“Is there an issue?”
The man behind the clipboard glared at him with a trained expression of contempt and indifference, the second most important uniting trait of his profession. The driver behind him in the vehicle lane was muttering something unpleasant under his nose, probably in Bulgarian.
“The arm drives and myomere do not match the declared power rating.”
“Have you checked the attached service note? I had to clock them to accomodate for-”
“Of course I checked the service note. It has no legal power,” - The worker snarled, - “The arm drives and myomere array do not match the power rating for an assistive suit. They are at least construction-grade.”
Though June’s heart demanded desperately that he breathe faster, he did not. Through the residual entanglement, he could feel Shard tense up, near-imperceptibly, still parked under the scanner.
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” - he focused all his will into putting on a face of hurt, but also resignation, the optimal clerk pacifier, in his humble experience, - “Throw the drives away and go ahead without a spine?”
The trick seemed to work, clerk’s face relaxing into mild annoyment.
“Hold still, I’ll see what can be done” - the russian treaded, very deliberately unhurried, towards the guard booth, where he exchanged a few words.
He returned with escort, two recruits drab in greys of Sister-Rivers’ security agency. Carrying an anti-tank rifle.
“We can let this slide, as long as we prove that this suit is not combat-capable,” - there was a hint of smirk on the border clerk’s greasy, sloppily shaven face.
“That sounds… Reasonable. Is the rifle relevant somehow?”
“Yes. I am going to shoot it. Self-preservation test,” - smirk morphed into a grin as June gasped for words, - “Not with the rifle. The rifle is a contingency. We won’t need it, correct?”
“I… Yes, you will not.”
The customs worker unholstered his handgun, took aim. Leisurely. Indulgently. June felt the slow churn of the border checkpoint come to a halt around them, eyes of soldiers and travelers alike converging on his back. The recruits set up the rifle some dozen paces below, visibly nervous, staring down Shard’s unmoving camera cluster. The driver behind them scrambled out of line of sight, cursing under his breath.
There was no time to prepare the machine.
Please stay still, he thought desperately.
The clerk’s aim fixed on the shoulder.
The clerk’s expression was now a triumphant, beaming grimace. He was at the peak of his power. Holding a life in his fingertips.
Mostly his own. Poking at a shark with a dull stick.
He cocked the hammer.
…
…
…
…
June felt the hit in his own shoulder through the latent link.
He felt it blaze through a coolant artery, ricochet off the inside of the rear armor plate, lodge itself in a weld.
He felt the exoskeleton’s maddening drive to lurch forward, catch the oversize FMJ round on its rear leg at an acute angle, crush this insolent meat construct, turn its ribcage into irreversible, absurd mosaic before its body even reaches its two concerned, sweaty targets splayed on the cracked asphalt. The impact of that thrown body alone would be enough to incapacitate one of them on the spot.
The machine did not move a hair. It did not make a sound.
Thank you, he thought, breathing out.
“It seems you’re clear,” - the clerk almost sounded disappointed re-holstering his gun, and his face was slowly turning to the usual grimace, - “Go through and free the lane,” - he shoved the documents back into June’s numb fingers and waved the relieved recruits after him.
A fountain of paint and shattered wood erupted from drywall behind him as he dove, hungry splinters nibbling at his neck. The bottle ran a parallel arc towards floor tiles, annotating the touchdown in an off-tune puncturing screech.
He kicked off the cupboard before his shoulder hit the ground, sending himself away in a slide. One of the legs gave in from the push, crushed in a shatter, sending the ancient wood construct to lean after him.
“Viande et métal!” - violent exhale sent his heart into overdrive as he pulled his legs back up, avoiding the crashing furniture. The weather forecast was “glass shards”. The cloud of dust and debris led the second bullet astray as he scrambled to fully conceal himself behind the desk.
His fingers clasped on the ankle holster. Pull, snap, flick. He sent a round through the backboard, not hoping to hit anything; he had not even seen the attacker yet. Nine.
Someone screamed down in the parking lot as a familiar high, undulating screech pierced the night. Distant clattering of a cargo harness meeting the concrete. He dragged himself further, avoiding a return round. More screams behind the wall being abused, multiple pairs of legs stumbling out. Corner. Door on the opposite side. Bookshelf between him and the window, at least.
“-uck is he screaming in the-” - bellowing, raspy voice much closer than he expected. Another response in Russian, some two dozen paces behind. His hearing comprehension of it wasn’t ideal at the best of times.
Another round sent through the window, meeting the bookshelf at an acute angle. Snowfall thick with torn pages. The world was five moldy cheap bibles poorer. What a tragedy. Probably not a pistol round.
Thumping steps approaching. Still two corners away. Not fast enough. He breathed through his teeth, trying to keep calm. There was no retreat path. The tasteless chandelier’s merciless presence weaved through settling dust, his vanishing smokescreen. The pistol grip’s grid texture gnawed at his palm.
The shooter must have been on top of the building across. Garage stack? Low effort warehouse? Regardless, concealed by dusk. Great overview. But the roof was lower than his floor. Thus, they could not see back through the gap below the desk that was presently forming June’s view.
He assumed a crouched position, trying to keep behind the thicker drawers. Not that it would help much. Scanned the desk’s underside for a large enough item to throw. Heavy document binder, smudged label marking it “2031/Q1”. A real relic. More screaming from out in the lot. The hotel’s security was a plump man far past his prime, wearing an old police uniform with badges stripped off, seemingly struggling to win a fight with sobriety much less a physical opponent. He expected no help from that side.
He leaned towards the ruins of the cupboard, and threw the binder on an exaggerated upwards arc. Another incoming round fired on reflex. Cursing from behind the “suite” door. A more deliberate attempt, piercing the desk’s backboard. It would have hit him if he hadn’t returned to the corner.
He squeezed himself further back, expecting a final punctuation mark in a second or two. It didn’t come. A distant exclamation breaching through the broken window, a complex sentence. Hushed bickering of two voices in the corridor. Was the sniper empty? He probably relayed where June was. The chandelier’s light was cruel and uncaring. Six bulbs, six too many. Too much noise. His spare clips weren’t with him. He heard a chanting whisper beyond the door.
A strange, whimsical thing hovered near the hammer under his thumb. A fluttering drop of quicksilver, seemingly nesting itself in some nook of his holster until now. Was it there since the Little Widow adept had removed the shifting mass that had hid it from x-ray at customs?
Almost seeming to bob in sync with his hammering heart, it danced in the air just beyond the muzzle. Loops and circles. Nudging his aim left, left, left and up, up. Until it stopped.
He felt it in the top of his spine. Something spoke from behind the peeling paper and decayed drywall, spoke with resolute conviction.
With nothing else left to do, he pulled the trigger. Eight.
The breaker box’s crescendo was almost as loud as the gunshot itself. The lights in his room and probably several others went out in a violent flash. Dusk flooded in to fill the gaps like primordial tar, only punctuated by swansong of cooling filaments. Two screams of panic from beyond the entrance, stumbling back from what he could only assume was a breaching position.
Crashing of a metal fence. Approaching roar of a metal animal. One corner away.
Foreign laugh channeled through his burning lungs, he vaulted over the desk, sending a round through where he thought the door was in a roll, eliciting more panicked responses. Seven. Another one. Six. Five wild-fired mistakes in response, piercing random spots on the wall, one crashing through the floorboards centimeters from his ankle. Two pairs of footsteps scrambling further away. Only two of three had guns? The speck of never-be liquid mercury was left behind, lost in the carnage. The windowsill seemed to greet him like a caring roof of his long-lost home.
Another round coming through the window, still aiming for the desk. Right in his old corner. But he wasn’t there now. Loud but garbled, incoherent exclamation from the corridor. Failing to communicate with the shooter. A barely audible seething behind them, crackling of a starting flame. Crying somewhere far, far away.
Wild, rifle-caliber guesses again, muzzle flashes painting the room in searing monochrome. One at the bookshelf again, a fountain of damp paper in the dark. Another back where it started, violating the sorrowful remains of the cupboard. Guided by lagging reason, third one hit the windowsill, but on the other side.
The fourth one did not come for him at all. A stuttering endless non-sentence of fear tore through the backyard as the pack-beast turned the last corner, three-fingered claws crushing asphalt beneath them. The shooter discharged twice. Both grazing hits, judging by the metal clangs following. The shock in his voice turned to panic. A heavy wooden object clattered to the corrugated roof as he booked it. A deafening crash as June’s machine companion rammed through the tin walls in pursuit. No more fire support.
Eyes adjusting to the darkness, June darted up to full height. Dusk whirled around his upper body, ethereal tongue bleeding dew, lacerated by jagged glass fangs. Voices in the corridor were on the verge of fracturing. He took that as a hint. Exhaling through his teeth, he brought a full-force, wound-up kick onto the door handle, swinging it outward, weak wood around the handle turning into a shower of shadows. Seven deafening, erratic discharges rang through the corridor; he kept his eyelids half-closed, and his footing two paces behind waiting for that…
Click. Click, click, click. Distant through the ringing in his ears, but sweet nonetheless. He dashed out of the room, past the mutilated door, pre-firing left once. Five. In the flickering tunnel of chaos, past the smoldering breaker, he could see two figures drab in green stumbling across each other, discarded gun clattering to the floor. A dozen steps from the stairway. A dozen too many.
He fell on his knee, intact lights on the far end making his job easier. A torso fell into line. Four. Three. A pained scream. Two. A folding. The other one was jumping the railing. One. Zero. Click. A crash below; the escapee landed on one of the tables. Another crash as they ran out straight through the hall glass, heading away through the lot.
Another scream of pain came from the night behind him, torn up halfway. The machine had caught up.
The hall was awash in echoed crying. Casings smoldered around the whimpering, stirring body in front of him. But, aside from that, the night was quiet again.
His legs gave out under him, and his recent meal left the way it came. He slid down to the pile of what was once parts of the door.
A dot was moving in the gloom. Hovering an arm’s length above the floor, the speck of quicksilver followed him, fluttered expectantly near the magazine release. He pressed down, letting the empty box slide out, and it twisted itself back in, reuniting with its host deep in the mag well.
“WHAT THE FUCK”
“Exactly what I think all night! What the fuck!”
Campfire’s breath fluttered precariously, root-choked black bulk of an old APC wreck shielding the embers for now, though the north-east wind was entertaining the idea of a change. Between this unsteady breath and damp sleeping bag, June’s body could not decide whether it was freezing or not. Balding oak branches above him slowly retreated from their last holdouts on the morning sky’s surface. He had to take breaks from typing to keep his fingers from going numb.
“I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT”
“Poignant! Me neither.”
“AND THEY WERENT COPS OR /VOLUNTEERS/?”
“Definitely not cops, complete trash equipment. The one I shot down in the hallway had a Pernach, the rifleman carried something that looked like an old-old Mosin... Some fucked up things were done to the stock. No body armor on either. The last guy, the one who escaped, carried a shortsword.”
“WHO ELSE COULD IT BE THOUGH? ANY IDS?”
“Do you think I had time to pick through their pockets?”
“GUESS NOT THE OWNER CALLED THE COPS RIGHT”
“Exactly. That someone even saw Shard play fetch is already bad enough.”
“SHARD? OH YOUR EXO”
“It is a fair bit more than that by now...”
He raised his head briefly to look at Shard, who was presently perched atop the wreck in a tense pose, ready to spring into action. Its main camera cluster extended parallel above its back, sweeping the hillside around them and the dirt path winding below. Every shuffling motion of its armored forelimbs echoed as itching pulse in his knuckles, and he could feel a dull ache in his shoulder where coolant from the ruptured pathway was slowly evaporating, leaving behind a thin crust.
“YOU STILL DIDN'T EXPLAIN HOW YOU MANAGED TO HIT THE FUSEBOX. DO YOU JUST MEMORIZE EVERY ROOM YOU COME IN”
“If only I knew myself ^_^' A piece of that masker Syllable seemed to stick around, and help me aim.”
“(≖_≖ ) THIS JUST GAVE ME EVEN MORE QUESTIONS. WHERED YOU SEEN A SYLLABLE THAT ACTS ON ITS OWN”
“/shrug Not going to complain. It's still with me, I guess if you get me in contact with an enchanter they could take a look?”
Moss took longer than usual to respond, and he used the delay to refill his teacup. The kettle’s contents, though dilute, still helped fight off the chill, making it easier to type. Watching a late bird-wedge float south beneath the leaden clouds, he felt his legs slowly go sore.
“GONNA TAKE A WHILE (ᵕ•_•)” - the demon finally
responded, -
“I CAN TRY COMB FOR BUZZ ON THE SHOOTOUT AS WELL, PROBABLY START WITH LOCAL NAZI CHANNELS NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT THO”
“I would say 'no pressure', but that would be a lie.”
“DO YOU HAVE ANY DETAILS AT ALL? ANY PATCHES? INSIGNIA? ENGRAVINGS?”
“Did not see any patches, engravings though... I do have the Pernach with me, a second.”
He reached into the harness bag, feeling for the scavenged handgun.
Pots and utensils whined quietly from inside the canvas enclosure, clearly distressed by their new neighbor. Shard’s camera array twitched in his direction before continuing its sweeping motion.
Twisting tendrils of rust on the barrel assembly hissed back at his fingertips, the handgun protesting fiercely and invisibly, malice spilling into morning air like an angry, blind amoeba. Faint blood smudges twined around the handle, keeping its presence in check ’kin choking roots.
He had been sure it was already on the ground by the time any projectile connected with its former owner. He had been sure he washed it.
“Moss, the gun is a Syllable.”
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME (X_X)”
“Nope, it's so angry Shard can barely stand it. I think it was dormant back at the hotel, and woke up now. Nasty little thing. Oozes dry blood.”
Suppressing the trembling in his fingers and aiming well away from Shard, June went over the object. The serials had been long ground off, not even the model code spared. Below near-alive rust patterns, the metal was thoroughly scratched. The trigger guard bent, somehow. The empty magazine…
“Got something!”
“OH?”
“There's something scratched into the base of the grip. Quite rough, but I think it's a kind of jelly? Half-oval blob and six tendrils. There's a mix of rust and congealed blood in the grooves.”
Sky shifted from heavy steel-blue into apathetic off-grey as he waited for a response. None came. The demon’s presence indicator flicked on and off. He put the empty gun on the ground just to avoid feeling it shift against his skin.
“Moss, are you okay?”
“FOUND IT. YOU NEED TO NEUTRALIZE THIS THING ASAP”
“Eh?”
Another five-minute delay. A rooster in the distance. A heavy engine rattling along the main road, luckily passing. A sleepy owl eyeing him annoyedly from a hundred steps’ distance.
“CONTACTED SCARECROW. FOUND AN ENCHANTER IN CAST-IRON-CAGE, THAT'S FORMER GUBKIN, NEAR OLD OSKOL. NO CHECKPOINTS ON MAIN ROAD, MAY NEED TO DO SOME BUTTERING ON CITY PREMISES, WILL SCRATCH UP SOME CASH IN CASE. GO NOW.”
“Woah, woah, hold up, that's at least a week in detour! We aren't swimming in spare time here!”
“YEAH NO SHIT WE AINT SWIMMING THERE'S AT LEAST ONE INNER CIRCLE RIVERDAUGHTER ON YOUR ASS BECAUSE THAT SYLLABLE'S A TRACKER. THAT JUST REBOUND ITSELF TO YOU. PACK UP. RIGHT NOW (°ロ°)”
June began typing up an objection, then slammed the lid closed with an exasperated groan.
“Shard, how’s your battery?”
His companion turned to face him in a single smooth hop, fist nearly breaking through the rusted roof of the old war machine, tapped its elbow twice.
“Good enough. Come down here, please, we’re moving again.”
With a cheerful whirr, Shard leapt down across the campfire, gracefully crashing into the dirt, claws drawing miniature trenches. It leaned back expectantly, already waiting for him to clip on the harness before he even finished snaking out of his sleeping back.
“Wish I was like you,” - June laughed, obliging, - “No sleep, no food, no joint pain. You’re so happy just to have a road.”
The metal animal’s chittering response was as complex as it was indecipherable. The owl finally got fed up with the show and took off, looking for a new place to rest. Their campfire was going out without intervention.