Chương 31: Ghost Story

The fiend was fast—faster than Hector's new skin could properly react. He started to get his arms up, ready to knock aside the rending, hook-ended claws, but all he managed to do was keep the second hook from tearing his head off while the first one caught his shoulder and threw him like a discarded toy into the wall. As luck would have it, the apartment's construction was typically flimsy, and he punched right through the layers of fiberboard composite paneling and into the next apartment.

He hit the tile flooring in a shower of insulating foam dust, sliding two meters on his back to crack his head against a kitchen counter. At some point during his passage through the wall, his breather had been yanked down around his neck; he knew this because a woman's voice, rising in pitch with alarm, cried, " Paul?"

Hector turned to the voice and saw a woman whose resemblance to his new body was clear; she was standing near the door, a look of panic and disbelief on her face as she reached for a semi-automatic shotgun leaning against the jamb. Hector shook his head." Run," he wheezed, tuning out the pain in his body and springing to his feet. Just then, the wall exploded some more—bits of fibrous composite filling the air in an insulation dust storm, and then the shadowy form of the aura fiend came into view.

Hector angled toward the exterior wall, his back to the window, hoping to draw its attention away from the woman near the door, still gawping in his direction. The fiend screamed and dove at him, claws high.

Hector summoned his Aura Blade, squatting and spinning into a backhanded slash, aiming to take off the fiend's right leg as it came into range. The blade flickered with crimson light, trailing wispy aura smoke, but the damn creature was just too fast. It saw what he was doing and yanked its leg back, landing instead on one clawed foot and then driving its spear-like tail forward.

Hector tilted his shoulder just in time to avoid being pierced through the heart, but the tail stabbed through the meat under his collarbone and slid all the way through, emerging above his shoulder blade. He was pinned, and the fiend's claws were coming down, aiming to rip him to pieces—and then a tremendous boom rattled through the room and the creature lurched forward. Hector didn't hesitate to capitalize. His Aura Blade would be gone in a second or two, so he used it, hacking it up through the tail.

Hot black blood sprayed his face, but Hector didn't pause to wallow in disgust. He lunged to his feet and drew the blade up the length of the fiend's torso, from groin to throat. Much more than blood poured out onto Hector after that. The creature's alien guts covered his legs and feet—hot and slimy, and smelling of sulfur, iron, and decomposing vegetation.

It thrashed for a moment before its brain realized it was dead, but there was no strength in those hooked claws and they only cut him shallowly as they punched against his synth-leather coat. With the last flickering trace of his Aura Blade, Hector took its head off and watched as it fell to the ruined floor, steaming as its otherworldly innards were exposed to the air.

"What the fuck was that?" Paul's sister cried, stepping toward him, shotgun shaking in her hands, but undeniably still aimed at Hector.

"Paul? No…you can't be." Hector shook his head.

"I'm not. I'm sorry." His body was trembling—adrenaline aftershocks—and he hated it. He hated that the brief battle had taken so much out of him.

"We need to—""Get out of here!" She looked at the hole in her wall.

"Those guys work for the magistrate!" Hector nodded, reaching for his backpack strap. Had the jammer— //It's still working. //"We have a little time." Hector stooped to the fiend's corpse and put his hand on its slick, warm flesh. He'd never drawn potentia from an aura fiend. Would it have any? In seconds, he felt the tingles, felt the rush, and he knew the answer.

"What are you doing? What was that thing?" When Hector, dazed by the flow of potentia, didn't answer immediately, he heard the shotgun rattle as she lifted it more firmly into the pocket of her shoulder.

"I should just kill you. I don't know how you have Paul's face, but…" Hector held up a hand, grunting—the only sound he could articulate as Evie reported his gain: //21 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 27. // Hector gasped, shaking from the rush. That was the kind of pull he used to get, and his new skin wasn't anywhere close to accustomed to it." Talk—to—me," the woman growled, stepping closer. As Hector nodded, someone pounded on her door and a muffled voice called out, "Britt? You good in there?

I'm trying to call emergency, but—""I'm good, Leon! Just a minute!" She rattled the gun at Hector's face, and he nodded. He gathered his thoughts, trying to put together the words he'd rehearsed a thousand times during the train ride.

"I didn't kill Paul. The assholes sold his body, and I got put into it." He tapped his head.

"Ghost chip." He figured, based on his conversations with Lemon, that slang terms were more likely to hit home. Brittany's lips twisted in disgust.

"I should put you down."

"You could, or you could let me kill the assholes who did this to him." That got her attention—his Hail Mary. While she stared at him, he put his hand on the windowsill and pushed himself, shakily, into a standing position, though he had to lean heavily against the wall. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"That was an aura attack, wasn't it? When you cut that thing in half? For the last time. What is this damn thing?" She kicked the fiend's steaming skull, and it rolled so that the ugly face was pointing toward them.

"Aura fiend. Uh, the technical name is Rift Symbiote."" Holy shit," Brittany breathed, reaching up to pull her long black hair back behind an ear. She stared at the corpse.

"They got it way wrong on Rift Runner Alpha." Hector grunted; she was probably talking about some kind of serial, and he didn't have time to ask.

"You got a go-bag or something?" She looked at him sharply, but only hesitated for a moment before she lowered the gun's barrel and nodded.

"Yeah."

"Meet me in there." Hector pointed to the broken wall.

"You really killed them, huh?" Hector tilted his head, then nodded.

"Well, one. The fiend got the other." As she lowered the barrel of her gun, Hector walked through the debris and pushed his way through the broken wall. He didn't waste time but quickly squatted beside the other dead merc, and tried to gather his aura potentia. Nothing was there. Had the fiend consumed it somehow? He wasn't any sort of expert on the damn things, but he thought he'd heard that they did that kind of thing. He stood stiffly and looked around the room.

It was a mess, but Hector quickly organized his priorities. He gathered up the blood-covered crystal-glass tablet, but not before ensuring Evie could pair with it. Make sure it can't be tracked. //Disabling location features. // Then he grabbed the empty pistol and put it and the tablet into his backpack. That done, he collected the mono-wire. Very carefully, he held it out so the wire hung straight down, then he retracted it into the little handle. When it was safely stowed, he slipped it into his pocket.

"Don't take their guns." Hector turned to see Paul's sister emerging from the broken wall.

"I have a license for my shotgun, but if the drones scan any on you—""Yeah, I get it." Hector opened his backpack, drew out the pistol, and then took a moment to wipe it down with the bedspread. Satisfied, he tossed it into the mess of the merc's corpse. As he slung the backpack onto his shoulders, he asked, "Got a way out of here?"

"You're running a jammer, right?" Hector nodded.

"Then just follow me down to the garage. I've got a car." She walked ahead of him to the door, and Hector saw she'd put on a black synth-fiber jacket, its surface dull and light-absorbing, threaded with faint armor filaments. Over that, she wore a bulky backpack, and she still carried her shotgun. When she yanked the door open, she moved forward in a combat stance, gun ready. Several people were in the hallway, and after she'd gotten a look at them, she lowered the gun.

"What the hell happened, Britt?" A tall, middle-aged, long-haired man wearing an unbuttoned business shirt asked, glancing at Hector with open disgust and a tinge of amazement.

"Damn, you look like hell, man."

"Leon, it's a long story, but we gotta go. These assholes tried to kill me and…my friend. Can you tell the PKs when they come? We're going someplace safe, and then I'll file a report."

"Yeah, sure, hon. Holy shit! Sounded like a horror vid. Was that you screaming, buddy?" Hector ignored the man, following Brittany's lead as she pushed past him and two other neighbors—both women who only stared silently. When she reached the stairwell door, she yanked it open and motioned for Hector to go in.

"Car's in the basement garage." Hector nodded and led the way down. His spine tingled with her behind him with that shotgun, but he didn't figure she'd kill him outright—not without trying to get some answers first.

"What's the range on that jammer?"

"Short."

"Then we better hurry." When they reached the bottom, she pointed.

"The gray Metro Commuter." Hector looked where she pointed and saw a tiny car that looked like it might struggle to contain them both. He grunted and walked over. It beeped, and the single gull-wing door lifted, revealing two seats facing each other. Wheezing in pain, he unslung his pack and sat down, putting the bag at his feet. Brittany did the same, though she had to wedge her shotgun against the far window first. When she saw Hector watching her, she scowled at him.

"Don't get any ideas—and stop looking at me with those damn blue eyes." //Should I try to match the old iris pattern—// No. Hector didn't think Brittany would appreciate him trying to look more like her dead brother. As the little vehicle backed out of its parking spot and began to hum along, driving itself out of the underground garage, Brittany looked at Hector.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do." He nodded.

"Well? Start with what the fuck an aura fiend was doing in my apartment." Hector tilted his head as he considered. Finally, he shrugged and said, "One of the mercs watching you was infected." She shuddered.

"How exactly does that happen?"

"In a rift. He must have gone into one. People say you have to die in there for the symbiote to take root, but I don't know."

"So it was just rotten luck?" Again Hector shrugged.

"I hope so."

"So who are you? How'd you get my brother's body?" By then, the car was rolling out of the garage, and as it began gaining speed, merging with the sparse traffic on the road, Hector nodded, and said, "I'll talk, but we need to come to an understanding first." She shook her head, scowling, and Hector lost his train of thought, unable to get over how familiar she looked. He knew it was from seeing himself—his new self. She had some of the same features—dark brows, sharp cheekbones, angular jaw.

She had some softer edges, though—fuller lips, a rounder nose. Still, her eyes glared at him, dark and full of storms.

"Talk, mister. I've got plenty of ways to screw with you, otherwise." Evie had added a status indicator for the jammer to his AUI, and he saw it was still running. He wondered if he ought to just try to disable her then and there and get the hell out of Redwick. That would be the smart move. He'd already decided he wasn't being smart, though.

"I get you're raw, but you need to understand: I didn't ask for this body." He glanced out the window.

"Where are we going? I want to make sure we've got time for me to tell you the whole story." She scowled at him, clearly frustrated, clearly debating a lot of the same kinds of things he probably was. After a moment, though, he thought he saw some tension relax as her curiosity and maybe a vague hope for vengeance won over.

"A place where I practice shooting. It's off the books—an unused stone yard on the edge of town. I go there to forget—" She stared pointedly at him for a second before finishing.

"—things."

"Right. Okay, listen. First of all, my name's Hector, and I didn't know anything about you or Paul or any of this shit until a dirty magistrate put some bogus warrants out for this… body." Brittany scowled, but she nodded.

"Go on. Come on, ghost. Tell me your story."

"I'd been, well, dead for a while when a certain criminal got ahold of my deck." Hector tapped his skull.

"He wanted to see what was on it, so he bought an illegal—" He paused, figuring he probably shouldn't call her dead brother a skin.

"—corpus vivum. That's the technical term for—""I know what it is. Go on." Hector nodded.

"He bought your brother's body and put me into it. After that, things got interesting…"