Richard Morgan - Woken Furies

Shattering blows to throat and groin, unwrapping from a tightly gathered line of attack that drove me back a full two metres before I could contain it. I turned the groin strike on a sweeping block downward with one arm and dropped low enough to take the throat chop on the forehead.

My own counter exploded at the same time, directly up and into the base of his chest. He staggered, tried to hook my arm with a favourite aikido move I recognised so well that I nearly laughed. I broke free of it and stabbed at his eyes with stiffened fingers. He swept a tight, graceful circle out of reach and unleashed a side kick into my ribs. It was too high, and it wasn’t fast enough. I grabbed the foot and twisted savagely. He rolled with it, took the fall and kicked for my head with his other foot as momentum rolled him through the air. His instep cracked me across the face—I was already backing off, rapidly to avoid the full force of the kick. I lost my hold on his foot and my vision flew briefly apart. I staggered back against the grav sled as he hit the ground. It bobbed on its fields and held me up. I shook my head to get the airy lightness out of it.

It wasn’t quite as savage as it should have been. We were both tired and relying inevitably on the conditioned systems in the sleeves we wore. We were both making mistakes that under other circumstances might have been lethal. And, perhaps, we were neither of us really sure what we were doing here in the quiet, mist-tinged unreality of the empty dock.

The aspirants believe …

Sylvie’s voice, brooding in the capacity vault.

Everything outside is an illusion, a shadow play created by the ancestor gods to cradle us until we can build our own tailored reality and Upload into it.

That’s comforting, isn’t it.

I spat and drew breath. Got off the curve of the grav sled cover.

If you let it be.

Across the dock, he climbed back to his feet. I got in fast, while he was still recovering, summoned everything I had left. He saw it coming and twisted to meet me. Kick turned off a raised and crooked leg, fists brushed aside on a pivoting double handed block across his head and chest. I lunged past on deflected momentum and he followed me round, elbow hooking into the back of my head. I went down before he could do more damage, rolled and flailed in an attempt to knock his feet out from under him. He danced aside, took the time to snarl a grin, and came back in, stamping.

For the second time that morning, my time sense dissolved. Combat conditioning and the jacked-up Eishundo nervous system slowed everything to a crawl, blurry motion scrawled around the approaching strike and behind it the bared teeth of his grin.

Stop laughing, you fuck.

Segesvar’s face, long decades of bitterness contorting to rage and then despair as my taunts sheared through the armour of illusions he’d built up for himself over a lifetime of violence.

Murakami, fistful of bloody excised stacks, shrugging back at me like a mirror.

Mother, and the dream and—

—and he stamps with a booted foot on her stomach, she convulses and rolls on her side, the bowl goes over and soapy water laps out towards me—

—tidal rage, rising—

—I’m older with every passing second, soon I’ll be old enough and I’ll reach the door—

—I’ll kill him with my bare hands, there are weapons in my hands, my hands are weapons—

—a shadow play—

His foot came down. It seemed to take forever. I rolled at the last moment, into him. Committed, he had nowhere to go. The blow landed on my upturned shoulder and unbalanced him. I kept rolling and he stumbled. Luck put one of his heels against something lying on the dock.

Sylvie’s motionless form. He toppled backwards over her.

I came upright, hurdled Sylvie’s body and this time I caught him before he could regain his feet. I put a brutal kick into the side of his head. Blood jumped in the air as his scalp tore. Another, before he could roll. His mouth tore, and spilt more blood. He slumped, propped himself groggily up and I landed hard on his right arm and chest with all my weight. He grunted and I thought I felt the arm snap. I lashed down with open palm to his temple. His head rolled, his eyes fluttered. I drew up for the chop to the throat that would crush his larynx.

—a shadow play—

Self hatred works for you, because you can channel it out into rage at whatever targets for destruction come to hand.

It’s a static model, Kovacs. It’s a sculpture of despair.

I stared down at him. He was barely moving, he’d be easy to kill.

I stared at him.

Self hatred—

Shadow play—

Mother—

Out of nowhere, an image of hanging beneath the Martian eyrie at Tekitomura from a grip welded shut. Paralysed and suspended. I saw my hand clamped on the cable, holding me up. Keeping me alive.

Locking me in place.

I saw myself unhinge the grip, one numbed finger at a time, and move.

I got up.

I got off him and stepped back. Stood staring, trying to work out what

I’d just done. He blinked up at me.

“You know,” I said, and my voice jammed rustily. I had to start again, quietly, wearily. “You know, fuck you. You weren’t at Innenin, you weren’t on Loyko, you weren’t at Sanction IV or Hun Home. You’ve never even been to Earth. What the fuck do you know?”

He spat out blood. Sat up and wiped his smashed mouth. I laughed mirthlessly and shook my head.

“You know what, let’s see you do it better. Think you can sidestep all my fuck-ups? Go on then. Fucking try.” I moved aside and waved at the moored ranks of skimmers by the dock. “Got to be a few of those that weren’t shot up all that badly. Choose your own ride out of here. No one’s going to be looking for you, get moving while you’re ahead.”

He picked himself up a fraction at a time. His eyes never left mine, his hands trembled with tension, floating at guard. Maybe I hadn’t broke his arm after all. I laughed again, and it felt better this time.

“I mean it. Let’s see you steer my fucking life better than I have. Let’s see you not end up like I have. Go on.”

He stepped past me, still wary, face grim.

“I will,” he said. “I don’t see how I could do much worse.”

“Then fucking go. Get the fuck out of here.” I grabbed at the fresh anger, the urge to knock him down again and finish it. I cranked it back down. It took surprisingly little effort. My voice came out even again. “Don’t fucking stand here bitching to me about it, let’s see you do better.”

He gave me one more guarded look, and then he walked away, to the edge of the dock and towards the less damaged skimmers.

I watched him go.

A dozen metres away, he paused and turned back. I thought he started to lift one hand.

And a liquid gout of blasterfire splashed out from across the dock. It caught him in the head and chest and torched away everything in its path.

He stood for a moment, gone from the chest up, and then the smoking ruins of his body collapsed sideways, over the edge of the dock, bounced off the nose carapace of the nearest skimmer and slid into the water with a flat splash.

Something tiny stabbed up under my ribs. A small noise came seeping up through me and I locked it down behind my teeth. I spun, weaponless in the direction the blast had come from.

Jadwiga stepped out of a doorway in the baling station. From somewhere she’d got hold of Murakami’s plasmafrag rifle, or one very like it.

She held it propped upright on her hip. The heat haze still shimmered around the muzzle.

“I take it you’ve not got a problem with that,” she called across the breeze and the dead quiet between us.

I closed my eyes and stood there, just breathing.