A hiss of displaced air and a sudden coldness in the reception area of Medical was all the warning the Guards had of her arrival. Swords flickers out like a serpent twice and two guards die. Two more near the entrance to the enhancement center. Quick draw and shoot them both between the eyes. Over in less than three seconds. Eyes sweep the room. The command in her mind urging her forward against her ingrained caution. The faces of the ones to be disposed of are always there.
Moving forward rapidly, using full enhancement. Two hundred metres to the Enhancement centre. Behind her a clatter as a squad of the Guard arrive. They gape in confusion for a second or two, then hit the alarm.
A nurse suddenly sticks her head out of a side doorway, to see what is going on. One hard slash, and her body folds in on itself as her head rolls down the corridor. Curiosity is not always good for you. Thumps against her back. The squad behind her is shooting at her. Anti ballistic armour easily absorbing the impacts, but it is annoying. Draw her gun, smoothly pivot and drop four of them. Narrowly miss the fifth Guard as he dives for the cover of a doorway. Three rounds remaining. Re-load. Last magazine.
Her biosystems computer is trying to get her attention. Body damage is now occurring. Enhanced action should be terminated immediately. Irrelevant. The images of her targets float in front of her eyes, drawing her on.
* * *
“She is here.” Words flat.
“Milady, can you do anything?” Margareta does not sound hopeful.
“There is nothing there to work with. Just a command to kill, fixed so deep that I have no chance of removing it in time.” Glance around. Luis, Marta and Annasophia have been moved to the side ward, out of the way of stray rounds. Marta had calmly accepted the loan of an automatic from Vasquez and is keeping guard there as the last ditch defence. Doctor MacKenzie and the duty nurse are with them.
“Can you access her implants?” Suilien, unsteady, but on her feet, bared katana in hand. “If you can shut off most of her enhancement, it will at least even the odds.”
“I can try.” Close my eyes and will myself back into her mind. There is no one there. Just the command and the images. Kill all those he loves. The biosystems computer is talking to itself, it's information echoing in the immense emptiness.
“Combat capability at ninety percent. Systemic damage in progress. Recommend enhanced action shut down.”
Insert a thought. “Computer, initiate enhancement shut down.”
“Negative. Over-rides engaged. Manual shut down required.” Cabrón! Dig deeper in her mind. There must be something of her left!
* * *
Wickham glares at me in fury. “Get yourself back there, you silly bastard! Do you think a couple of Guard squads can stop Tanekawa?! We can finish up here!”
“And the eggs?” I point back to the main chamber. Flickers of light gleam as cockroaches and the occasional rat, attracted by the scattered body parts, cut themselves on the razor edges, their blood feeding the growing demons within. A couple of the eggs are nearly mature already. Let even one hatch, grow and breed again, and the consequences will be disastrous for the entire world. Personal considerations are nothing, compared to that. He sags in defeat. He knows the rules as well as I.
Franco has been looking around the chamber we are in. A defunct pumping station, bypassed when the newer sewers were built. Stream of water, leaking from Him knows where, running along the wall by the entrance, making pools in the hollows of the floor. Tangles of rusty machinery pushed into the corners, a steel tank, corroded but still sound, laying like a monolith where it has fallen. He is standing by the tank, thinking, idly tapping on the empty tank. “Cat, I hate to ask this, but could your sword cut this access hatch off?”
Glance over. “Sure. Won't do her much good, but should be able to. Why?”
“The eggs feed on fresh blood. If we put them in the tank, the vermin won't be able to bleed on them. Especially if we wash the eggs in the stream first to get rid of anything to attract the cockroaches. The rats, we can always shoot.”
“Good idea. But how do we carry them without bleeding all over them in the process?” Not meaning to be sarcastic, but my rage and grief makes it come out that way. He bends, picks something from the tangle of rusty metal by his feet.
“I was born and raised on the farming levels, boss. Been shovelling up shit since before you was even a thought in your Mommy's mind.”
Two steps and a slash of Pain and the access hatch falls free. Give Pain a mental apology, that is not good, even for a monomolecular edge. “Try it. Get one of the nearly mature ones. Lets see if water affects them, first.”
* * *
At the entry to Enhancement. Door is shut. Access security systems. Three Guard on the other side, middle of the room, weapons trained on the door. Simple answer. Don't use the door. Climb the wall and enter the air vent. Over the wall. Can't get into the wards. They have their own, separate ventilation system. Quietly slide along the vent. Crawlers coming to alert, reading her implants and standing down again as she passes. She belongs. No threat here.
Whispering in her mind. Ignore it. It is irrelevant to the mission. Odd wisps of memory drift by. Counting body lengths. Here. Painfully wiggle into a crouch. One good, hard kick, and drop through the ceiling. Sword a blur of motion. Two shots. Three guards down and dead. Eight rounds remaining. She staggers.
“Combat capability at sixty percent. Systemic damage approaching critical. Nutrient intake required immediately.” The biosystems computer. Still trying to keep her functioning. Nutrient intake. Smell of blood like hot copper in her nostrils. The smell of meat. Pause. Visualise slicing a chunk of flesh off one of the bodies and eating it. It would be good.
No. The kill imperative is too strong. The airlock will be guarded. The one way window? Maybe not. Brace herself and a double slash cuts an X across the toughened glass, weakening it enough to jump through.
* * *
She is so close! Keep digging in her mind. Get down to the core. The seat of identity. The self. The command booming through the places in her mind where a person should be. “Kill all that he loves.” The constant flick of images.
It is still more or less intact. The self image. The instinct for self preservation. All here. Still functioning, despite the soul rape of the upper levels of her mind. I am her primary target. Can't change that, it is too deeply fixed. The others are lesser targets, to turn Cat's pain into total horror. The sheer evil of it is sickening. Can't stop it. But I can add something to it. I do it. Open my eyes and move sideways. Hope for the best.
She bursts through the one way window in a shower of glass. Fate in human form. Lands and shoots rapidly, seven times. Two bullets find their mark, the other five skidding off the antiballistic armour of the Guards.
She turns to me, ignoring the fire from the functioning Guards. Death and injury does not matter to her. Completing her assignment does.
I stand up. Take two more steps to the right. Her gun follows me.
Dead eyes. Nothing human there. I twist and drop. Her gun lazily follows me down, barking once. Pain shoots through me like lava as her final bullet punches through my chest and into my lung. She takes one step forward, raising her sword.
And stops, faced by the mirror on the ward wall.
Fading fast. Use the last of my energy to reinforce the demon's command. “Kill all that he loves.”
See the faces shuffling in her mind, slower and slower. Me, Annasophia, Marta, Margareta, Luis. Shuffled like cards in the hands of a cardsharp. Slower and slower.
It settles on her image. The one in the mirror.
She raises her sword, and with one swift movement, decapitates herself.
Death is cold. So cold.
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