Chrono Inquisitor (Gods Be Damned) (44 page)

“Because of you,” she said.

“What about me?”

“You should have left when I gave you the chance. If it weren’t for you being so damn nosey, this wouldn’t have turned into such a big mess. I could have killed Noble and made it seem like it was just another Inquisitor killing. But no, you had to stick around and prey off Sam’s emotions, making her compromise everything we’ve spent the last eight years working towards.”

“So you killed her, because you thought she betrayed you and your cause to be with me?”

“You wouldn’t have figured out shit if it wasn’t for her.”

“I admit, that’s probably true, but you killed her for nothing. As you should know by now, she’d convinced me to join you. I would have brought down Richards himself if she’d only asked. It wasn’t her who betrayed you, you betrayed her. And I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

“You’re the one who’s going to die.” Lillian charged me again.

I held my kama up and waited for my instructions.

‹Large step right, pivot and slice.›

This time she cut only the air, while my blade dug down her back as she went past me. I hadn’t been quite quick enough and used enough force for it to do any compromising damage to her armor though, but the look on her face when she turned around was well worth it.

“You aren’t augmented,” she said, confused.

I grinned. “I don’t need to be.”

‹You can’t move quickly enough to actually hurt her. We’re going to have to remain on the defensive, but I fear it won’t be enough. She’s too fast. We need to flee and find a more level playing field. Otherwise, we’re dead.›

‹“Great, and here I thought we were doing good.”›

Lillian quickly reached behind her back, when it came forward, something flew from it.

‹Duck right.›

I didn’t need to be told in this case, and was already doing so. The knife she’d thrown cut into the upper sleeve of my left arm.

The armor of the vault held though. Unfortunately, the knife had only been a distraction, because as soon as it had left her hand, she charged again.

‹Dive and roll as hard and as far as you can.›

The blade of the kama sliced the air where my neck had been. I heard and felt the movement of air as the blade just barely missed.

I rolled until I felt I was a good distance away, and then crouched facing where Lillian was.

She growled with frustration. “It’s not possible.”

‹We need to leave this room. Knock over the table to the right and throw the grenade at her, then run as fast as you can to the exit.›

‹“Won’t-”›

‹Now!›

I did as Kali said.

Knocking over the table confused Lillian, but when I threw the grenade she easily dodged it.

“You missed,” she said satisfactorily. Then she realized I hadn’t thrown a knife, and it dawned on her what I had actually thrown.

I only caught a glimpse of her running towards the west-end exit as I turned and ran towards the one closest to me.

The explosion erupted just as I reached the door. I stumbled into the hallway and felt something hit me in the back.

I fell to the floor and instinctively brought my arms up to protect my head.

‹Get up, and run.›

I opened my eyes and scrambled to my feet. It had only been a book.

‹
Too late, duck
!
›

“Huh?” I said, still dazed from the blast.

Lillian grabbed me by the collar and threw me into the wall. I put my arms out and took the brunt of the force with them. I fell to my hands and knees, and just as soon as I was able to breathe again, Lillian booted me in the stomach. I fell over with the kick and curled up into the fetal position.

‹I can’t analyze her movements and intentions if I can’t see her.›

‹“You want me to risk losing an eye.”›

‹It’s a necessary risk. With two eyes you have one to spare.›

‹“I sure wish you could feel pain.”›

I opened my eyes and separated my arms just enough to catch a glimpse of Lillian.

‹Roll backwards.›

I put my hands to the floor and pushed myself backwards into a roll. Doing so made my abs hurt and I realized just how sore my body actually was.

Lillian’s kick missed though, so that was one less injury.

I risked another glance and found that she had stayed where she was.

“On your feet,” Lillian said. “I’ll give you the chance to die like a man.”

I pressed against the wall and pushed myself up. Everything ached. “Ain’t you generous,” I said, and spit an accumulation of blood from my mouth.

I held my arms out to my sides. “I’m standing. Go ahead. Kill me. You’ve already taken the only thing that really mattered in my life.”

“How cliché,” Lillian said. She pulled out my
kama, which I was surprised she’d managed to retain. “But then, do you think killing you with your own weapon is too cliché?”

I pulled out the
kama I’d held onto.

‹Don’t!›

I didn’t listen.

I threw it at Lillian.

She threw hers at me.

‹Dodge left!›

I didn’t move.

The
kama that Lillian threw hadn’t been aimed at the bulk of my body. Instead, it’d been aimed at where she thought I’d dive to.

As a result, my own
kama, cut off my hand.

But then I’d expected it to. I’d planned for it. Kali had known my intentions and had tried to stop me.

Lillian was better than me, and that was her weakness.

She was cocky. She planned to win. She believed she would.

The only way I had a chance of besting her was to let her win.

Or at least let her think she had.

So, I’d let my hand be cut off.

Lillian had seen I wasn’t going to move the second the
kama had left her hand. She’d analyzed what was going to happen, but she’d been so stunned by my insane behavior, she hadn’t moved out of the way herself.

The
kama I’d thrown hit her in the shoulder.

It wasn’t deep, but it was enough.

The thugs I’d lined the blade with would be entering her body. Hopefully, they’d do their job. Lillian had been stupid and left her own DNA-myte coding in the lab. I’d programmed the thugs to be accepted by her mytes with open arms.

‹“Kali, are they in?”›

‹Yes. You were successful. Now I suggest you take care of your hand. I am already trying to cauterize the wound.›

A strange clarity opened my mind. I turned and stared at where I could swear I felt my fingers moving. Instead, I found blood squirting from my wrist where my arm now ended.

I watched in awe at what I was witnessing. I was bleeding to death. I might die. But not until I could take Lillian with me. I had to stay alive long enough for Kali’s thugs to do their job.

Just as I’d determined, Lillian didn’t want me dead. Not yet, anyway. She wanted to make me suffer.

She’d removed a canister from one of her compartments. It looked exactly like the one I’d given to Quentin back on the roof. She sprayed my hand. There was a slight burning sensation somewhere in my thoughts. The white foam from the canister was starting to turn pink as it mixed with my blood.

‹The bleeding is under control. Lillian has helped save your life, and damned herself.›

“You fool,” Lillian said. “I’m not going to let you give up that easily. I want to see you suffer.”

Lillian reached behind her back and then stabbed me with a needle.

‹She has injected you with thugs. Sandboxing initiated.›

You couldn’t reprogram any mytes while they were inside a body. Derma-mytes prevented it. However, reprogramming was possible when the coding was occurring underneath the skin, inside the body. That was the secret I’d come up with.

Hackers would find a way of getting their mytes inside a victim, but as far as I was aware, they hadn’t thought about reprogramming and taking over their victim’s mytes. Instead they just implanted their own spies.

Because Sam had my DNA-myte code, she’d been able to have the thugs already programmed, which is how she’d gotten the drop on me. I figured Lillian would have it as well.

The secret to the thugs I’d designed was that they weren’t just sentries, but hackers in their own right. Kali was overseeing their function. I’d decided to give her full control. She’d stopped a Horseman, a Celestial even, from hacking her. I’d given her even better tools.

I’d also taken a hint from how she’d done it. She’d sandboxed Death. Put him into a program in which he thought he was in control, but wasn’t.

That’s what Kali was doing to Lillian’s thugs. She was making them think that they were still under Lillian’s control and that they were doing whatever it was they’d been programmed to do. In reality, they were being corralled like cattle.

“It just occurred to me that Sam must have given you the H&M upgrades,” she said.

“You going to torture me now by sharing your twisted thoughts?” I said with a grin.

“While that is tempting, no. Instead, I’m going to torture you by
erasing
your precious memories. You see, having that nifty upgrade, also allows me to get inside your head. I just infected you with my own mytes. I call them Lethe-mytes.”

How on the nose, I thought. And not very original.

“I’m going to kill you,” she continued. “Just like I did Sam, in memory of Julius. Except with you, I’m going to draw it out. Who knows, I might even let you live. You’ll be the first person who has mytes and Alzheimer’s.”

To make her think I wasn’t going down without a fight, I threw a punch. She easily deflected it.

“Still got some fight in you I see.”

I threw another punch, but with the wrong arm. Funnily enough, I’d forgotten about my missing hand.

She dodged it.

“Come on,” she said, taunting me.

I rushed towards her and threw a punch with all my strength.

She effortlessly moved out of the way.

The fact I didn’t connect threw me off balance. My fist connected with the wall. I felt something strain and possibly break, but Kali was working her magic, so I hardly felt it.

I fell to the floor. I landed next to the
kama that had cut off my hand.

I grabbed it and attempted to slice at her leg.

Lillian realized my intentions. She moved out of the way and easily kicked the kama out my hand. Disarming me once again. I’d barely managed to grasp it in the first place.

“I’m in,” Lillian said. “Let the fun begin.”

‹“Kali, I want you to make me believe that whatever she’s doing is actually happening.”›

‹You need to be careful. My thugs aren’t in place yet, and if she kills you, I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish.›

Lillian believed she was in control. She thought her Lethe-mytes were stimulating my memories.

Kali was.

She used Huginn and Muninn to make me relive me finding Sam’s body.

Kali stopped blocking my emotions. I relived all my grief as if it were the first time I was feeling it. I relived making my vow for vengeance.

Turned out Lillian also wanted to live my memories.

She wasn’t living it though. It was like she had an emotional damper on. She was watching my memories like they were a movie inside her mind’s eye. She was simultaneously watching my agony.

“How sweet?” she said. “But such a letdown. You must be dying inside knowing that you’ve failed. You know what, I think I’ll do you a favor and erase the guilt you must be feeling.”

It felt like a needle had been stabbed into my brain, and then the memory was gone, and I was back in the present, minus the experience of Sam’s death.

Lillian smiled and said. “As far as anyone but myself is concerned, that never happened.”

‹“Kali, what just happened?”›

No response.

“Let’s see what other memorable moments we can exorcise of Sam.”

“Sam? Where is she?” I asked. As soon as I said it though, something I couldn’t explain transpired in my head.

“She’s dead?” I asked, knowing it was true, but being unable to recall how I knew it, or anything else about it.

“What’s the last thing you remember of her?” Lillian asked.

I instantly remembered the last time we’d made love, down in the bunker.

“Thanks,” Lillian said.

Lillian and I relived the memory together. And then it was gone.

“I never got to be with Sam, so I’ll take your memories. With some creative memory manipulation, it’ll be like you never existed and she was with me the whole time.”

She kicked me, and before I could respond in any way, Lillian continued her game, going back through my memories over the last couple of days, deleting them one after another as if they hadn’t happened. Then she erased whole chunks, going back years.