Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen

RATING: NC-17. Fo sho.
CODES: Uber J/7
SUMMARY: If you start from Chapter One, it removes the need ...

7.

Pressed flat against a rock, Mia listened to two Augbrains talking to each other. The soldiers were still far below her, but the suit picked up their signals and decoded them.

One looked at his scans; he had been tracking down something which his mind called a "blip", but now he had lost it. The other analysed the terrain. She held her weapon ready.

They were soldiers, but they were not wearing suits. Rudimentary armour and just a single weapon each. A patrol, the suit told Mia. Just a patrol. It told her that their Augbrains were standard Tenkatech military issue.

The female soldier was reluctant to pursue this "blip" any further. She surmised that it was interference, an anomaly.

The male was unconvinced. He was concerned that someone called The Citizen had established a transmitter. He was determined to investigate.

They picked their way into the foothills, moving upwards. Moving closer.

The suit checked Mia's weapons and analysed her immediate terrain. It advised her to stay hidden and silenced her single open port.

Mia did not move. She was part of the rock, she was only a shadow.

Long minutes passed until she heard them with her physical ears; the crunch of boots on sand as they approached the plateau.

"There's nothing here," the female said, aloud.

"There was a transmitter," the male insisted. "Even the satellite confirmed it."

"Well, it's not here now."

"Wait," he told her. Mia heard him reach inside his clothing.

There was the bleep of a new device coming to life; the suit reached out for it and got back an ID:

TENKATECH SLIMCOM v4.51s
ID MilHOH50H8V929F-H
PAIRED WITH USER Moat, Private Tate L.

A scanning device. She felt its beam sweep out and around, touching her softly once and then again, stronger.

"There's something ..." breathed the male.

"What?" whispered the female urgently.

"I don't know. It's walled, extremely well, but it's here."

"You want to call it in, wait for the Sergeant? He's not far." The female sounded breathless. Anxious.

"Let's check it out," he insisted.

Footsteps on the sand as they crept out onto the plateau, scans rotating continuously from the device. The suit analysed the sounds they were making, presented them as tactical data.

66

it said, too. Black in the back of her mind. Killing her even as it tried to save her.

The female walked in front of the male, the suit told Mia. She was holding her weapon, ready to fire. She was the more apprehensive of the two, her breathing faster and her heart beating harder. The suit evaluated the two soldiers: the female was the most dangerous, the most likely to make a mistake. The suit recommended neutralising her first.

She would kill Mia. She had weapons that would kill or disable her. The suit would not let that happen.

"It's here," whispered the male. So close Mia could hear his breath herself. "Behind these rocks."

"What is it?" the female panted. "Transmitter?"

"I don't know," he responded. "Could be."

"Okay," said the female. "Pattern 5-6-Alpha. Aug talk only."

Silence. Mia felt their Augbrains connect and chatter brief strings of nonsense, now encoded beyond the suit's immediate translation capabilities.

They rounded the rock and saw her. The female gasped, took one step back as she tried to decide; friend or foe?

The suit did not have such problems. It said

THREAT

and went straight to

BLACK

mode. Then everything was extreme and nothing was under Mia's control.

Her legs thrust under her, a surge of force both electric and exciting. High into the air, feet running off the rock face in front of her to propel her into a backward somersault.

Her arms spread and her guns burst out of the arms of the suit, sliding and slotting into her hands as if they were made to be there.

Her hands cupped them, her fingers meeting the triggers. The suit selected the female soldier as the

TARGET

and fired. Three bullets zipped through the air, the suit steadying her aim and analysing the results.

She saw the impact of each one, magnified by the suit. One in the

TARGET

chest. A thud against cloth, a puff of dust, a splitting of skin and muscle. A grimace of pain and surprise and the soldier fell to the sand. One in the

TARGET

arm, meant to disable, to prevent her from firing her weapon. One in the

TARGET

head, meant to kill. The female's brain split and bled.

The suit twisted Mia and selected the male.

TARGET

He held his weapon in shaking, shocked hands. Bringing it round to fire at her. His eyes, wide and black, met her eyes.

She fired both guns simultaneously, twin bullets punching out and into his chest. He fell backwards without firing his weapon.

Mia landed elegantly on her feet, crouching to absorb the impact of her enormous leap. Arms outstretched. Gun muzzles smoking.

THREAT ANALYSIS

the suit said. It ran a scan of both its

TARGETS

and confirmed that both were dead. No heart rate. No brain function. Just two disconnected Augbrains in their two skulls, flickering and confused.

The suit listened.

ERROR

said the female's Augbrain.

CONNECTION LOST.

And again, coming from the male. His foot twitched in the sand, twice. His knee jerked a little.

In the female's chest, a new device woke and started to transmit. Momentarily, Mia was concerned it was a medical implant that could help the soldier recover, but when the suit connected to it and listened, it was the same idiot broadcast over and over again.

KIA

it said.

BANCOM, PRIVATE FOLA G.
Z1-D888317
KIA

and again.

KIA

KIA

A moment later, the male's started too.

KIA
MOAT, PRIVATE TATE L.
RD-C290836
KIA

The suit decided the threat was neutralised, and graded her back down to

YELLOW

mode. It sequestered her weapons for quickclean and listened into the distance to make sure there were no other threats nearby.

Mia too was concerned. In the soldiers' conversation, they had mentioned a Sergeant, a person who might bring reinforcements. More threats.

Those devices were transmitting, and the vehicle was below. She might be forced to kill others.

Overhead, she felt Satellite Yimini, its presence teasing her port. She wanted to connect; return to Kaine Sigg's office, find Johnny and leave the message.

She wanted to leave her body behind again, lose the suit and just be her own light limbs. She did not want to be the murderer standing here in the mountains with two bleeding dead bodies transmitting.

"Go,"

said something in her head suddenly. The voice.

"Leave."

Yes, of course. The voice wanted her to leave. It was no longer safe to remain here, and she should leave. It was the only prudent course of action.

She left the bodies and headed across the plateau to the path down the foothills.

The suit stopped her.

SECURE BATTLEFIELD:
IMPLEMENT PROTOCOL CHILD

it said.

She sent a request for clarification.

PROTOCOL CHILD
Ver7.01.AAberd
TENKATECH THOUGHTLABS GAMMA

was all she received in return. A program ID and a serial number. The file itself was encrypted.

Then she felt it: huge, powerful, overwhelming. The body ... she had to bring the male's body!

He lay on his back in a patch of sand that had become dark with his blood. His chest was badly damaged, opened in two places by the bullets she had fired into him. Inside he glistened, red and meaty, but the suit said he was perfect for the purposes of Protocol Child.

The female was useless. Mia had shot her in the head and had destroyed her brain. Protocol Child did not apply.

"Leave!"

the voice said urgently in her head, but she had to bring the body of the male. She had to.

She lifted him from the ground and pulled him up onto the shoulders of the suit where she could easily bear his weight. The suit guided her; she discovered its shoulders had been designed to balance the weight of a dead person without impeding too much of its combat ability.

Mia did not understand. When the suit killed, it collected its victims? This was Protocol Child?

The body made a sound from his mouth as she settled him about her neck, a rush of air that sounded like a groan. It frightened her, but she reassured herself that the suit detected no lifesigns. She had compressed his lungs as she lifted him, that was all.

Once he was on her back, the suit reached out, connecting with his rather rudimentary systems and walling them. The device in his chest, the one broadcasting his death, muted.

Purposefully, she picked her way off the plateau. She balanced him expertly, watching the readouts from the suit as guidance. She was careful. She must not damage him. If she dropped him, he could be damaged beyond salvage. She must not let that happen.

No. She would protect him. The Protocol was important above everything else. Descending into the foothills, Mia returned to ground level.

In daylight, the savannah looked intimidating. It shimmered with heat, the dry grasses stiff and grey and dreadful. It was featureless in every direction and it filled her with fear.

Parked haphazardly at the base of the hill, with its ports still turned on, the soldiers' vehicle sat abandoned.

A squat, ugly vehicle, dirty with sand and dented in numerous places; it was armoured and equipped with a formidable arsenal. The suit scanned it once and then connected to its computer.

IDENTIFY?

it asked.

ACKNOWLEDGE

the vehicle responded.

IDENTITY
APC VIKTA VIKTA LOTUS
ANCHOR: BASE KODAN-ECHO GG7

The suit sent out something it called a

NEEDLE

and asked for

SCHEMATICS?

The vehicle chatted in response, too fast for Mia's physical brain to understand. Then the suit was filled with data, technical information about the vehicle.

Doors, engine, weapons, the lights on the front, everything now had detailed statistics stored in the suit. She could take the vehicle apart and reassemble it if she needed to.

The suit, however, did not want this. It suggested using the vehicle as a method of escape.

Yes. She could drive it. She would have a much greater chance of success if she was not on foot.

Still shouldering her burden, she went to the rear of the vehicle where large doors gave access to the storage bay. The handle turned easily in her hand and it swung open at once. The two soldiers had not bothered to activate the lock.

Inside was equipment; most of which looked as dirty and over-used as the vehicle. The suit analysed it all, thinking tactically.

There were scanners of various types, survival equipment, heaters and a device to cook food. At the back were things the suit called e-weapons: a portable virus needle and a large-scale silence wall.

These, it told her, were intended to attack enemy computer systems.

First, however, she needed to take care of the soldier's body. Plastic sheeting covered a machine to the left; she pulled it off and spread it flat on the bay floor.

She lowered him from her shoulders and laid him on top of it. It doubled over, the top half covering him like a clear shroud.

It would preserve him; keep insects away and delay decomposition. That was important. Protocol Child needed him fresh.

Once away from the suit's wall, the device in his chest began transmitting once more. Though it was only short range, she would need to escape to a safe location and disable it.

Soldiers may detect it. Come for him. She would be forced into combat once more. Once she had driven a safe distance, she would stop and attempt to disable it.

She closed the doors of the vehicle behind her and squeezed between the stacks of equipment to access the driver's console. The suit barely fit into the seat; metal scraped on metal, knees hunched almost to her chest.

How she missed the light, lithe virtual body she had inside the Network. Every limb her own, seemingly made from soft, delightful flesh. Soft hair around her face, the brush of leg upon leg, all without the whine and drone of motors and servos when she moved.

She could not lose the Network. She wanted to return, find Johnny, find Kaine Sigg. Leave the suit.

She could not lose Satellite Yimini.

PROJECT ORBIT:
SATELLITE YIMINI

she asked the suit.

The suit obeyed, superimposing a thick green line across her field of vision. It arced across the landscape and went off into the far horizon.

FOLLOW ROUTE

the suit told the vehicle, and the two devices locked together; the vehicle and the suit. The vehicle became part of her body in a rush of the same purple energy she felt when connecting to the Network.

It sucked and stretched her; an extraordinary sensation. Mia was the vehicle. She was the tyres and gun turrets and parts of the engine. She was inside it all, controlling everything. Her real self, her own mind, seemed tiny and immaterial. Now she was big, powerful and metal.

She was aware of her weight, of her fuel levels, of the amount of tread left in her tyres. She felt heavy and square and squat and powerful.

She started her engine, and it felt good. A rumbling in her belly and a thrust in her wheels. She urged the vehicle forward and it tentatively trundled off, its low speed reflecting her own uncertainty.

In the back of her, the weight of the equipment the vehicle carried shifted slightly as it started forward over rocky ground.

She drove. Away from the foothills and out into open desert, her path perfectly synchronised with the orbit of Satellite Yimini. She felt it still; an itch in her port, though she was not close enough to connect. She would need to find higher ground once more.

The hills became distant, purple specks of height on the suit's topographical display. The terrain grew smooth and sandy; the sun grew hot and the vehicle travelled through an endless vista of flat, unremarkable desert. The suit guided the vehicle perfectly, occasionally making minute adjustments to the route to avoid rocks and vegetation that its scans foresaw.

Being part of the vehicle considerably enhanced the suit's sensory powers; the data she was being fed came from a much wider radius. Mia felt big and wide and she felt everything within range. She tasted the ground and the plants and the edges of the sky.

This place was unpopulated, but everywhere were signs of life. A series of transmitters lay 0.36 kilometres to her east, little more than idiot relay boxes. Below her in the earth, cables ran the length and width of her perception, buzzing with data.

Behind her in the bay, the suit kept a watchful sensor on the body of the soldier, checking the rate of his decay.

The prognosis was not good. The suit started a countdown in a subsystem, estimating the body's viability to be little more than an hour.

It was warm; there were insects. She had no means of halting the degradation of his tissue.

He was also still transmitting. Were there things in range that could pick up his signal? Mia had no way of knowing. The suit warned repeatedly that she needed to make it stop.

Yes. Make it stop. She did not want to be found, she did not want to kill more soldiers and carry their grotesque corpses with her. They must never find her.

She stopped the vehicle on a flat patch of desert sand, and the suit disconnected. Purple energy dragged the edges of her consciousness out of the engine and back to the confines of the suit with a dizzying snap.

65

the suit said, pushed in a familiar black surge from that place in the small of her back.

Time was important.

The soldier lay in the equipment bay, covered by his plastic shroud. Condensation beaded the inside; moisture escaping from his body.

She squeezed out of the driver's seat and knelt beside him almost reverently, afraid to touch him in case she damaged him. Protocol Child counted down. He would soon be useless.

Carefully, she peeled back the sheet and tucked it aside. The smell of him was already a little unpleasant, gas in the heat. His wounds were crusted and ugly, dried blood sparkling and winking a little in the sunlight from the rear windows.

KIA

the device said.

MOAT, PRIVATE TATE L.
RD-C290836
KIA

cycling, repeating itself. The suit scanned him, finding the source of the signal. A simple object, easily disabled, it was grafted to his sternum. She needed to cut open his chest and remove it, or she would be found and she would die.

ACTIVATE PHYSICAL WEAPON
128M

the suit said. Part of its cuff, next to the gun cover, twisted and opened, presenting her with a small, sharp blade that fitted neatly into her hand.

The suit drew a virtual line down the centre of his chest, running between the two dreadful bullet wounds. Mia parted the charred, torn clothing of the solider and pressed the blade to his flesh.

She closed her eyes, wanting to shut the suit out and let it do the work, but even in the privacy of her eyelids, she could not escape. The suit displayed a perfect thermal representation of the soldier's body for her, and somehow that was the most horrific image yet. He did not even look human. He was a dull orange monster, leering at her from black sockets. She quickly opened them again.

She pressed with the blade until she felt the pop of the surface of his skin, the squelch of the fat underneath. Pressing hard, she stroked the blade downward, following the suit's line perfectly.

For 1.64 seconds, the cut stayed clean, neat, perfect, a hole in his skin and nothing more. Then blood flooded up, rushing between every cell and drenching the neat canal in rich red.

The suit told her to part the skin, and she slithered her fingers inside to prise the two halves apart. Beneath, the bone of his sternum appeared, white and menacing, grinning at her like teeth from the lips of the cut.

The suit scanned again, more deeply this time; she had not found what it was looking for and it was surprised. The device should be here, it told her. Visible.

Momentarily, Mia felt as though her mind was actually inside the dead soldier. Part of the muscle and bone, inside the silent stickiness of his heart and lungs and intestines.

DEVICE LOCATED

All her consciousness was directed towards a ragged bubble of titanium on bone, shuddering slightly as it pulsed its signal.

It was on the wrong side of the sternum. The suit surmised the soldier had been injured and the device had automatically removed itself and regrown elsewhere. It was programmed to do that.

She had to stop the signal. If she did not stop it, she would be found and she would die. He would lead the others right to her position.

She gritted her teeth and cut him again.

Widthways, across the very top of his belly this time. Harder, ragged, undirected by the suit. Never mind the suit, she wanted this over. The skin ripped open to reveal the yellow fat, a thick pad. She cut through that as well, making a big hole that went to the red meat of his muscle.

Protocol Child screamed at her, but she ignored it. She had to stop the signal. She was in control of her body and her situation. She would not be caught.

She stuck her hand inside his body, thrusting herself elbow-deep up under his ribcage.

He felt hot and wet and he smelled bad inside, like meat and gas. She leant right over him, getting inside him deeply, pushing and pushing at his organs, groping desperately.

She ripped through a membrane with her fingernails to feel the underside of his sternum. He groaned again as her fist compressed his lungs, but the air inside him sounded bubbly, full of liquid.

She felt nothing. Nothing. The underside of his sternum was smooth and perfect; the titanium device sat absolutely flush with the bone. The only thing she felt was the signal, pulsing crazily in her head.

KIA

KIA

KIA

Leading them to her, giving her away. Branding her a murderer and a fugitive and bringing them to her.

Frantically, she pulled her arm out with a rush of heat and blood, looking around madly for a tool. Break him. She would have to break his bone.

The suit reacted, calculating force and stress needed to shatter the sternum. Not fists. Not blunt objects. She had nothing sharp enough to cut bone. She had only one thing.

The cuffs on her arms opened, and the suit gave Mia her guns.

They slotted into her hands. Clean. Ready. Perfect. The suit projected two crosses

TARGET

onto the split chest of the soldier. Shoot him, there and there.

Shoot him. Destroy the device. Stop the signal. It was all that mattered.

She pressed the muzzles of the weapons hard against the bone.

KIA

KIA

No more. She pulled the triggers, squeezing them until they exploded and he exploded as well. The sound felt like it split the world in half and the recoil threw her onto her back, even with the weight of the suit.

Her head hit the floor and rang like a bell.

The suit removed the guns from her hands and tucked them away to be cleaned. Mia pulled herself to her feet, ears still echoing the sound of her shots.

Everything was covered in blood; the plastic sheet, the equipment around her, the walls and doors. A fine mist. Splatters. Her face and hands and the suit dripped with it. She smelled of flesh and copper. What had she done?

The signal was silent. The device had stopped transmitting.

But the soldier's body ... it lay torn and shattered, a mangle of meat and bone and horror. Fat. Muscle. Splinters of bone. His eyes looked up at her, open and shocking. Pupils cloudy.

PROTOCOL CHILD INTERRUPTED:
ERROR 8287 - SUBJECT NO LONGER VIABLE FOR PROJECT MIA

the suit said.

COUNTDOWN DISABLED.

She could not move. He was useless now. She had destroyed him.

The subsystems running Protocol Child shut down, winking off to preserve energy. She looked down at the suit; it was covered in the soldier's blood. She did not understand.

Why had she taken him with her? What had made her pick his dead body from the plateau and transport his body this distance, caring if he was damaged or not?

Protocol Child had been deactivated and she did not understand. She had felt so certain, so full of purpose a few moments ago. Protecting his body had been almost as important as protecting her own.

Now his body terrified her. Not only those eyes with their new blue-white films for lenses, not only the rich, gaseous smell of his intestines that filled the back of the vehicle like an atmosphere.

Now he disgusted her. Now she wanted him away.

She stepped over his body and opened the vehicle's back doors. Outside lay a vista of dry dunes and sparse vegetation, but at least the air was fresh and did not smell of death. She took a big lungful, leaning outside.

She had to get rid of him. She could not continue on her journey, following the path of Satellite Yimini, with his body in the back. The smell alone would destroy her mind.

She stepped purposefully back over the disembowelled man on the floor and, not wanting to get back on her knees in all the blood, shoved him towards the doors with her foot.

Shoved him. Shoved him again. He could be filled with disease. He could curse her with death. She kicked him hard and he fell from the doors onto the sand in a tangle of boots and flesh and plastic sheeting.

Eyes turned up to stare at her. Mouth open.

Horrible. In his stare, she saw herself. Dead in the desert; abandoned and lost. No one anywhere, no one to find her, take care of her, understand what had happened.

64

the suit reminded her. A black chill of energy coming from that place on her back.

In a few hours, she would be joining this man, her victim, in death. Above them, birds began to circle, looking for food.

"Leave,"

said the voice in her head. Urgent.

Yes. She would go. She would get back to the Network, find Kaine Sigg and end this.

She slammed the vehicle's doors shut with a purpose. He was gone. Though the bay and the equipment and the suit were sprayed with his blood and flesh, he was gone.

She went back to the driver's console, the suit reaching for the interface even before she was seated at the controls. Her port crackled and connected and then she felt big once more, like she was the vehicle and its wheels and the surrounding desert. She was everything she could scan.

She was clean, a machine. The smell of blood and death did not reach her now.

She drove fast, until the body was far behind her, a small patch of orange heat on the very edges of the suit's perception. No signals. No lifesigns. No one would ever find him. Ever. They would never know she killed him and cut his body apart.

She watched his signal disappear from the scan, dropping off the edge of the world she could perceive.

Still Satellite Yimini's course blinked and winked overhead, emitting faint bursts of chatter in her ports.

NO CONNECTION

The suit told her again and again.

NO CONNECTION.

She was not high enough.

She drove until night fell, following the same course, seeing nothing but blank, flat desert.

Then, suddenly, on the edges of this twilight landscape, the suit felt something that it liked. Something tall, sharp, static.

Metal. Clean metal. It reached out to touch it with sensors, trying to find a signal or a port.

IDENTIFY?

the suit requested. No answer. The thing had ports but no power. No signals. No computer.

The suit guided the vehicle closer, deviating only slightly from Yimini's course to do so. Mia saw it with her own eyes, a stabbing point of blackness rising high on the horizon.

It was a Network relay tower, the suit told her, archaic and disused.

Mia did not care about that. It was tall. She could climb it. It would take her back to the Network. These were the things that mattered.

She guided the vehicle to a stop, nestled protectively against one of the enormous metal legs.

The suit stopped the engine and disconnected her. For a moment, she gazed out of the dirty windscreen, just tracing the tower's silhouette with her eyes.

It loomed over her, dark metal on a dark sky.

Even further above her, Satellite Yimini beckoned, its signals teasing her port provocatively. She got out of the vehicle.

Wind blew through the desert, making the stunted grass wave and whisper like human voices in the night. Eerie and disconcerting in this desolate place.

The tower sang in the wind as well, a song of vibration and buzz as its struts bent slightly and sand lashed against it.

59

said the suit in the darkness. Reminding her.

She strode between the legs of the tower to where the service ladder lay, the feet of it half buried, the paint on the rungs chipped and bubbled from beneath by corrosion.

Forgetting everything else, Mia began to climb.


NOW CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 8!


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