Veteran

15

It wasn’t going to be a gunfight and I’d taken a battering in the Avenues. There were still a lot of warning icons on my internal visual display. I’d patched myself up with what little I had and my internal repair mechanisms were doing the best they could but I was a broken machine. I needed a doc and some replacement components. My armour had been pierced in several places and the flesh and machinery beneath it damaged, but my biggest concern was my cracked chest plate. One good blow to that could make a real mess of my internal organs and systems.

Rannu on the other hand looked fine and well, fast and dangerous. Everything I didn’t feel like myself at the moment. The platform swayed slightly on its high-tensile cables. Rannu was stripped to the waist and going through some simple exercises. He was obviously heavily augmented but he had no visible prosthetics. He turned his back to me and did some more stretching exercises. Beneath the four plugs in his neck a tattoo covered most of his back. It was a stylised rendering of a black, biomechanical, multi-armed goddess with a weapon in each of her arms. I didn’t know a great deal about religion beyond the conversations I’d had with various signals types, but this was ringing alarm bells in my head.

I recognised the image: it was Kali, a Hindu goddess. I knew there was more to her but the figure was often connected with images of death and destruction. She was the patron goddess of a murder cult called the Thuggees. They had originally existed before the FHC at a time when Britain had apparently ruled India, as difficult as that was to believe today. About twenty or so years ago some vet signalman from Leicester had decided to revive the cult. See, this was the problem with hackers: they were geeks, but you got one with charisma and a bit of imagination and you ended up with a cult. Pagan was a pretty benevolent example of this type. Berham wasn’t. He had perverted Hinduism and recreated the Thuggees using the cult’s tactics of ritualistic murder to take over Leicester’s criminal economy. He was one of the most notorious criminals in Britain. He’d killed police, cor-porates, politicians, and ruled through fear and intimidation. Much of his organisation had been taken down recently in a complex sting operation, but Berham had escaped and several high-ranking policemen, along with members of the Home Office, had been targeted in revenge killings, as had their families.

This kind of made sense. Many Ghurkhas were Hindus; I guessed that Rannu was one who’d gone bad. It explained the weighted monofilament I’d seen him use in Hull. The Thuggees’ signature weapon was a monofilament garrotte that they used to decapitate their victims. I also noticed that his kukri was still at his waist, a curved knife about sixteen inches long, the traditional weapon of the Ghurkha regiments. I’d even heard of Ghurkhas going toe to toe with Berserks with only their knives. I did fleetingly wonder why Rolleston was employing a Thug or why a Thug was working for Rolleston, but I figured that wankers were just naturally drawn together.

The rumbling sound took me by surprise until I realised that it was the cheering of the crowd, and suddenly I was nervous beyond the impending fight.

Rannu moved towards me, closing the distance between us. His purposeful stride became a stepping front kick to my stomach, knocking me back. I did the same to him, neither of us blocking as we exchanged kicks, almost a handshake as we tried to gauge each other. I showed nothing on my face, but I suspect he was kicking me a lot harder than I was kicking him as we forced each other around the old flight deck.

His first sidekick took me by surprise, lifting me off my feet, but I recovered quickly. He was in the air now, spinning to power a kick that looked like it would take my head off. I rolled under him, his foot snapping out and just missing me. I could hear the crowd cheering as I came to my feet. He’d already turned and was in the air again. I stepped hurriedly out of the way, putting myself off balance as he landed crouched low with a powerful elbow strike to where I’d been. I threw a hurried sidekick that caught him on the shoulder. It was like kicking stone. I then moved back out of his way to get my balance and correct my stance.

Rannu stood up across from me. Times Square had gone quiet again. We’d finished the initial playful exchange. We both knew what we needed to know: it did not look that good for me. The two things I had going for me were that he would commit to any attack and liked powerful blows, presumably because he was used to fighting other heavily armoured cyborgs. The problem with blows like that was you had to take some punishment to land them as they were slower than lighter blows. That said, he seemed capable of taking the punishment required. The other thing I had going for me was that he liked being in the air. Yeah, this fight would be easy if he wasn’t so fast, strong and skilled.

We were on again. The noise of the crowd slipped from my mind as we traded turning kicks and blocks, sliding round in a near circle as we did so. We weren’t even trying to hurt each other though the kicks would’ve dented steel. We were looking for an opening.

I saw my opening as I skipped inside his kick and straight-armed him in the face. My knuckles just touched his skin as he slid to the side and elbowed me in the head so hard that my internal visual display jumped. Then he did exactly what I didn’t want him to do and kicked me hard in the chest, sending me flying to the ground and sliding across the rain-slick flight deck. There were more warning signals on my flickering internal visual display. Now I knew he would be in the air. I threw myself forward with no grace whatsoever. As I felt, rather than heard, him land I kicked out with all the force I could muster from the ground. The lucky blow caught him in the base of the spine with more than enough force to break the back of a non-augmented person. I saw Rannu lifted off his feet and thrown over the edge of the deck.

I stood up. As my hearing returned, along with a new ringing sound, I could hear the crowd again. Some of them were booing, which I didn’t think was fair. I didn’t look over the side at the place where Rannu had gone over. Instead I walked along some twenty feet and then peered over the edge, hoping to see him swimming. As I did so he swung back up onto the flight deck, landing low and steady, knees bent with an easy grace. He was about thirty feet from where I stood. He quickly moved towards the centre of the deck. I jogged backwards, hands in a loose guard, to join him. Still, I had the feeling my best trick had gone.

He skipped forward and was in the air again as his knee hit my chest and his fists hit me on either side of my head so hard that they would have crushed an unarmoured skull. I staggered back. My visual display became a line and then blinked off, leaving me in darkness. It came back in time for me to see another boot flying towards my face. Darkness again. I flung myself away in a manner I hoped was so random he wouldn’t be expecting it. A glancing blow on the shoulder knocked me to the deck; the knees of my jeans were torn as I hit it. I assumed he was in the air and rolled backwards coming to my feet as I heard his combat boots hit the flight deck in front of me.

My vision returned grainy and interspersed with static. Rannu was turning towards me. I leapt into the air, somehow managed to grab his head and powered my knee into his face with enough force that I heard something crunch. It was one of the most satisfying blows I’d ever landed. He staggered back as I landed but stayed on his feet. I leapt up again, this time bringing both knees up to his chin, while bringing both my elbows down on the top of his head. And he punched me. I did that to him and he should’ve died, armoured cyborg or not, and he had the presence of mind to fucking punch me.

The blow caught me solidly in the stomach and threw me back as I’d still been in mid-air. He was hurt. His face was covered in blood. It had that strange split look that comes from damaged subcutaneous armoured plate, his features distorted. I stepped forward hoping to press what little advantage I may have still had. I swung at him again but he wasn’t there. I made the mistake of looking up instead of just moving as his boot axed into the top of my head and drove me into the flight deck. I tried to get up and another kick hit me in the head. I hit the deck again and expected him to finish me but nothing happened.

I managed to climb onto my hands and knees. I spat out blood and overrode the warning icons on my flickering internal visual display, as they seemed to be filling my vision now. Rannu had backed off. He was standing some twenty feet away from me, just watching, because he’d figured out something that I hadn’t yet. It came to me when I heard the tribal chanting and cheering of the crowd. This was entertainment. Maybe the jaded veterans watching had seen it all before but so what? After seeing your squad torn apart by the tentacles of an alien Walker you weren’t going to be all that impressed by what was on the viz. After all, Roman legionnaires had still gone to the Colosseum and vets still went to pit fights. It was a lot safer to see others fighting than have to do it yourself, and I had to admit it I was a pretty good kick-boxer, entertaining to watch.

Rannu was better, but here was the thing: when two guys of comparable skill go at it, the hungrier guy wins. I was the hungrier guy. I was almost certainly fighting for my life as well as Pagan’s and Morag’s. Now I liked Pagan but he had the potential to even further complicate my life, and I guess Morag did as well, but at this moment, more than anything, I really did not want to see her hurt. The intensity of that surprised me. I was fighting for my life and this guy still felt he was able to put on a show.

I’m not sure if I could’ve beaten him in my prime but he was younger, faster and stronger than me, and if I was being honest probably had fewer bad habits. That got me. I was only thirty – kind of old in our brave new world – and Rannu was proving that I was obsolete. Maybe this was what Balor was talking about. I had all these augmentations and skills. Even in a society completely geared towards war I had to be considered among the more dangerous, yet I was at the mercy of people like Rolleston, the Grey Lady, Balor and now this punk. That was depressing. And now I could barely stand up.

Rannu was in the air again. I didn’t move. He landed with his knees on my shoulders, his elbow about to hammer down on my head. It would be a good finish, something for all the fight fans. I was going to have to take the elbow strike, got to give a little to get a little. My claws shot out of the internal sheaths in my arm and I rammed them up into each of his thighs. I felt the resistance of his subcutaneous armour and then it gave as I pushed them into him, a sense of satisfaction before the darkness.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d blacked out or my internal visual display had gone down again, but when my vision returned I was staggering around dangerously close to the edge. I lurched away from it, spinning round and overcompensating as I tried to find Rannu. I was nearly overcome by nausea and the pain. I guessed I’d exhausted the abilities of my internal pain management systems and my reservoir of powerful painkillers over the last couple of days.

Rannu was on his feet but bent over holding his bleeding thighs. Why was he standing up? I think I may have even muttered that. I could hear more booing. Fuck ‘em. Rannu looked up at me. The fucker didn’t even have the common courtesy to look angry.

Suddenly I was aware that the huge figure on many of the viz screens around the square was me. Though it didn’t look like me. The figure’s features were misshapen and he was wet, bloody and breathing heavily. I looked at the figure and wondered why he was still fighting. Some strange part of my brain couldn’t help admiring the composition of the shot.

There was cheering as Rannu drew the kukri at his side. It looked old and sharp. I spat some blood out. Rannu seemed battered and tired, or at least I hoped he did. I walked towards him with what I thought was purpose. I meant to do him harm but I may’ve just been staggering at him. Why was I still standing?

We traded kicks, ineffectually slicing at the other’s legs with our blades, hitting armour and sometimes cutting through. That was about as far as we got with skill, we just started to slash at each other. He was good with the knife. He parried my attacks and slashed at me.

I caught the vicious-looking knife on my blades and countered. The thing is I had two weapons to his one, and although he was fast and managed to parry many of my attacks, more of them were getting through. Like a good kick-boxer he knew he had to take his licks to give them. Neither of us broke. Both of us were red.

Finally I noticed that I was slowly pushing him back. A slash to his forehead bled into his eyes. He swung just a little wide. I don’t know how I had the presence of mind to realise his mistake and push my advantage. The blades on my right hand pierced his right wrist. I all but heard the crowd’s intake of breath. With some satisfaction it was also the first time I heard Rannu cry out in pain. The kukri flew from his hand. I punched forward with the blades on my left hand and he bent backwards so far that they shot over his face. Somehow I was peripherally aware of the kukri sliding to the end of the flight deck and tipping over, falling towards the water.

With my blades still in his arm he kicked me in the face. I staggered back, spitting more blood. I heard another cry of pain from Rannu as my blades were torn out of his arm. His forehead was coming towards me. There was a crunching noise from my nose. I staggered back but managed to recover sufficiently to punch forward with my right. He caught the prosthetic, twisted his arm around it and elbowed me repeatedly in the face with his other arm. That was when I knew the fight was finally over. Rannu kicked my legs out from under me. I hadn’t done so bad, better than I thought. I hit the deck. Shame I’d let everyone down. Blacking out would be good. Will he just kill me now? I thought I was beyond pain until I felt the tearing at my right shoulder. I found the energy to scream. Why wasn’t I unconscious?

I rolled around on the wet flight deck. Just as I saw the bloody stump of my prosthetic arm flying towards my face I saw the weirdest thing on the viz screen. The figure on it wasn’t me or Rannu. It was Morag. She looked really upset, like she was terrified and had been crying. It was like a reaction shot from an old viz. I got hit with my own arm. Nothing.