Jonathan Bond - The Terminus experiment

“This is it, everybody,” he said into his mic. “Let’s get in there and clean this fragging place up.”

There was a huge concussion as the Mobmaster hit the first of the mines the enemy had placed across the roadway.

While the other teams stormed the compound from the front and rear, exploding land mines as they went, the Citymaster carrying Sinunu and the others plowed toward the loading dock at the rear of the compound. Explosions filled the air as the Citymaster came within view of the dock.

Sinunu leaped from the truck, crossbow in hand. For just a moment, there was dead silence in the no man’s land surrounding the compound. She stared across the ten meters to the nearest vampire, a short, stubby man whose pale skin was covered in swastika tattoos. Even on his bare scalp.

A second before, there had been nothing but empty air where the vampires now stood. Too late, she realized the vampires must have someone with magical talents working with them.

The tableau held for just a second, then was shattered by a tremendous roaring cry from Sinunu’s left.

“Truxa!” screamed Flak like a battle cry, and let loose with his Vindicator.

The tattooed man jumped forward, covering most of the ten meters separating him from Sinunu with one bound. His movements were fast and jerky, and Sinunu didn’t have much time to wonder how a move-by-wire reflex system might frag with a vampire.

He was on her like a flood, hands grabbing, broken teeth gnashing for her throat.

Pivoting on her left foot, she puled a small wooden stake from the arsenal at her waist, and kicked upward with her right heel.

The vampire, despite his jacked reflexes, moved much too slowly, and Sinunu felt her heavy boot smash through his windpipe. As he teetered backward, she continued her turning movement, which brought her face to face with the vampire to her left.

This one was a tall woman, probably a former street Sam, considering all the flashy mods, but she seemed to have difficulty focusing on her movements.

Stabbing upward with the stake, Sinunu drove it into the woman’s throat and up into whatever she had for a brain.

The female vampire fell, the stake still imbedded in her throat, jerking violently as all her cyber kicked in and then shut off.

“You want to try it again?”

The voice was from behind Sinunu, and she instinctively knew it belonged to the tattooed man.

She turned and smiled. “You think you get another chance?”

With that she pulled her MP-5, and fired three shots quickly, aiming for the base of the vampire’s neck.

Before he could even blink, the rounds had torn through his move-by-wire rig, and he too fell.

“Truxa!” It was Flak again, tearing through vampires like they weren’t even there.

Sinunu looked over, and realized that Flak had somehow lost his Vindicator, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down. He was tearing the heads off vampires with his bare hands, still wading forward, still screaming Truxa’s name like a war cry. Sinunu was also aware of the distant sounds of fighting from the front of the compound, and every few seconds, the ground would shake with the concussion of a rocket. The explosions lit up the night sky as the mortar rounds did their work.

Sinunu watched Flak for a moment, and could tell that there were too many for him to handle, that he’d gotten too far out in front. She glanced around desperately for someone close enough to help, then saw Rachel’s laser fire cut down the first of the vampires closing in on Flak. Sinunu knew Rachel couldn’t hit the main group surrounding Flak for fear of killing him as well.

“Truxa!” screamed Flak.

He was on his own for a moment.

Sinunu started running, jumping over the still struggling bodies of vampires that had been cut down and some of the Fratellanza dead.

The corp soldiers were doing their best, but despite the preparation they’d received, most were folding under the raw, maniacal might of nearly thirty vampires coming at them.

Sinunu risked a glance backward, and Rachel was there, exactly matching Sinunu’s movement and providing cover with her bulky laser.

To their left and right vampires died by flame and by the stake, but Sinunu was beyond caring about that. A howl rose from the direction of Flak-a blood-curdling moan.

A chill shook Sinunu and she froze in place for a split second, her entire body rigid with terror.

She saw that Flak, too, had faltered, his rage stutter-stepped for a moment, and that was all the time it took for the huge troll to go down.

Then the fear passed and Sinunu battled forward.

Suddenly, it was as if everything on the battlefield had stopped. There were still isolated pockets of fighting, but they were behind her.

As one, the crowd of vampires around the troll’s prone body parted silently, creating a corridor to the big man. Only one creature remained, and suddenly Sinunu understood what had made the scream and why Flak had faltered. Her stomach lurched, and her knees threatened to betray her.

“He kept calling for me, Sin. I just had to come.”

Truxa stood over Flak’s body like a ghost of her former self, the troll’s blood on her mouth. Sinunu knew what she was looking at. De Vries had told her, had warned her that Truxa might still be out there somewhere, had described in detail what Truxa might have become. He’d called her a banshee. Still, he hadn’t prepared her for what she was seeing now.

“Truxa?” To Sinunu, her own voice came out like that of a lost child, and her despair was punctuated by the detonation of a rocket exploding on the far side of the compound.

The banshee nodded and Sinunu blinked quickly, as if her vision had become blurred. It was Truxa, and yet it wasn’t. There was something missing, and Sinunu had seen enough corpses to know what that something was. Without life, without, the spirit that makes a person human, these creatures are nothing more than a collection of matter. That’s what I’m looking at now, a lifeless corpse.

“Come to me, Sin. I know what this looks like, but you don’t understand. You’re running around destroying the most wondrous creations ever made, without the slightest understanding of what you’re doing.”

Sinunu felt strength come back to her, and she found herself laughing a low deadly thing among all the death around her. “Shut up.”

Suddenly, the grin faded from Truxa’s face, and for just a moment, weakness swept through Sinunu. “Sin,” pleaded Truxa, “you’ve got to understand, it’s me. It really is. And what’s more, you and I can be together again. Forever. Isn’t that what we always promised each other? That nothing would separate us? Not even death?”

Sinunu stopped, her heart tearing itself to pieces in her chest. She looked at the mass of vampires to her left and right. She’d never thought of them as individuals before, had killed them without ever distinguishing one from the next. They had all been the same to her, but now she made out differences, These had once been normal men and women, and looking at their solemn faces, she could see old scars, different nationalities, different ages.