Date Published: April 16, 2021
Welcome to DevTown.
In this city, holo ads lumber like neon giants seeking advertising targets. Men and women pop Oracle tabs in search of relief or enlightenment or both. Creatures of unknown origin stalk the darkest alleys. In the center of it all, NexDev Tower looms over the city, home to hundreds of floors of top-secret research.
And in its shadow, Shan Hayes kills people for money.
Rejecting the mechanical enhancements so popular in DevTown, Shan needs only two things: The resynth serum that can reshape her body's entire cellular structure, and her hand-cannon containing a sentient parasite capable of converting her blood into weaponized wasps.
As a hired gun for various crime syndicates, there's little of the city's underbelly Shan hasn't encountered. But when a longtime business associate hires her to track down an underling who's vanished into the neon night, Shan finds DevTown still holds secrets more deadly and terrifying than anything she could imagine.
The target pauses, turns to look at Shan. Here in the alley, shadow
swallows his face. Emerald neon reflects off his mirrorshades, but it’s not the
only surface catching the soft glow. As he turns, light flashes around his
knees and continues to his feet.
Mech legs.
As he stares
her down through green-glinting shades, a hissing whine fills the alley. He
turns just as the sound reaches a crescendo, and as it releases in a blast, he
bounds away. The single leap carries him thirty feet, and the instant he lands,
there’s another blast, carrying him another thirty feet.
The mech legs
must have some sort of repulsor technology. Shan has heard of newer models
which concentrate electromagnetic fields and use them to propel users at high
velocities, but it doesn’t matter how his models work. Shan won’t catch him
without enhancements of her own. There isn’t a single mech installed on her
body, but she doesn’t need mechs. Not when she has resynth.
All these
thoughts pass through her head in an instant. Before the target lands, Shan
swallows a handful of CalPills. The large yellow capsules land in her stomach
like a ton of bricks, but she needs the calories for what comes next. She
slides a syringe from the clip on her belt and plunges the needle into her
thigh.
She runs.
Resynth serum,
that cocktail of proteins and viruses, floods her bloodstream, issuing commands
to each cell it touches. The cells comply, transforming to accommodate the
design coded into the serum. Heat ignites in her belly as the CalPills fuel the
change. Shan’s joints rearrange, her muscles grow, her tendons expand and
contract, reforming her body until she isn’t running, but galloping, using the
force of four limbs to chase her target. She is more than human now. She is a
predator, and her target is prey, no matter how much organic tissue he’s traded
for metal.
Thanks to those
mech legs, her target is fast, but she’s faster still. The pavement is cool and
rough on her palms. The scents of DevTown sharpen as air rushes past her face.
Her lips twist in a bitter smile. No hunt is complete without a chase.
--
A news report
on the old flatscreen details another attack in another alley. In a dry voice
with a matter-of-fact tone, the anchor narrates grainy footage of bone-thin men
and women overwhelming a victim, mentions the growing trend of corpses covered
in bite wounds. She relays the authorities’ promise to investigate the violence
and provides a phone number for anyone with information to share.
“Literal
zombies is what they are,” says the bartender, wiping a pint glass with a rag.
“People comin’ back from the dead and bitin’ chunks outta folks.”
Shan grunts,
but offers no comment. She doesn’t care what he thinks. Theories won’t improve
the streets of DevTown, but that’s never stopped conversation at Infusion.
“Aw, not this
again,” shouts a voice behind Shan. “We got no proof the shamblers ever died to
begin with.”
Shamblers. It’s
the term used by anyone unbound by journalistic integrity, referencing the
clumsy way the attackers move.
“Every single
one of ’em looks like a walkin’ corpse. Add the bite marks, and how they don’t
seem to feel nothin’ when folks fight back, it makes perfect sense.” The
bartender sets down the pint glass and leans into the bar. Slender mech fingers
drum a staccato on old wood. “I bet it’s Oracle tabs makin’ people do it. Ever
notice how many of those victims turn up in Tabber Alley?”
“Shut up,” says
another voice. “Oracle can’t raise the dead.”
“You sure?”
says the bartender. “Oracle’s the newest drug on the street. No one’s studyin’
it. Tabbers know what happens after they swallow, but what about after they
die?”
The door to
Infusion slams open. Shan glances over her shoulder, half-expecting to find a
bone-white, withered corpse of a person. It would shamble in, fall upon one of
Infusion’s patrons and bite into his neck, sucking everything out until the
patron is twitching on the stained floor and the newcomer’s body bloats with
fluid.
But that’s not
what she sees. Instead, it’s three men. They’re pale, but not bleached white,
and they certainly aren’t wasting away. Their arms are thick, their chests
wide. As one, they stride up to the bar. There’s no sizing up the patrons, no
scanning for dangerous characters. Each man’s gate is purposeful, fearless. One
settles into a stool next to Shan, and the others wait behind him, snapping at
the bartender for attention. After they order a round of drinks, an uneasy
silence falls over Infusion. Nobody offers another opinion on Oracle tabs,
nobody theorizes on the shamblers’ origin. Everyone stares at their glasses,
but the bar’s collective focus centers on the newcomers.
“You Shan
Hayes?” says one man. His voice is a dagger, piercing the silence and leaving a
gaping wound in its wake.
“Who’s asking?”
The man’s lips
quirk in a smile. “Heard we might find her here.”
Shan holds his
stare, tracking his companions in the corner of her eye. One has shifted a hand
inside his black trench coat; the other drifts sideways, flanking her. She
doesn’t know who sent them, but they aren’t here for a friendly chat.
So Shan acts
before they do. She throws an elbow back, sinking it into the gut of the man
shifting behind her. As he grunts, more from surprise than pain, she keeps
turning, spinning off her seat and using her other hand to snatch his glass of
whiskey and hurl it at his companion in the stool beside her. He dodges the
projectile, and it shatters in a spray of gold and glitter. That split second
of hesitation is all she needs. She shuffles away until they’re in front of
her, the bar at their backs. At least she’s not surrounded anymore.
The guy
reaching into his jacket withdraws his hand to reveal a weapon. It’s not a gun
or even a knife, though. This is a long black baton with ice blue spirals
running up and down its length. He lunges at her, lifting the weapon over his
head. Reckless.
With ease, she
sidesteps the attack and throws herself into a counterstrike. Her knuckles
crash into his jaw, but a jarring vibration runs from her wrist to her
shoulder. He barely reacts to the perfectly placed blow, now whirling toward
her. He even has the audacity to smile.
Of course. He’d
used mechs to reinforce his bones. Not a terrible investment for someone on his
career path.
The guy with
the baton lurches toward her, and Shan reacts instantly. She grabs a syringe
from her belt, plunges it into her thigh, and throws the empty canister at her
attacker. He dodges, and she backs away, waiting for the serum to do its work.
The cells in
her arms split, change, and die, burning calories at a rapid rate. Her stomach
feels empty, and the emptiness spreads to her entire body as the serum demands
more fuel.
Kim would not
approve of this.
Shan forces
herself to focus through the sudden hunger, the lightheadedness, the feverish
disorientation. Her right arm has grown razor-sharp spines along the edge of
the forearm, and her left has changed into a massive claw as hard as a diamond.
This time, when
the guy swings at her, Shan plants her feet and blocks with her spiny forearm.
His elbow catches on the fresh blades, and when she jerks her arm aside, it
shreds his mech. The club rattles to the floor, but he stays upright. Synthetic
skin hangs in ribbons around the ruined chrome. He sneers.
Shan sways
where she stands, her body burning through calories at an unsustainable rate.
She has to finish this. Without CalPills, she can’t hold this form long.
She launches
herself at the man with the shredded arm, bringing the full weight of her claw
into the crook of his neck. Now he falls, legs buckling under the force of her
blow. The claw sinks into his shoulder. It isn’t heavy enough to sever an
entire mech, but its serrations still cut partway through. Shan rips the claw free,
and he collapses, twitching in the chaos of shorted and severed connections.
The clock is
ticking. Shan’s growing weaker by the second.
She kicks a
loose barstool at one attacker and lunges at the other. It’s a reckless move,
but she doesn’t have the time to maneuver so there’s nobody behind her. She
must rely on her own speed, hoping to finish one guy before the other recovers.
In the blink of
an eye, she’s on top of her target. The spines on her forearm pierce flesh and
tendons on his chest with ease, and when she tears the arm free, he gives a
low, gurgling moan. Blood sprays a nearby table. Her stomach roars with hunger,
and her head vibrates, but she can’t stop yet.
She whirls to
face the last of them, but he’s ready for her. The barstool she kicked is his
weapon now. He’s already mid-swing, and the seat catches her under the ear.
Darkness
swallows her.
About The Author
Taylor Hohulin is a radio personality by morning, a science fiction author by afternoon, and asleep by 9:30. He is the author of The Marian Trilogy, Tar, Your Best Apocalypse Now, and other genre-bending stories. He lives in West Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, where they are owned by two cats and a dog.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
a Rafflecopter giveaway
No comments:
Post a Comment