight at twenty kilos – led from each collar to a rack on the wall; a glance showed Derek that the chains were made to detach from the wall, but not from the collar. 

He heard a pop and pain shot through his mouth.  It took a moment for him to realize that he’d gritted his jaws so fiercely that he’d cracked a tooth.  Several of the prisoners twitched and opened their eyes.

The eyes that regarded him glowed green in the dark like those of a cat.  For a moment he thought he’d stumbled into a pack of feline emulators before he realized that they weren’t humans.

One of them croaked out a word.  “Darkener?”

“What…?  Sorry.  I’m Derek.  I’m here to rescue you.”

Every one of those eerily glowing eyes was fixed on him.  Derek rapidly grew uncomfortable.  “Uh, did I just…?”

“You say you bring us rescue,” the speaker said.  “Do so.  Time is not your friend.”

Oh.  Right.  Derek pulled out the industrial shroud and told it to cut through metal.  He stepped up to the speaker.

“Okay…just hold still a second, and…”  The collar required two cuts before it split open.  Derek pulled it away and dropped it.  As it hit the ground, a scream cut through the night.

He stiffened.  It had come from the first building.  Another scream joined the first, and another; of the dozen people in that building, ten of them were screaming.  No; eight now.

“Here!”  He shoved the shroud into the speaker’s hands.  “It’ll get you free!”

He bolted for the other building.  The screams continued to die out, one at a time.  He threw himself in through the door, armor at full, just as the last scream stopped.

There was blood everywhere.  Some of the humans had been bitten through the throat; some had been stabbed.  A black-clad orc stood over one; it jerked a knife out of the final slave’s eye and turned to face him, weapon at ready. 

His rage swelled again and he screamed incoherently as he charged at the attacker.  If he was fast, he could save them – they might not be dead yet, they could just be mortally wounded, and with medical attention from the nanite shroud, they could recover. 

The orc slipped out of the way of his rush and slashed him on the neck as he passed.  The knife bounced harmlessly off of his armor and he tried to grab the orc’s wrist, but it slipped away.

It spat out some words in its language; he didn’t understand and he didn’t care.  He lunged forward again; this time his foe ducked under him and stabbed upwards at his belly. 

Suddenly, he was pulled into the rush.  The mediceps was blaring at him.

[Attention: This is an Automated Alert.  You have just sustained serious internal injuries!  Cease dangerous activities or you may suffer long-term consequences!]

The warning muted his anger, but was not enough to snap him out entirely.  He canceled the rush and flung himself at his opponent again. 

He hit the ground hard.  This time, the dagger had pierced through his right shoulder; the blade had snapped and was still wedged in the joint.  His arm was completely useless.  He was pulled back into the rush.

[Attention: This is an Automated Alert.  You have been ignoring Pain.  Please take a moment to understand.  Currently, you should feel like
this.
]

Agony shot through him as every one of his injuries felt exactly as it should. 

[This is your body’s way of letting you know that you are Doing the Wrong Thing.  Now, we don’t wish to subject you to it, but we thought you should be aware of it.  Please refrain from further action that would
cause
Pain, as it is, in general,
bad for you.
]

He almost canceled the rush again, but the warning had a point.  What had just happened?  He pulled up an analysis in simulation.

The first attack had bounced off his armor…then the orc had done something.  The dagger was just steel, perhaps with some titanium in it.  It shouldn’t have been able to pierce his armor except by sheer fluke; the sim came up with no scenario in which the puny weapon would have succeeded twice.  What had the orc
done?

Magic, of course.  Mycah’s Shadow had warned him.  He was facing the super-orc.  He looked back at the real world and gulped.

The orc was very, very fast.  He couldn’t afford to run simulations.  Every fraction of a second he spent thinking and not acting was another that his enemy was using to try to kill him.  It had drawn another, longer weapon and was already moving to finish him.  He stayed in the rush but toned it down enough that he could move, using his good arm to throw him out of the way of what would have been a killing stroke.

He cursed himself as a fool.  He shouldn’t have charged his opponent.  Between the gun and the stun-dart, he had always had the ability to end the fight immediately.

Derek sent a signal to the stun-dart, priming it with point one percent of its capacity.  It was embedded in the armor on his right hand.  His shoulder was too damaged to use, and the impaling blade promised that further damage would result if he disregarded that fact.  His injured muscle couldn’t move his arm, but the powered armor could – and, once the fight was over, it would hardly matter anyway.

The orc was swinging at him again.  He reached up with his right hand and caught the blade as it fell, fingers on either side of the edge. 

In full rush, he scrambled for something witty to say.  Nothing was coming to mind except the most
horrible
of puns, so he gave up and released the charge into the blade.  His attacker jolted theatrically for a moment – then stopped.  It spat at him, placed both of its hands on the blade’s hilt, and pushed down hard. 

Pain exploded through Derek, worse than anything he had ever felt before, as the weapon pushed through his armor and penetrated into his hand, neatly intersecting the stun-dart’s battery core.  Electricity arced over the knife as the dart’s charge level dropped to zero.  The blade shattered in an explosion of supercharged shards and the world went black.

***

[Attention: This is an Automated Alert!  You are currently in cardiac arrest.  You have sustained severe damage to your cybernetics.  Your body temperature is Too High for safe nanosurgery!  Please cool down before needing medical attention.  The suspension system is operating in Red status.  The rush is offline.  Augmented vision is offline.  Pain interdiction is offline.  Cascade failure is imminent.  Please ensure that your affairs are in order and you have told your family you love them before resuming hazardous activities.]

Derek spasmed as the nanites contracted over his heart, forcing it into action.  The slaves.  They needed him.  He forced himself up, and the pain hit him. 

His right arm was useless gore; beyond the damage from being stabbed twice, the nearly-molten blade had shattered
inside his hand
and cooked the flesh.  His shoulder was doubly ruined; both muscle and joint were completely useless.  The power suit could move it, but he knew it was going to hurt a
lot
.

But if he didn’t get up, people would die.  He pushed down with his left hand, rolling himself onto his front, then forced himself up to his knees. 

The shards had bounced off of his flight suit without hurting him.  The orc was motionless against a wall.  The slaves…

For a moment, his pain dropped away as the shock of what he was seeing drove into his mind.  The slaves had been peppered with shrapnel as well.  Nearly-molten metal had burned its way into flesh.  A full nanobath administered right after the explosion might’ve been enough to save some of them.  Others could have survived if they’d already had nanites and an attentive Shadow, but every one of them was beyond the shroud’s help.

Derek forced himself to his feet.  He was panting.  He hadn’t wanted anyone to get hurt – not the orcs, no, definitely not the slaves either.  Who was this orc? 
Why had he killed them
? 

He sobbed.  He’d been trying to raise his anger at the orc; to make himself think of the death in front of him as something other than his fault.  He swayed on his feet; he had to get out. 

He staggered from the charnel house, swaying heavily.  His vision swam; there was…what?  Where was he?

A voice called out.  “Lonatan, Derek.”  He nearly tripped in panic before he saw the glowing green eyes.  How many of them were there, anyway?

“Hi,” he wheezed.  The gut hit had lacerated his stomach and nicked his diaphragm, but his lungs were undamaged.  The pain was there but it was more than his mind could handle, giving him a strange distance.

“You are injured, Derek?”

“I-I’ll be fine.  How are the,” he paused, gesturing vaguely with his left hand.  “Your friends?”  Some kind of writing was hovering in his vision.  He couldn’t make it out. 

“They are seeing to the masters.  Did you have trouble?”

“Okay.  Sounds…fine.  No, no, it’s…okay…”

“Are you certain you are well?”

“Just my shoulder…I’ll…”

The world faded away, and he was on the ground.  The flight suit cracked open, letting in cool night air.  It felt very good.  He could feel hands probing at his shoulder, but the pain was even more distant.  His shirt tore.  He hadn’t changed shirts in a while.  It might be good to change tomorrow morning.  

“Internal bleeding.  He is dying.”  Those same hands probed at the slash on his belly.  “Not good.”

Mycah might like to see him in a new shirt.  Had she seen him in this one?  Mycah would get worried if he wasn’t there when she woke up.  He forced in a breath.  “We should – we should get going.”  She was always saying that.

“Your wounds must be treated or you will die, Darkener.”

“S’okay.  Just…”

His shoulder screamed at him as the knife fragment was removed and a cloth was pulled tight over the wound; he merely relayed its message to the rest of the world. 

“Please, be still.  You have lost much blood.  I don’t believe that we can save your arm.”

“It shouldn’t…”  His thoughts focused.  The words in front of his vision confirmed what the speaker was saying.  Between the damage the shock had dealt to his cybernetics and the way it had elevated his body temperature, he was too hot for his regeneration to work.  The waste heat the nanites would generate trying to fix him would be more than his body could handle.  He was cooling off, but not fast enough. 

The readout just got grimmer from there.  His present rate of blood loss would put him past the point of recovery in about a minute.  Automatic systems would put his brain into suspended animation, but nobody on the planet knew what to do if that happened - or had the equipment they’d need.  He was dead, and saw no way for science to save him.

So he gambled.  “C-cold.”

“Blankets.  Quickly.”

“No.  C-cool me.”  What had Mycah said she’d used to make that ice cup?  “Sorcery.”

“It will kill you.”

“Trust me.”  He sent a signal to the suit; the medical shroud’s pocket opened.  “Use that.  Cool me down.”

“It is like the other?”

His mind blanked for a moment before he realized he’d given them the industrial shroud.  “Yes.”  How to explain it?  “Magic.  Healing magic.”  Close enough.  “I need to be cold.”

“Very well.”  The speaker – he couldn’t see anymore – barked out in another language.  The night’s chill turned to ice, then went beyond that.  He spasmed again – and the rush pulled him in.

[Attention: This is an Automated - ]

He cut it off and went straight to his biological status.  The suspension system was barely operating; it had supplied his brain with blood, but could not currently replace breathing or provide nourishment.  His body temperature was still high, while the outside temperature was significantly below zero centigrade.  There were severe temperature spikes in his damaged arm; he sealed off arterial flow below the clavicle, reclaiming as much blood volume as possible.  The shoulder wound had nearly killed him; the knife had nicked the artery.  Without the tourniquet his helper had put in place, he would be too far gone for even the shroud to save. 

The tourniquet responded to ping.  It was the industrial shroud.  Not exactly the right tool for the right job, but it would do – especially for repairing the damaged joint.  He chained it to the mediceps and let it work.

The gut wound was less immediately serious – but his nanite count was low.  Derek addressed every source of blood loss he could find, then left the rest to be microsutured after the arm was handled.  He was, however, able to turn off the pain; lacking anything else he could do, he exited the rush.

“Cold enough, thanks.”  He could feel his benefactor pressing the medical shroud on the lower cut.  He reached for it with his left hand.  “Here.  Let me, I know how to use it better.”