James Swallow - Deus Ex - Icarus Effect

She glared at the river, willing it to give up what she wanted to see; but there was no sign of anything that looked like a human body. Her fingers dug into the palm of her hand. It had all happened so fast; the car catching up to the van, the gunshots, the crash.

She wanted Hermann to see her face, to know who she was. She wanted him to understand what she was feeling, the need, the hard, sharp darkness of her anger. It wasn’t enough for him to just die. It wasn’t enough.

Anna’s rage boiled out of her in a cry. “Bastard!” She snatched up the Zenith automatic from where it had fallen and emptied the rest of the clip into the water, firing rounds at random into the murk, as if that would force the German’s corpse to rise from the swell; but the river gave her nothing. Part of her wanted to throw herself in after the crashed van, trigger the rebreather implant in her chest cavity, and go deep, until she found Hermann’s body.

Then Croix was at her side, wrestling the gun away from her bloodied fingers. She shook him off and stumbled back a few steps, pain sharp in her legs. “Get away from me…” she grated, swallowing a sob.

Croix peered over the split in the barrier. “II est mort” he muttered. “Come on. We can’t stay here. Something is wrong. I’ve lost contact with Powell and the others.” He grabbed at her arm, but Anna shrugged him off.

“I want to see his face,” she snarled, her voice rising into a scream. “I want him to know what this was for!”

The Frenchman’s expression shifted as understanding came to him. “Ah. Vengeance, for someone close to you?” He saw the look in her eyes and nodded to himself. “It does not follow the path you lay out for it, cherie”

“It’s not enough ,” Anna hissed.

“It never is,” agreed Croix. He took her arm and this time she let him. “Come on.”

Limping painfully, she followed him back to where the black sedan was parked on the outside lane, the engine idling. She strained to listen for the sound of sirens, but heard nothing; Anna wondered what remnants of Hermann would be dragged from the river when the emergency services came to investigate. Was he really dead? The detonation of the improvised bomb had been attenuated by the river, but the ball of fire and the torrent of currents beneath the surface would have been enough to tear anyone to pieces.

She looked to the sedan and saw D-Bar getting out of the backseat. Croix called out to him, but the hacker’s face was set in a dogged glower.

D-Bar’s hand emerged from behind the car door with a small, slab-sided pistol in his grip. He fired twice, without hesitation; Anna heard the snap of the rounds cut the air.

The shots struck Croix in the chest and stomach. He let out a choking wail and stumbled backward, collapsing to the road. She saw the whites of his eyes and he gasped, flecks of foam gathering at the corners of his lips. “What the hell?”

“Shut up, bitch!” D-Bar’s retort was full of venom. “Just fucking shut up!” He advanced. “You stay right there and you… you don’t move!” He was breathing hard. “Do you realize what you just did? You have no idea!”

Anna cradled Croix’s head and found a thready pulse at his neck. “Patrick,” she said, “tell me—”

The youth exploded with ferocity. “Don’t you talk to me like you know me!” He came closer, aiming the pistol squarely at her head. “I didn’t want any part of this! I didn’t want to come here!” He gestured to the radio clipped to Croix’s tac vest. “Give me that! Slide it over!”

She did as he told her. “What are you trying to do?” she asked, feeling for a read on D-Bar’s emotions. He was confused and angry, fearful and brimming with energy, all at once. With the gun on her, she knew that any move she made would cause him to shoot.

D-Bar grabbed the radio and stuffed it into a pocket. “You’re so stupid,” he retorted. “You really think you were lucky? They don’t make mistakes!”

Anna felt sick inside. “You’ve betrayed us.”

“ Us ?” D-Bar shouted the word at her. “You’re not one of us! You never were, you’re just a tool, that’s all you ever were. Juggernaut used you, I used you…”

“For what?” she demanded.

But he went on as if she had never spoken, the gun’s muzzle drifting back and forth. “I didn’t know… I didn’t see it! I thought we could win, but we can’t. Kept trying to tell myself it was a game… But it’s not.” He shot her a wild glare. “The files, Kelso. You never saw what was in those files, did you? Not the whole thing. Not all the things they’ve done…” He blinked, and in the depths of his throat D-Bar made a noise that was almost a moan. “All the things. What they’re capable of. We can’t fight them.” Then the hacker shook off the moment and straightened. “Juggernaut, the New Sons, L’Ombre… Sarif and Caidin and the rest, all on the losing side! It’s like a raindrop fighting the ocean, there’s no way to win!”

On the breeze, Anna thought she heard the hum of rotors coming closer; but she kept her eyes on the hacker. “When did they turn you?”

“On the zep.” He gave a brittle, bitter laugh. “Or maybe before, but I just didn’t want to admit it. They’d tried once or twice. Always laughed it off. But that’s because I never understood. Not until you brought us the flash drive. Then I got it. I got it all.” D-Bar’s eyes flared with hate once again. “Why couldn’t you have lost that thing? I didn’t want to know all this! I wish I never knew!” He shot a look up into the air, then back at her. “I called them. And they made me a better offer. Juggernaut’s days are numbered. The Illuminati have already taken all the people they need. They’re going to win.” He shook his head, grim faced. “I want to be on their side.”

“The jet was an ambush.” Anna thought it through. “But they never expected us to go after the van, not like this…” Saxon’s face rose in her mind and her breath caught in her throat. “Are the others…?”

“You fucked it all up!” D-Bar was about to go on, but the hum of rotor noise grew loud and Anna looked up, shielding her eyes as a black shape angled in to land on the bridge. She saw the spinning discs of lifter rings and a compact armored fuselage with no markings of any kind.

A man dropped from the open compartment behind the black helicopter’s cockpit and strode toward them, glancing around, taking the measure of the situation. He reminded Anna of Saxon in manner, sharing the same wolfish stride, the same trained economy of motion in everything he did. Muscular cyberarms made of dull steel bones and bunches of dark crimson muscles caught the streetlights. He cradled an assault rifle in a deceptively casual carry across his torso.

“This isn’t what you promised,” he called, irritation flaring. “You’ve made a very poor start to our working relationship, Mr. Couture. Do you have any idea how much effort went into this operation?”

“It was Kelso!” shouted the hacker. “She killed your man, Namir, not me!”

“That remains to be seen,” said the Tyrant leader, sparing Anna a passing look. “What matters now is that we employ a contingency.” He frowned. “We need to reassess the situation and deal with this mess. Yelena?”

Anna felt the air shift behind her and she half turned. The woman from the apartment was suddenly there , right at her back, looming over her. Anna tried to scramble to her feet, but a gloved fist backhanded her and she spun away, new pain cascading through her skull.

She blinked as Namir nodded toward Croix. “Leave him for the gendarmerie . Secure the woman.”