163: No Prisoners

‘High Rollers: I’ve checked on all my guys. Everyone’s fine. No problems.’

That was the third to report in. All groups had confirmed their status, except for one. Book Club.

Vikrum’s Mark flickered, and he tapped on it immediately.

The UI immediately opened to his Quest, Hero of Humanity, and his eyes immediately moved to the part showing his Loyal.

The number decreased in chunks before his eyes, two, three, one, two, one, over the space of two seconds.

Nine of his people had just died, just like that, gone. He snatched the radio, thumbed the transmitter, and spat into it. ‘This is Command! Book Club, your people are dying. Stop everything, get everyone, and find out who is fucking killing you!’

‘Understood!’ came the leader of those in the Library, but that wasn’t all that came through from the radio.

Gunfire crackled from its speakers. Yelling and shouting, all turned into a mishmash of sound. The heavy thump of a high calibre automatic weapon, growing louder and louder.

The sounds cut off.

Vikrum snarled, his mind spinning. What to do? Go there right now? He’d been preparing to move on the Upper-Jungle. His scouts had found three large groups, all factions that continuously attacked his Chosen and were increasingly well armed, in positions where they could be pinned and taken care of.

He had a guess at who was doing this. Only one other was known to strike with such savage speed and cunning. Bastard. Rotors groaned in the sides of his face as his polyceramic teeth ground together.

But as he prepared to send the orders, Cornwall presented its analysis.

Even if he went only with himself, as there was none faster, it would still take almost twenty minutes to arrive. The Library was distant. It was likely that if he did not lead the Chosen to the upper-jungle now, that the move he’d prepared on the three groups up there would slip away. Those groups happened to be positioned in a way that made them unusually vulnerable, few places of escape.

He could split, go himself to the Library, and send the Chosen up top.

But Cornwall’s next statement told him this was likely pointless.

If the attackers continue to kill the Book Club so quickly, then by the time you arrive they will be gone. They will be aware of the likelihood of reinforcements.

Vikrum raised his hand, checked his Mark, and saw that seven more Loyal had died. Another went as he watched. They wouldn’t last much longer.

Vikrum knew it was the right move to go with his Chosen to the top. That he should simply dismiss the Library and his people there as an inexplicable loss.

But they were his people, and he wanted vengeance. For them, and for all the others Viper had killed. The man needed to die, and even only a small chance of killing him was enough.

I’m going, he told Cornwall, Viper dies today.

There is no certainty it is Viper, Cornwall argued.

Vikrum shook his head. It is. The AI gave its version of a nod. Issue the orders, get them moving up top.

###

Bullets cracked and spat around Nicolai, twinkling lights, hot with danger. But he had their measure. He knew the positions of the shooters, and he knew that lurking behind the thick stone corner, his cover was good.

He was in the second room of the Libraries upper-floor, where he’d found the Memory Tomes, crouched to the side of the exit. His vision was lit up with shapes. Threat Analysis had been busy since the start of this fight, and once it had gotten started and he’d been forced to duck into here, it had continued to do all it could to work out their positions.

A third of them were dead, killed in his first strike. He’d heard the words on the radio, too, as those on the bodies of the nine he’d killed lower down had spoken Vikrum’s words. The moment he’d heard that shout, he’d dashed up the stairs.

The next moments were a blur in his memory. Pulling with the Grasping Finger. Pegasi ring. Grenades. Gunshots. He’d scythed through them on his way to the additional room, into which he’d retreated as they started firing on him. He’d killed one of the Cultivators, as he’d focused fire on them.

Maintaining the initiative was of significant importance in combat like this. Making use of it, was even more important. By throwing himself into them before they properly reacted to the warning on the radio, he’d been able to wreak havoc and lay waste.

The only problem was that there were sixteen of them left, and now he was trapped in this room.

The battlefield was now split into sections. Amongst the shelves on one side of this upper floor, lurked the Guardian. The Chosen occupied the area in front of the stairwell door. Nicolai held the Memory Tome room. Jo and Beth were down the stairs, working to keep the Chosen—who were attempting to press down and escape—pinned.

They were doing well, in large part because of Beth’s Symbiote which was very effective in the stairwell. In time the Chosen would push through, but they’d suffer significant losses.

Nicolai intended to see them dead before that happened, but he’d encountered a problem. The Library Guardian had been focusing on him ever since he’d arrived. It recognised him, and even though these guys had been holding it here and whittling it down for quite some time, it still wanted him dead first.

He had merged with Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare at the start of the fight, and together they had come up with a plan.

Nicolai waited for his moment, observing the Chosen and the undead through every method available to him. They were now aware of the invasion Cyberwarfare had enacted on the Local.

But that wasn’t enough. Nicolai had seized control of the remaining drones, and posted them throughout the upper floor, hidden away. He had eyes everywhere, and with the edge in the Local war, he was free to use grenades with maximum effect.

But they corrected that quickly. They threw chaffbangs, which didn’t bother Nicolai, tucked away as he was, but it the filaments these grenades flung through the air interrupted the Local, making it unuseable for everyone in the area. Nicolai still had access to a pair of drones near to the Guardian, due to how the chaffbang filaments were positioned.

He sent his rapier out, and it spun through the air. The Chosen fired on it as it danced, and some bullets were wasted before the leader called out to cease fire. That was enough.

Nicolai slithered closer to the exit then tossed a concussion grenade. He slipped back as a rain of razor sharp paper came from the Guardian. Moving forward again, he threw more grenades. In fact, he threw all of his grenades, and on each of them he altered the timing by a different amount. The longest was at twenty seconds. The continuous fragmentation and concussion grenade explosions would keep the Chosen busy, force them to take cover or try and throw the grenades away. All of that would keep them off his back while he dealt with the Guardian.

When the grenade went off, he lunged out of the exit, knowing their guns were low on ammo. He deflected the few rounds that came his way, and used his Soul Sense to bat aside the paper that homed in on his position, dodging those that were launched in simple straight lines.

He charged towards the undead Guardian, winding his way through the shelves. He arrived in an instant and saw it becoming mist. But that was fine because he wasn’t focused on it. He used the Pegasi ring and Grasping Finger to launch himself to the top of the shelves, where he hunted down its book, which fled from him.

A barrage of gunshots tore it apart, removing the irritating thing.

The undead was coming for him, knowing it had no other choice, but he was ready.

Blue lightning crawled over him as he dodged out of its way, striking at it with his Soul Sense. He wanted to make it leave its mist form, and he felt he could do so without the lightning.

Instead he struck at it with Soul Sense, the rapier forming the edge of his attack as it sliced through the mist. The undeads Soul Sense was dispersed, loose, hard to hit, but as he sliced away he knew it was sustaining damage. He chased after it as it fled. It turned and lunged at him, but he was ready and slid aside, avoiding the charge. He slammed his palm out from behind it, and the weight of his Soul slammed into it.

The undead’s Soul Sense broke, and it reappeared, the mist form fading.

The blue lightning crashed into it at the moment it appeared, and it spasmed as it fell to the ground.

Nicolai landed beside it, and sprayed the AA-12 full auto into its form until it was still and he felt it die, at the same moment as the magazine clicked empty.

He paused, then, to lower himself and grasp what it wore. An ornate silver circlet. The Imbued item. He tucked it away, as he heard the last grenade go off.

Nicolai recovered himself in the poncho, launched himself up, and got on top of one of the shelves. He started creeping forward, towards the enemy. They were now pinned at the stairway, and though their cover of wooden desk had sufficed against the undead’s paper missiles, it would not against shotgun rounds.

A fresh magazine slotted into the AA-12 and he took aim at one he had an angle on. The man’s brain was sprayed on the wall beside him. Nicolai dropped off the shelf as their return fire came, creeping through the area until he’d found a new position.

Peering around a shelf he sighted down the AA-12, found another target, and fired. More shots as he repositioned again.

They really didn’t have a lot they could do, now. He was difficult to find back here, in his poncho. They’d lost all their drones. Their cover was bad whereas he had many places to hide, plus a shield.

Still, he’d expected they would keep fighting. Thus he was surprised when he heard the cry.

‘We surrender! We give up! We’re dropping our weapons!’

The single drone he still had control over got into a position where it could see them, and he saw they were doing just that.

After confirming, Nicolai moved forwards, coming into sight of them. They all had their hands up.

As he approached, he checked these were all of them by communicating with Jo and Beth and sending the drone into the stairs.

‘As in the Corporate Convention, we are now prisoners of war,’ announced the leader of them. ‘I hope you will treat us—‘

His words were silenced by a shotgun blast that blew his head in half. Nicolai turned the shotgun on the rest of them as they cringed, terrified.

Once it was done he reloaded.

Jo and Beth came up.

‘Damn,’ said Beth. ‘Weren’t they, uh, surrendering? Should you have killed them?’

‘They’re Chosen and we don’t have the facilities to keep prisoners,’ he told her shortly.

Jo was shaking her head, appearing disappointed. ‘Is that all you feel?’

What he had felt? Nicolai considered. His Mask was feeling a lot, that was sure, but he didn’t have much interest in experiencing those feelings and was keeping it at a distance.

As to himself…

‘I felt the recoil,’ he told her, in a rare moment of honesty. ‘Let’s go. Our objective is complete and the Chosen will send reinforcements.’ He’d already checked for loot, and had seized some decent guns and a few Oma crystals, but it transpired he’d been slightly too free with his grenades—the Cultivator’s corpses were smears and chunks of gore, with no sign of their Symbiotes.

Regardless, he had the Guardian’s Imbued, which promised to be of great use once he reached Tier 2, and he’d dealt a blow to the Chosen. A good day’s work.

As he moved, the radios crackled. Curious, he picked one up.

###

The radio had been silent for some time. Vikrum had seen his Loyal counter continue to tick down, though more slower now. Whatever fight was occurring was going less quickly. But as he watched the number ticked down by another few, and Cornwall informed him that the losses matched up with the number who had been part of the Book Club.

Even so, he spoke over the radio. ‘Book Club?’ asked Vikrum. ‘Book Club?’

He heard a faint click. Frowning, he put his ear to the radio. He could hear breathing. The dim, dark feeling growing within him told him that this was not the breathing of the field leader he’d put in charge of those in the Library.

‘Viper,’ he snarled.

‘Vikrum,’ spoke a voice from the radio. Where Vikrum had snarled Viper’s name, the man spoke his own in an odd tone. A kind of savouring. Like he was happy that at long last, they were speaking.

Vikrum wasn’t far now, only five minutes away. If he could get the man talking, maybe he’d stay for longer. He just needed a little time, and he’d put an end to Viper for good.

‘You know, Viper, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you,’ he began. His tone, aided by Cornwall, was conversational. His movements had changed slightly; he was still running but at a very slightly slower speed, so as to necessitate soundless movement. He didn’t want Viper to hear the clatter of his sprint. The words he spoke were designed to draw someone in, make them want to listen, make them want to respond. He let the pause stretch. ‘This is what I’ve been wanting to say: in this place, there are—‘

A derisive laugh burbled from the radio. With a click the transmission switched off.

Vikrum let out a snarl of rage, and his footsteps sped to maximum speed. He felt an urge to dash the radio on the ground but Cornwall stayed his hand.

An army of drones moved with him, the only things other than Gilvine capable of keeping up with his speed. They spread wide through the castle around him. He had powerful transmitters capable of controlling them over a wide range, and with Cornwall he could use hundreds with ease.

###

Nicolai left a line of drones between him as the Library, a method to extend his reach through them, as he and the girls moved off. He saw, through the last in line, a wave of drones arrives. With them, came a person, a Cyborg.

Vikrum.

He had that drone and the two next in line destroy themselves as Vikrum’s cyberwarfare capabilities lunged at them, breaking the end of the chain, and the other drones flew back to join him. He knew that Vikrum’s drones would be spreading out as the man chased after. But even so, Vikrum wouldn’t be catching him.

Nicolai considered what he’d seen. Vikrum had come alone. He was a Level 3 Cyborg, but even so… that was an interesting decision. Some might even call it unwise.

Vikrum was definitely not a happy Cyborg. Nicolai felt that the gloating chuckled he’d fed through the radio had been a nice touch. He suspected it’d struck a nerve.

In truth, he didn’t feel any sense of gloating over killing Vikrum’s people. Now the moment was passed, he felt little more than the satisfaction of a job well done. But he was well aware of how emotion could cloud one’s vision and lead them astray. The laugh, therefore, was a form of psychological warfare. An attack aimed at destabilising—in some small way—Vikrum’s mental state.

Things like that mattered, in his view. Ultimately, everything mattered. That was how you won. Lots of little acts, alongside a few big ones, all adding up over time.