Dante

  A roar of plasma hits the concrete beside our door, and then our door itself, a streak of the metal glowing red hot as the energy slices across it. Just a graze, and he’s almost burned through it already.

  The last traces of the burst rip through the crack in the doorway we’re peering through, just above my head, and score the cement wall behind us with a smoking gouge. I pull my face completely out of sight, but this door won’t be cover for long.

  Back, Ghost warns, suddenly pushing against me and moving us out of sight. I can see her watching a tiny version of the fight on her smartwatch.

  And then from the other end of the corridor, I hear the distant roar of jet engines.

  Just before a new, and larger grey minidrone speeds into sight, blue exhaust blazing beneath and behind it.

  The moment the jet – perhaps 4-feet long – soars into sight it angles sharply just past the two men and fires… around them.

  A single line shoots out of its underbelly, arcing past them harmlessly on their left, while the minijet flies by on their right. The jet pulls its slack cord along behind brushing uselessly against the two armored men who jump slightly as they noticed it.

  And then I hear a faint clang and see what’s on the other end of the line as it hits the first of the two armored troopers.

  A grappling hook.

  Suddenly the faintly glittering silver haze in the air burns brightly, indeed, blindingly so. The men shout in rage and fight back even more desperately. The line slides along them with a hiss until, with a clink, the grappling hook catches in place on the left one.

  The nylon cord stretches as the grapnel yanks the left one off balance and he stumbles into his partner. He pushes himself upright and tries unsuccessfully to knock the hook away.

  Then the line abruptly slackens and the jetdrone zooms past them on the left, whips around and circles past them on the right. And keeps doing so, steadily flying circles around the two hunters while its nylon cord keeps steadily tightening.

  A gleaming silver jetdrone races in as well but circles the two men in power armor even more closely, inviting their fire as it shines mirror bright in the chaos.

  Beams of plasma and laser light keep lashing out, but when they intersect the mirrorlike drone, the lasers reflect and the plasma seems to hit something within a foot of it without ever connecting.

  “Huge EM field,” Lyrica murmurs through my earbuds. “Just outside.”

  I nod silently. Reflective surfacing makes sense for lasers, and powerful magnetism for charged plasma. Though it begs the question of how much power she can fit in the drone, but so long as the fuel lasts, jet engines are potent generators. I wonder if this was one of the trump cards Ghost mentioned she was burning to help me.

  I feel a tug on his sleeve.

  Time to go, Ghost says. This is about to get ugly. She pushes open the still-hot door with her shoulder, slides back out onto the service ledge, and shoots down the tunnel away from our would-be assailants.

  You’ve got them on the backfoot, I observe, following.

  Not enough, Ghost says over to their silent comms as we stare at the growing whirlwind of drones and silver mist. Time to go, while we’ve still got cover.

  I nod as we hurry down the ledge, keeping to the shadows close the wall.

  As if in answer, I see the flash of a beam of plasma flare up just to our right, at waist level, and slash instantly left to cut us in half.

  I am faster.

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  I tackle Ghost hard, slamming her below the level of the plasma as it slashes over us. It does not touch me, but I feel a brief, searing pain as it passes over my back. Just from the proximity of the beam, through my scorched jacket. There is a light slap against my cheek from Ghost’s skull as I cradle her, falling in the slow motion of adrenaline-accelerated time.

  I think she’s tough, maybe even Enhanced in that way, but the real trick here is not killing her.

  The force of my leap carries us just out of sight of the shooter, and my palm slaps the ledge once, twice, three times as I slow us. I finally let her drop to her floating feet, and she slides free with a nod.

  Thanks.

  Just trying to keep up. And we keep moving. Just out of sight no longer feels like much cover.

  I thought you wanted to stop them, I comment as we slip out of the direct line of sight of the lightshow behind us. I don’t want to complain, but I am curious. These people want to kill her.

  Escape them, Ghost corrects. That’s the one pain with the Circle. No matter what you see and hear, you never know who’s doing things willingly and who’s a brainwashed pawn. Keep going.

  I pause just past the point where our pursuers are out of sight, but still close enough I can lean out and see them. I don’t lean out. All those drones and you’re not trying to take them out? It seems a little personal, now. I do a quick mental calculation, sweep my right arm with the wrecking bar out and let it go. It whirls away, back towards the fight I can no longer quite see. A fraction of a second later, and my handful of bolts follow for good measure.

  Evasion beats killing, she replies with a shrug. But I didn’t say I’m leaving their gear intact. That’s always fair game.

  Sudden thunder rocks the tunnel behind us, and a blinding flash turns my mirrorshades into actual mirrors.

  Ghost and I shoot a glance at her smartwatch, and I can see my wrecking bar landed exactly where I wanted – one end on the rail, the other tapping the shin of the laser wielding mercenary. The man suddenly shakes his weapon as it sputters and goes dead.

  The men drop their damaged laser and plasma handcannons and pull something else off their backs that looks like handheld, gatling railguns. Or maybe coilguns. Whatever.

  They open up with a massive barrage, aiming everywhere except at each other. Half of Ghost’s drones turn into metal rain around them. The thunder of their weapons is even louder than the burst of lightning from the rail.

  Faster, Ghost says as we race away. The noise suppression only lasts as long as my key drones, and nothing stops a ricochet.

  Got it. I hop off the service ledge, drop to the floor of the tunnel and shoot ahead of her with ease, jumping pile after pile of equipment as I do so. And still avoiding the third rail, which is definitely charged.

  Their backup? I ask as we hurtle down the passage.

  My drones are chewing up theirs. Let’s scramble before anyone tougher, or anything, gets here.

  We zoom down the tunnel for what seems like a good quarter of a mile. Then Ghost pauses by a stretch of wall, presses against a panel, and winks at me when it silently pops open, revealing another access corridor. Our way out, she explains.

  We look inside and Ghost catches herself before stepping further. Two huge pallets of concrete block sit impassively just beyond the entry, with heavy equipment piled on them in turn, completely filling the side corridor. Ghost blinks. That wasn’t there yesterday, she says blankly.

  I shrug and gently ease her aside. Cover your ears. I heft a pair of massive jackhammers in each hand and wedge them among the gear above the other pallet of block. Then I brace myself, one foot set against the steel and concrete doorframe, put a shoulder and both hands against the first pallet – and push.

  Moving it all at once is an immense strain, even for me. But I throw everything I have into it – and nothing moves.

  Then my chi rages up all once, flooding through my body, my adrenaline surges, my will aligns into a single purpose, and I am a machine without equal. With a sudden grinding, the pallet heaves just a fraction of an inch forward. And keeps moving.

  Ghost stares at me, eyes widening. I pay no attention, my focus solely on the task. But in some corner of my brain, I realize she didn’t imagine this was within me. Good to know I’m not completely predictable.

  My earbuds dampen the sound as the pallet scrapes its way forward, leaving scoring and trails of splinters along the floor. After a minute, I’ve pushed it far enough in for us to slide past. I waved Ghost through and close the door behind us. We slip around the two pallets.

  I shrug, turned around, and push the mass of blocks on top slightly so they no longer look like they’ll start toppling off the pallet with the slightest disturbance. Half-ton slide, I say dismissively and silently. Full ton, tops. You knew I was different.

  Ghost nods quickly and gestures down the hall before coasting away on her hovering sneakers.

  “We can speak,” Ghost says suddenly. “Aloud, I mean. We’re far enough away, and what’s left of their reinforcements aren’t coming through here.”

  “How far away are they?” I ask, peering over to see if her smartwatch was displaying anything.

  “I’ve got eyes on ‘em,” Ghost replies, unrolling a flexible e-sheet – basically a tablet you could roll up or fold up and stash away anywhere. If you could afford one.

  The two men seemed cornered by even more drones, but black, skeletal humanoid robots had also joined the fray, targeting Ghost’s drones.

  One of the men, dissatisfied with what a single railgun was doing for him, pulls another and begins firing with both hands and a furious intensity, aiming for the incredibly fast silver jet with shots that ring out even through the softpad’s nearly muted audio. The rounds burn bright like tracer fire. Three other jetdrones lay at their feet, and several of the ones still airborne have huge holes ripped through them.

  As the man fires, something seems to knock him off balance as his tracer rounds follow the closest drone, and he sprays the nearby wall as well. The ricochets spark off him and his companion, and down three of the seven humanoid robots fighting on their behalf. More holes a few inches across appear in the wall as the railgun rips through reinforced concrete like soggy cardboard.

  Watch it! his partner shouts over their comms, but while the surface of their armor looks almost eviscerated, neither man seems particularly injured.

  “They’re bulletproof?” I ask in disbelief. “I mean, railgun proof?”

  “Not air gapped, though,” Ghost grins. “And not in a Faraday cage either, at this point.” She snaps her fingers.

  Both men stagger again, and slowly reached up to their visors, as if struggling to move. Each man taps their helmets in a sequence, and their visors rise.

  Only to have circling drones trying to shoot taser shots and stranger things into their helmets. Each man raises one arm to shield his face and waves a weapon in the other at the handful of drones still airborne.

  “They’re done,” Ghost pronounces. “Even if my drones don’t drop them, their armor is dead. They must be seriously Enhanced just to move, at this point, but they’re not going to shuck their gear and run us down with bowie knives or something.” She looks up at Dante. “Let’s get clear, and you can go home.”

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