James Knapp - State of Decay

Leaning in close, I used the backscatter to get a look under the skin and saw some muscle work and joint augmentation. Resting in a chamber between the bones of the right forearm was what they called a revivor bayonet. For sure, it was a combat model, and not a hack job either. This one had rolled off some country’s assembly line.

There was a low creak from below me as the door to the crate opened partway, and I froze. I backed slowly out of the car and drew my gun, peeking through the metal lattice where I saw a figure down below, moving through the doorway. I zoomed in on it.

“What are you doing here, kid?” I said, just loud enough to be heard. At the sound, he jumped. It was the same one from the lobby; he must have tailed me.

“Following the story.”

“You pieced that footage together pretty quick,” I said.

He shrugged. “Gotta move fast in this business,” he said. “Did you find it?”

“Find what?”

“Oh, come on,” he whispered. “What do you think? The reviv—”

A shot rang out before I could answer him, and the kid’s head pitched to one side. His body bounced off the door and spilled out onto the dock.

I stayed crouched as the container door slowly ground to a stop with a metallic groan. I zoomed in on the kid; most of what had been inside his head was scattered over the planks, steam rising off it. Footsteps were approaching; someone heavy was running very fast across the dock toward the container. Given the weight and speed of the footfalls, whoever it was had to be augmented. I aimed toward the doorway as the footsteps thumped to an abrupt stop just outside.

I’ve got gunfire down here and one civilian dead. Where’s backup?

A weapon was thrust through the doorway, and immediately automatic gunfire pounded through the inside of the container, sending sparks flying off the car I was crouched behind. One of the tires blew out and I was sprayed with bits of safety glass as bullets punched through the car. I fell back, slipped, and tumbled off the scaffolding down onto the floor. I pushed myself behind another car as the racket continued. A second later, the heart signature I was monitoring flatlined.

Damn it.

The backup team just entered the shipyard. Hang on.

Another burst of gunfire sounded, and as I moved along the bottom row of cars, I caught sight of the shooter in the doorway. I fired at him three times, hitting him at least once before another volley ripped into the car in front of me.

He ducked back out and it got quiet. He wasn’t visible through the exit where the kid’s body was now holding the door open, so I listened for him, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t make anything out. He wasn’t showing up on the thermal filter, but the door or the walls of the container might have been shielding him.

I moved to the far end of the container and followed the wall to the door. I still didn’t see him, so I moved to the doorway and crouched down near the body. No one was on the left side of the exit, but the door was still hanging open to the right. I moved outside and spun around the door, but before I could bring my gun around, he grabbed my wrist and held it like a vise.

He was definitely augmented; he moved me easily, pulling me off balance and smashing my hand into the metal wall. My grip loosened, and he delivered a hard punch to my gut. The strength went out of my legs, and I felt the gun fall from my fingers.

He let go of me and I slipped on a patch of ice, coming down on my knees onto the dock. It hurt when I forced in a breath, and spots were swimming in front of my eyes. I felt like I’d just been hit by a train.

The guy was wearing a navy jumpsuit like one of the dockworkers might wear over a thermal body glove. He had dark skin and wavy black hair that stuck out from under a gray wool cap. He put the automatic weapon he’d been carrying down on the ground, the clip expended. He didn’t bother to go for my gun, so he knew the grip was keyed to me.

“I’m a federal agent,” I said, but he didn’t show any sign that he cared or that he even understood me. I went for my gun and he threw a kick, catching me in the chest and knocking me back.

I was lifted up by the lapels and felt my heels brush the ground for a moment before the back of my head crashed into the metal wall. Everything went white for a second, and his hand began to squeeze around my neck, crushing it.

I was going to black out. Warning lights were flashing red across my field of vision. I caught a brief glimpse of an override code flickering by as the world spun around me, and one of the internal stims popped and released into my bloodstream.

My adrenaline shot through the roof. About half the warning indicators blinked out and half stayed on as my EKG spiked and every muscle in my body jumped like I’d grabbed a live wire. I shot out my palm and his nose crunched underneath it, spattering us both with blood. I grabbed his head and jabbed my knee up into his jaw. The grip on my neck released.

I fell to the ground and tackled him, knocking us both onto the dock with me on top of him. I started hammering him in the face and neck with my fists, splitting his cheek open and shearing away his two front teeth before he could get his arms up between us.

The stim wasn’t going to last forever; I put three right hooks into his ear as he got a hand on my chest and shoved me back. My last punch hit air as I floundered, and he kicked me square in the chest. I fell on my back and saw him getting up.

Blood was running out of his nose, dripping off his chin. His lips were red and his right earlobe was smashed. He grimaced, flicking a tooth out onto the ground with his tongue. A crimson strand of saliva from his busted lower lip waved in the cold wind as his breath plumed out of his mouth.

I tried to kick away and he grabbed me, pulling me up by my collar.

We’ve got him.

It took me a second to realize what the message meant; my backup was there, targeting him from somewhere nearby. The stim was wearing off, and I could feel the strength draining out of me.

Don’t kill him.

Roger that.

He pitched back and dropped me just as I heard the shot ring out. I saw his leg collapse into a Z shape between the right knee and ankle as the flesh and bone were torn away and he fell to the ground. He rolled over on his side, staring bug-eyed at his leg.

Do I need to hit him again?

No.

I found my weapon and limped over to it. I knelt down and picked it up, then vomited.

You okay?

I watched the steam rising off it, waiting to see if there was any more coming.

Wachalowski, you okay?

I’m fine. Get a coroner down here.

After they were done scraping the kid off the dock, maybe we could pull something off him. The department would never foot the bill to buy up exclusive rights in order to sit on the footage. If it was bad enough, they could file an injunction and put a freeze on it, but not before it aired.

Two men were cuffing the shooter, while a third tended to his leg. Another man was approaching the body of the kid, not looking optimistic.

“You’re a dead man,” the shooter growled through his wrecked mouth, glaring up at me.

“I know.”

“He knows who you are,” he said. I was about to ask him what he meant by that when one of the men jammed a tranquilizer into his neck and he went limp.

“Have the medics pin his leg back together and make sure he doesn’t bleed to death,” I said. “Then I want him back at HQ and three keycards deep before anyone else sees him or talks to him.”

“Got it.”

I started making my way back to my car before the aftershock of the stims kicked in and knocked my body chemistry far enough out of whack that the ignition’s safety catch would refuse to let it start. By the time I fell into the driver’s seat, my stomach felt like a pound of ice was sitting in it and I was sweating despite the freezing cold. When I pressed my thumb to the ignition, the light flashed yellow, but it started.