Shedding the Demon (35 page)

She knew what was coming, but she was also powerless to stop
it. Memories of all of her failures to this point beat down upon her until her
voice barely squeaked out “There’s a traitor among them, and they plan to kill
Reverend Trueblood.”

The bridge grew silent. Many of the officers stared
open-mouthed. Some showed disdain and disgust as they looked at her. One man
standing directly behind the captain actually laughed. A short burst of sound
that punctuated the quiet and seemed to bring the captain to his senses.

He stabbed the man who laughed with a chastising glare
before responding. “Dr. Tashus, this is a serious accusation, and I must say it
is nonsensical to the point of being ludicrous. How do you know this? How
could
you know this?”

Joann tried to control her shaking. He drew herself up,
feeling like a weak shadow of the man in front of her, yet determined to do
anything the only thing she could.

“I know,” she said, her voice growing stronger, “because I
assigned him to the team myself.”

The bridge erupted into chaos as everyone yelled at once.

 

**** ****

 

Things were as bad as Leland
imagined them to be. Unfortunately, he had imagined them being really,
really
bad.

He was holed up with the soldiers that he’d brought along. Most
of the mercenaries had moved off. They were spread out across a series of rooms
that may have been offices, but were now mostly rubble.

Many of the intermediate walls had been demolished during
the fighting, leaving them in a large expanse with solid concrete walls on the
North and South sides and openings into corridors on the West and East.

They’d been attacked by Trueblood forces on both sides, but
made it through the intense firefight with few casualties. The mercenaries
decided to pursue one group of Truebloods to the west while Leland’s group
covered their back.

In the best case Leland could imagine, the Augies would show
themselves as the real enemies, and the Truebloods would join against them. So
far, they’d done nothing of the sort.

Leland knew from the beginning that it was unlikely they’d
find themselves in the best case.

Now, he simply wanted to defend Reverend Trueblood from the
Augies and hopefully convince him of their good intentions after the fact.

Pinned down, with the Augies nowhere to be found, Leland
realized they would all have to rely upon Damon to get to the reverend and tell
him personally what was happening.

A loud crash surprised him and a new hole appeared in the
east end of the room. He was proud to see his troops did not panic and fire
wildly into the smoking hole.

As the dust settled, what emerged from the opening was a
nightmare he’d never imagined. Charging through the hole came what appeared to
be a man, but its limbs moved grotesquely and its speed was shocking.

It could be nothing but an Augie.

Leland opened fire and cursed when he realized his ammo was
intended to incapacitate humans, but would have little effect on the Augies.
Shouting to the others, he slapped a new magazine into his autorifle and
reacquired the target, now frighteningly close.

Lasers shot out from the Augie’s hands toward the nearest
soldiers. Some shots hit concrete and others hit armor, but no one appeared to
go down.

Leland opened fire, keeping a tight bead on the Augie’s
chest. Others joined his attack after they’d switched over to standard rounds,
and the creature was visibly slowed. Once they had six or seven firing with the
appropriate ammunition, the Augie was forced into evasive maneuvers, which
slowed his approach and stopped the laser fire.

The Augie leapt to one side, seemed to land on the wall, and
then propelled himself into the small group of soldiers closest to him. Leland
and the others were forced to cease fire, but he was up quickly and charged the
position.

The Augie was a blur of motion as he punched and kicked the
soldiers nearby, cracking armor and bones underneath. The soldiers tried to
fight back, but the creature was just too fast. Leland fired up his
augmentation and focused all of his power into the close combat systems.

He approached from the side, and connected with a solid
punch to the Augie’s head. The creature stumbled, clearly surprised by the
power of the strike. Leland followed as quickly as he could with a two handed
shove to send the Augie against the wall a few feet away. Now separated from
the group of soldiers, the others opened fire again, and the Augie quickly
retreated back to where it came from.

Leland was breathing hard, more from excitement than
exertion. He began checking the injured men.

“Nice work, pastor,” one of the men said as he cradled his
broken arm.

“Thanks, but I took him by surprise. Probably won’t happen
again.” A medic arrived and began peeling the armor from the man’s arm in order
to set it and splint it.

“Wrap it tight doc, so I can still shoot straight,” he said
with remarkable good humor.

Leland sighed as he moved on to the next man. The bravery of
the men he’d served with over the years always inspired him and broke his
heart. He’d seen too many die for senseless causes.

A few minutes later, after the injured had been attended to,
Leland called for an advance. He led them to the east end breach, which had
been quiet for some time now, and out into the corridor.

What he found there made him stop in surprise. Strewn
throughout the area were the bodies of Trueblood forces. They’d been beaten,
sliced, and shot at close range.

The men crowded in behind Leland and excited chatter broke
out. He silenced them with a quick hand signal, even though his own excitement
bubbled near the surface.
Looks like the Augies are finally showing their
true colors. We may not need to convince the Truebloods after all.

 

“That’s very odd,” Jeffrey said as he glared at his screen. He
tried to slow his racing heart, as he expected the Demon to show up any minute.
Not being able to track him made it all the more nerve-wracking. He had a
needle-flak gun with him, but he didn’t think it would be enough to protect
Renard.

“What’s odd?” Renard asked as he joined Jeffrey at the
display.

“We’re getting many reports of firefights and casualties,
but no solid location on the Demon.”

“Not really that odd, is it?” Renard asked, confused.

“Well no, but they are all coming from lower levels. I
thought he was higher than that now. What’s more is we’re getting conflicting
information and sightings of the Demon all over the place. However, the only
actual fighting appears to be isolated low in the Spire. Something is not
adding up.”

Jeffrey continued to pore over the incoming information, and
the few visual feeds they were receiving. Smoke, fire, and water appeared
almost everywhere on the lower levels, making all of the images unclear and
chaotic. He understood how reports could become garbled and details could be
wrong, but nothing was making sense. He longed to go down and see things for himself.

A few minutes later, a pattern began to take shape. His mind
rejected the evidence for quite some time, since it was unbelievable and
frightening. Finally, he could not deny the veracity of what he was seeing.
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Renard,” he said quietly, immediately capturing Renard’s
attention since he
never
used his first name.

“The Augies are attacking
our
men.”

 

**** ****

 

Damon heard him coming from around
the corner. He couldn’t wait to meet one of the Augies and see how good they
are. Apparently, its sensors were not good enough to defeat Damon’s cloaking,
or it would not have been approaching so recklessly. Damon moved out from
around the corner just as the Augie arrived. He reached out to grab it as it
raced toward him, but it made an impossible dodge by twisting its body into an
arc while its feet scrambled up the wall to the right.

The Augie kicked off the wall and sailed over Damon’s head,
flipping in mid-air and actually placing a hand on the top of Damon’s head. Its
claws scraped across the D-SAP, and dislodged a small number of scales.
Certainly not enough to cause a problem, but something Damon would have to
remember. The Augie landed and kicked him hard in the back before Damon could
recover from his initial lunge. The kick was powerful, but Damon had taken
worse. While he skidded along the floor on his face, the Augie pursued.

It grabbed him, claws digging into the D-SAP, and rolled
forward using Damon’s own momentum to fling him into the wall. Damon found
himself embedded to his sternum in hardened concrete, and he pushed his arms
out and up to extricate himself.

Before he could regain his balance, the Augie landed on him
and knocked him off his feet, grabbed his foot and threw him against the
opposite wall. The Augie hopped after, knocking Damon off balance and tossing
him side to side quicker than Damon could react.

Damon was disoriented from the attack, but the Augie finally
made a simple mistake. As they came to the end of the corridor and into a
larger room, the Augie threw Damon across the room into the far wall. Damon
didn’t hit the wall with much force, and he recovered quickly. The Augie
suddenly realized he’d given Damon too much separation.

Damon saw its eyes flicker between attack or retreat, and he
took advantage of the moment’s hesitation. He fired slug guns from both arms
while powering up the Trip-PC. The slugs kept the Augie from moving too
quickly, and Damon fired the cannon.

The Augie screeched as it burst into burning bits of flesh
and bone.

“Not so tough after all,” he said to the scorched and
smoking walls. The Trip-PC shot left a long burning path through walls, floors
and other obstacles until it struck a vertical shaft near the center of the
building. Intrigued, Damon climbed through the destruction to reach the shaft.

He ran his hand over the black surface, and could see where
the Trip-PC shot had cracked it. The result from his scanners made him withdraw
his hand quickly in surprise. “D-SAP!” he said out loud. It was not made up of
scales like his armor, and was slightly different composition, but it was D-SAP
for sure.

He compared this location to his sensor-generated map and
realized this shaft showed up, but was hard to see amid everything else in the
structure. Once he knew where to look, it was easy to trace its path upward,
where it led directly into the heavily-shielded area that was his target.

He ran through his memories and accessed information
available in his data stores. Apparently, D-SAP was known for its hardness but
was not used often due to its weight and a tendency to be brittle if not
properly treated.

“. . . 42% . . .”

Not going to use another Trip-PC shot!
he thought,
realizing he still had a long battle ahead of him.
Maybe it’s damaged enough
. . .

Damon took two purposeful steps toward the damaged spot and
unleashed a punch with all the power he could muster. He felt the impact as it
jarred his entire body with its force. He thought he might have torn his
shoulder from its socket, but a quick check showed no actual damage. The shaft
made a loud crack that echoed through the area and made Damon’s ears ring. Sure
enough, the strike had added more cracks to the area, and Damon saw spots where
he could wedge his fingers in to grip the edges. Bracing his feet against the shaft
itself, he pulled one of the weakened parts with all his strength until it
finally snapped off, sending him flying backwards into a wall.

The hole that opened in the shaft would be just large enough
to let him inside. He squeezed through and surveyed his surroundings. “Of
course,” he said to himself, “elevator!”

There were few handholds along the way, but using his
enhanced strength and natural agility, he made his way slowly up the shaft.

 

**** ****

 

Captain Michael Fischoff had the
crazy scientist secured by two security guards, but kept her on the bridge. The
disturbance she caused had him flustered, but her earnest pleas were making his
intuition tingle, and he decided to dig in a little deeper. He thought about
contacting fleet headquarters, but decided they would not be very helpful.
Instead, since they were now approaching the planet, he decided to access the
direct feeds from the combat troops in the area. Working with his
communications officer, they were able to gain clearances and locate the proper
bands to monitor the action directly.

The captain listened intently to the broadcasts, but the
chatter was heavy and much of it indistinct. One thing was clear without
hearing the words: chaos reigned on site.

His love of order and control made him recoil from the
incoming audio, but he caught himself and tried to discern the situation. With
the help of his top communications tech, he was able to isolate and playback
individual transmissions from the morass.

Despite the confusion in the communications, it became clear
after a few minutes that things were not right. Piecing together the disparate
bits of information, the captain and his tech concluded that the Trueblood
forces were under attack from the Demon, some unidentified soldiers, and—even though
he didn’t want to believe it—the Augies themselves. The Trueblood soldiers
found they had no safe haven and were taking grievous losses.

The captain slowly straightened from leaning over the
communication screen, his mind still in shock from the revelation. He turned
slowly to face Joann.

“Release her,” he said in a quiet and tremulous voice.

 

**** ****

 

Damon rested when he reached the top
of the shaft. He found a maglev elevator car in his way, but was able to peel
open the plain steel floor to gain access.
This has got to be where Reverend
Trueblood is hiding.

“. . . 38% . . .”

“Well,” he said to the doors, “not gonna waste my power
sitting here!”

He smashed down the doors and dove into the room beyond,
rolled a few feet and came up to his knees with slug guns ready.

He was surprised to find only three people in the huge room,
all together in front of him. Now that he was inside the sensor shielding, he
ran a quick scan to determine that they were indeed alone.

“Reverend Trueblood . . .” he started, as he stood
and lowered his arms. However, the aide - Damon couldn’t remember his name -
stepped in front of the reverend and brandished a needle-flak gun.

Damon hissed involuntarily and raised his hands at the sight
of the ugly weapon. His heart began to race.

“Wait, wait,” he said, and held his palms outward while
retracting his weapons. “I’m here to
protect
the reverend!”

The aide held the weapon trained on Damon, but did not fire.
He held it with a steady, practiced hand and Damon realized he was no ordinary
aide.

“Please,” Damon begged, “please listen to me.” His eyes
flicked to Avelina, still sitting on the couch, her eyes wide, “Dr. Baksa, you
know Dr. Tashus, right?”

The woman stared for a moment as if she hadn’t heard. Then
she blinked once, twice, and said “Dr. Tashus . . . Joann. Yes, why?”

“She can explain it to you. Since you have no reason to
trust me, listen to her.” Damon realized he was not sounding convincing at all.
When he’d run through this scenario in his head he’d been much more eloquent
and persuasive. He really wished Leland or even Ken were here. He forged ahead.

“The Augies have betrayed you, they’re working for the
Prykes and they’re coming to kill you, Reverend.”

“We saw—” the reverend started to say, but the aide held up
a hand and he stopped speaking, which Damon found odd.

“We don’t
know
anything,” the aide said firmly. He
raised the needle-flak gun, and Damon’s mind raced.

“Well, isn’t this convenient?” A new voice sounded from
behind Damon. “Now I’ve got you all in one place, much easier to kill.”

Damon turned to see an Augie stepping out of the ruined
elevator. Instinctively he ducked, as the aide fired the needle-flak over his
head and into the Augie.

Everyone froze as the shot struck home directly in the
center of the creature’s chest. The Augie glanced down briefly, but smiled and
said “That don’t work on me.”

He charged the reverend with blinding speed, but Damon was
ready and reached out a hand to grab him as he went by. He missed, but his arm
struck the Augie’s leg and Damon swept upward. The Augie’s motion was not
stopped, since he could rotate his leg around the hip joint, but it did turn
him away from Renard and his aide.

Damon followed with a powerful one-handed punch to the side
of the Augie’s head. He fell in a heap and slid across the floor, looking
dazed. Damon followed as quickly as he could, but the Augie dodged, grabbed him
by the wrist and redirected his momentum into a nearby wall.

The wall was flimsy and did no damage, but Damon could not
maintain his balance as he fell to the floor. He rolled to the side as the
Augie closed and swung down with his organic combat blades narrowly missing
Damon but cutting twin furrows in the concrete floor.

Now facing away from the others, Damon opened fire with all
of his slug guns at point blank range. The impact lifted the Augie off his feet
and sent him flying across the room. Damon extruded his own combat blade and
chased after him.

Their weapons clashed with a strangely muffled sound of
plastic and bone. The Augie was faster, but Damon was stronger. Damon knew how
to use his size and strength from his years growing up in the Ruins. He got
very few solid hits on the Augie, but did manage to cut the blade off of its
left hand, reducing it to one weapon. Nonetheless, the Augie scored many more
hits, and each one knocked loose some of the D-SAP scales.

Damon started to bleed.

 

**** ****

 

He never expected the shot to hurt
the Augie, but he hoped to gain an advantage for the Demon. Unfortunately, the
Demon stood riveted in his spot, apparently waiting to see the outcome. Once it
became obvious that the Augie was unaffected, and the Demon finally moved to
engage, Jeffrey was up and running to Renard and Avelina.

He herded them to the far side of the office, although there
was very little to provide cover. His mind raced as he tried to devise a plan
of escape. When the Spire was constructed a few hundred years ago, it did not
need any form of escape. The defenses had been upgraded over time, including
the D-SAP floor and elevator shaft about 15 years ago, but Renard had scoffed
at any further plans. Jeffrey now kicked himself for not insisting or
installing something without Renard’s knowledge.

Jeffrey grabbed a screen from a nearby desk and waited for
it to configure to his touch. Immediately, an urgent message flashed in the
center. Hoping to contact anyone for help, he punched up the icon.

The face in the screen and the name along the banner were
unfamiliar: Captain Michael Fischoff.

“Mr. Allen,” the captain said in surprise, “you’ve got
trouble.”

“No kidding. Where are you?”

“Five minutes from the Spire . . .”

“Make it two, and here’s what you need to do.”

 

**** ****