The Beta HolinMech keeps his gun trained on Carla. He doesn’t even seem surprised at Rennin’s sudden entrance. “Sir, drop your weapon and put your hands on your head.”
Rennin disconnects from the situation as much as he can. He is going to kill this soldier but realises he can’t use Killjoy. The ammunition is too easily traceable. He glances at the soldier’s gun. That will do for this meat-sack, all I have to do is grab it.
Almost holding his breath he trains his gun on Carla, who looks terribly sick, and very scared. Rennin lowers his voice and speaks very softly. “Carla Spencer is my target.”
“State your name and rank.”
“Black Aegis, unit Zero-Four,” Rennin states. Black Aegis is a black operations group Rennin has never been a part of, but the mention of it coupled with the presence of an infected, makes it far more difficult to dismiss outright. Black Aegis units are notorious for killing targets and witnesses.
The soldier’s hard but plain face remains still. His blue eyes betray a sudden doubt as he regards the hooded figure, single eye glowing, pointing his gun at what he thinks is a mutual target. “I wasn’t aware of any Black Aegis units still active.”
“I’m sure the reason is obvious. Name yourself, HolinMech.”
“Corporal Dan Logan.”
“Well, corporal, stand aside.”
“Black Aegis was outlawed, I’m going to have to confirm with command.”
Rennin pushes all the air out of his lungs slowly then draws a deep breath.
“Very well.”
He swings his gun from Carla to the trooper, kicking off the floor. He half leaps at Logan, who doesn’t panic, but moves his weapon quickly and precisely, letting off a round that hits Rennin square in the chest. He grunts in pain, but it doesn’t stop his momentum as he crashes into the soldier.
They fall to the floor grappling with each other, the soldier gritting his teeth but still cold, calm and collected. Rennin is grunting and his breathing comes in short ragged gasps. The hole in his chest is becoming hard to ignore. His andronic right hand grips the soldier’s left wrist. It snaps Logan’s wrist like a bread stick causing the soldier’s face to twist in sudden agony. His sidearm to falls to the floor.
Rennin braces his mechanical left leg against the floor and stands up, still gripping the soldier. He spins 180 degrees, intending to throw the soldier over himself and onto the floor, subduing him. His dramatically increased strength causes him to throw the soldier like a rag-doll across the room, smashing him through the window in one fluid motion. Dan Logan is gone before Rennin even registers the sound of breaking glass.
“Ren,” a sobbing voice says.
Rennin snaps out of his shock and sees Carla crouched on the floor. The drug! “Carla, are you alright?” he runs to kneel next to her.
“You’ve been shot.” she coughs up, a trace of blood on her lower lip.
Rennin draws the syringe from his pocket and loads the antigen into it. “This will cure you.”
“What’s going on?”
“Carla, the longer you wait the worse it’ll get. There’s an RV outside that will no doubt have more soldiers, who will be coming to check what happened up here any moment. They won’t be happy I killed their pillow-biting friend,” he says, struggling to breathe.
She pulls up her dressing gown sleeve. Protruding black veins cover her thin pale forearm. Wasting no time, he injects her with the anti toxin, then returning the syringe back to his jacket pocket. He takes a sharp wheezing breath and pushes himself back to his feet, picking up Logan’s sidearm. “We have to get moving.”
Carla vomits on the floor. “I can’t. I’m so tired.”
Rennin picks her up, as a groom would carry a bride. She has passed out and he is steadily getting dizzier, the pain in his chest increasing. Come on, old man, hip replacement next year I promise.
Arriving at the stairwell, he starts down, just to see torchlights shining down below. The lights are bobbing as they move.
Rifle mounted.
He places Carla down gently, and grasps Logan’s sidearm. He begins to descend the stairs at a leisurely pace. The soldiers both train red dots on him as they get close.
“Remain calm, citizen,” one of them says and Rennin nods, backing up against the wall to let them pass.
As they go by, he twists his body to fire a bullet through his coat and into the back of one of their heads. The other turns around, but Rennin is already at him and lands a right hook with such force that the head snaps round far enough to break his neck. He is dead before hitting the floor.
Rennin doesn’t bother to acknowledge them any further. He retrieves Carla, then starts to make his way down again.
After a very slow drive home, Rennin carries Carla up to his apartment. He places her in the bed and covers her up. Her face is incredibly gaunt. The trauma of almost being shot will no doubt create more stress lines. The thought of her face marked by that soldier’s actions makes Rennin think seriously about driving back there just to repeatedly kick the corpse.
He stands up only to nearly fall over, the horrible pain in his chest beating like a hammer on his sternum. Rennin heads straight for the bathroom and sits on the toilet to at least get off his feet. He leans back, looking down at the bullet hole. It has cut straight through the armour-weave like butter.
Rennin unzips the hooded jacket under his leather coat, peeling it back. Ripping the singlet beneath, a miniature crater in his sternum is revealed. At least it looks shallow.
The watchman stares at it for a moment and notices something odd. A copper coloured lump, perfectly circular protrudes from the centre, sticking up as if to peekaboo at him. Using his index finger and thumb, he grips the thing feeling an instant rush of pain. Gritting his teeth and steeling himself mentally, he pulls the object free with a disturbing wet sound as it escapes his wound.
Grunting and sighing in relief, he brings the object up for closer inspection. It’s the bullet. He stares at it for a moment, rotating it and finding that its been flattened at the end as if it hit a bullet proof vest.
Rennin drops the slug on the floor and looks back at his wound and can just see some of his exposed sternum but it doesn’t look like bone, the surface looks like pearl but the pattern is more pointed where pearl is contoured waves.
The watchman fetches his little medical kit from the cabinet and tacks the wound together before applying the grafting gel. It will seal the wound by morning, thanks to another little development by Caufmann. He tries to stand but a wave of darkness overcomes him.
His legs collapse, and he’s unconscious before he hits the bathroom floor.
About the time Rennin blacks out, Doctor Caufmann is hurrying down to the lower levels of the lab. The other scientists are busy sleeping, or what ever they do in their downtime. It gives Caufmann free reign of the level where the CryoGen Industries team are kept in deep freeze.
Nordoth and Straker have to be removed from stasis now, as there won’t be enough time to thaw them once the infected turn hostile. The reports from street level are increasingly bleak. Three Beta HolinMechs were found dead at Carla Spencer’s apartment block, and though Caufmann knows who did it, he has kept his silence. Three measly soldiers are nothing next to Caufmann’s body count, after all.
Damon Kowalski, their captain, is absolutely furious nonetheless.
The Horizon Morgue is full of bodies that have either died of the virus before the change, or been shot by the Horizon Military and Beta HolinMech strike-teams. Even storage rooms at the lab have been emptied of most of their contents, in order to be utilised as body storage. Hundreds of them, soon to be thousands.