Omega Point (23 page)

  "No, you won't." Otto selected the upper third of Sakaday's body as a target through the turret eye cams, the reticule system rendered in flat orange in his iHUD.

  
Remote fire online, confirm target?
said the Stelsco's mind in a rush of machine speak.

  
Sakaday!
Kaplinski's warning was a ludicrous drone over the MT.

  
Confirm,
commanded Otto. Otto lifted his hand to protect his eyes as the Stelsco's turret opened fire.

  Sakaday was laughing as twin heavy machine guns shredded his right arm, shoulder, head and neck into mince. Bits of him splattered the flatbed like thrown paint. The rest of him was untouched, Otto having targeted those areas that would prevent him from being hit by stray rounds. Sakaday's skull held for a moment before shattering under the pounding bullets. His augmented bones twisted to plastic scrap, leaving a gory mannequin tottering on top of a pair of undamaged legs. For a moment the corpse swayed, impossibly upright.

  Sakaday's long knife fell to the floor and stuck quivering in the metal.

  His body toppled from the flatbed, snatched away by the rushing landscape.

 

Kaplinski roared in anger as Chures' bullets slammed into his face. For a second, Chures thought he might have done the cyborg damage, but his head came round and fixed him with a bloody stare. The righthand side of his face was shredded down to black bone, one eye pulped to jelly and fibrous machine parts. His gun ran dry, and he shot out the smoking magazine, reaching smoothly for a fresh one and slamming it home.

  "That the best you got, you fucking little dago?" said Kaplinski.

  "
Madre de Dios
," said Chures, and there was grim acceptance in there. This was not a man he could beat. This was not a man.

  Kaplinski's ragged flesh writhed, strips of flesh reached over to one another and pulled tight. Wounds sealed themselves like lips. The cyborg shut his eyes, his distended body pulsed, and he gasped with something akin to pleasure. When he opened his eyes again, both were whole.

  Kaplinski forced himself down the corridor, wiping ocular humours and blood from his face. He dragged his swollen bulk through the passage, grasping at doorways, tearing metal and shattering glass to pull himself forward.

  "I told Klein that I had been cured by k52," roared the cyborg as he came on.

  Chures put bullets into the cyborg until his gun clicked empty again.

  "I didn't tell him what else he has done for me." Kaplinski loomed over the VIA agent. Chures had read the cyborg's file; he was supposed to be around 1.9m, but he was at least half a metre over that. Impossible.

  "Valdaire," he said, his voice quiet. The train and its racket receded. He remembered another rhythmic noise: hard rain on tattered tents and shelters of sun-bleached plastic. Puerto Penasco. He remembered the man and his sister. He fought only for her to die. No matter what he did, the strong would always destroy the weak. He could only put himself in the way for a while.

  He prayed that he had done enough.

  "Run," he said.

  Valdaire turned to flee as Kaplinski slammed Chures in the chest with the flat of his palm. The Colombian flew backwards, limbs tangling on her heels, bringing her down. She struggled round. Chures' breath was shallow. Blood leaked from his nostrils. She'd lost her gun, but it would have been no use against the altered Ky-tech. Kaplinski stood over her, malformed and diabolical, features twisted in a mask of pleasure and fury.

  "Klein killed one of mine, now I take two of his. Only fair."

  Chloe, she still had Chloe. Her hand hidden under Chures' unconscious body, she surreptitiously keyed her on.

  A giant hand descended toward her, encircled her chest and plucked her from the floor. He held her up before his face, nostrils flaring like those of a mad horse.

  "How do you want to die, Fräulein?"

  "Veronique? Veev? Are we there yet? Why have you activated me? Veev!"

  Kaplinski's eyes locked with Valdaire's. He sneered. "Oh, Fräulein, what can that little thing do to me?"

  The door to the rear of the carriage opened. Two Cossacks shouldered their way through. They shouted, opening fire. Another came forward, a bulky tube on his back. It launched a small guided missile. It embedded itself in Kaplinski's flesh. A huge discharge of energy arced through it, following the trail of ionised air from gun to projectile. Valdaire nearly blacked out, her teeth jamming together as her muscles locked. Kaplinski seemed unaffected, and swiped the missile from his side.

  "I don't have time for this," growled the ex-Ky-tech. He squeezed Valdaire in his fist as bullets thwacked into his skin. They were pushed out by his runaway healthtech, the wounds they caused sealing instantly.

  "Chloe!" screamed Valdaire. There was barely enough air in her crushed chest to get the words out. She couldn't breathe. For the first time in a long time she found herself praying again that the energy surge from the Cossack's maxi-taser had not destroyed her friend. She remembered the last occasion, in the church of St Germaine in Sakassou, her kneeling before damp plaster effigies. Was her life already flashing before her? For a moment she sat there in the past, in the damp coolness of the church, hoping it would be alright and that the shouting and screams outside wouldn't find their way into the church, and then a rib creaked and she was back in the present, confronted with another horror. Blackness limned the edge of her awareness. "Kitty Claw! Kitty Claw!" she gasped.

  Valdaire had no idea if the programme, one she'd designed to shut off intrusive AIs, would work on the cyborg's built-in software. All of them carried an advanced near-I adjutant, a military version of a helper valet. Without the adjutant, the efficiency of their systems was severely compromised. She hoped to God that Kitty Claw would engage it and shut it down.

  It did better than she'd hoped. Kaplinski locked rigid. She gasped and wriggled, trying to prise herself free of Kaplinski's grip.

  The Cossacks came forward and tugged at the cyborg's fingers, eventually managing to free Valdaire. She fell to the floor, gasping. The Cossacks levelled their guns at her.

  She waved them away. "My friend," she said, pulling Chures into her arms, "please, help him."

 

Otto scrambled toward the Stelsco, its doors folding up and backwards in greeting. He clambered into the pilot's station, buried deep in the thing's nose, and spread his adjutant throughout its systems, bringing it all online.

  He threw the Stelsco's wheel units into reverse, burning rubber to match the train's speed. He disengaged the clamps, and it flew backwards, hitting the ground with an impact that made his teeth clack. The car fishtailed madly as it sped backwards alongside the train, skidding along the slope of the embankment where the line crossed a bog. He slammed the right side wheels off, spinning the car round. The train appeared to leap forward like a stag pursued by a hound as the car ground to an immediate halt. The barracks car whipped past, and he saw Lehmann struggling hand-to-hand with two Cossacks atop it.

  He looked through Lehmann's eyes.
Stop playing with them now, Lehmann, we're getting out of here.

  
Affirmative,
thought Lehmann back.

  The electric crack of a stun pistol discharging came to Otto via Lehmann. A Cossack tumbled from the roof, his sabre clattering to the deck. It looked like they weren't going to be able to do this without killing some of the good guys.

  Ballast sprayed as the Stelsco's wheels found traction on the embankment and hurtled forward, Otto heading for Chures' and Valdaire's last known location.

  Otto ran the Stelsco up to 174kph, marginally faster than the train. Sparse woodland blurred by. He let the machine's onboard systems take over the driving while he scanned the train's windows for Valdaire and Chures. Most of the carriages showed signs of conflict: cracked windows or sprays of blood.

  There. He could see two Cossacks pointing their guns down at something. It looked like a prone man and a crouching woman. Chures and Valdaire?

  Next to them stood something monstrous, a bloated mass of man and machine, frozen, arm outstretched.

  "Kaplinski?" he said, amplifying all his visual feeds to get a better look at it. He couldn't see its face. He checked his iHUD; the links were still there from the old days, and if Kaplinski could use it, so could he. It took a moment for him to hook in. It was him.

  Kaplinski was no longer human, he wasn't even Ky-tech any more. His body writhed with inconceivable technology, alive with power for which Otto could see no source. He tried to look out of Kaplinski's eyes, but something had him frozen solid, jamming up his iHUD and adjutant. Not for the first time, Otto was glad Valdaire was on his side.

  There was a flicker in Otto's iHUD. Kaplinski's adjutant was rebooting, fighting off whatever Valdaire had attacked him with.

  "Valdaire! Down!" he yelled via radio, not knowing if it was still jammed.

  Something sinewy and sharp leapt out from Kaplinski's outstretched hand, spearing the Cossacks one after the other and retreating back into his body. The Cossacks fell. Kaplinski reached out to the figure on the floor.

  Otto swung the Stelsco turret round. The twin-machine guns opened fire. The hardened glass of the train's exterior windows held for a moment before imploding under the rain of bullets. Kaplinski half turned, and Otto's amplified vision caught sight of his face; nothing but rage and hate there. So much for k52's great and noble project.

  Kaplinski disappeared sideways as the bullets shredded his side and hurled him into a compartment. The side of the train disintegrated, leaving a gaping hole ringed with flaps of hardened carbon plastic and metal wobbling in the train's slipstream.

  "Klein? Chures is down!" Valdaire spoke over the radio, airwaves cleared by the Stelsco's sophisticated comms suite, clearing aside the train's jammer. She stood and looked out the window.

  "You're going to have to jump."

  "I can't make it."

  Otto tried to bring the car in closer. The railway was running over a level area, but still its embankment made it impossible for the Stelsco to keep close with anything approaching stability. The car ran up and down the slope, holding position for a second or so and then skittering sideways down the embankment. Valdaire crouched by the hole, arm out, the other supporting Chures.

  Then Otto said, "Wait."

  Lehmann was running up the train, head low, hands spread before him ready to catch himself should he fall, long rifle slung on his back. He jumped down into the gap between the carriages. Lehmann hacked his way through the flexible corridor linking the carriages with his combat knife.

  
Lehmann, get Chures and Valdaire off the train. Watch out for
Kaplinski, something's happened to him,
he thought out.

  
I had to kill two of them, Otto,
he replied.
I'm sorry. There was no other way.

  Verdammt, thought Otto.
Never mind, get off the damn train and watch out for Kaplinski.

  Pistol grasped in both hands, Lehmann walked cautiously round the smashed compartment where Kaplinski lay.

  "What the hell have they done to him?" said Lehmann, speaking on the radio now.

  Otto saw the modified cyborg through Lehmann's feed. Kaplinski lay in a tangle of shattered plastic slicked with gore. His swollen form filled the compartment, feet sticking out into the corridor, torn flesh crawling with movement. Kaplinski stirred. Lehmann raised his pistol and fired twelve times, each round a heavy calibre explosive bullet, designed with military-grade autonomous machine units and cyborgs in mind.

  Kaplinski stilled.

  "I can't get through his thorax armour or his skull," said Lehmann.

  "He's still alive. Healthtech activity is off the chart. He'll be up and fighting soon. Get out of there now, Lehmann, you can't take him," said Otto.

  "Affirmative," said Lehmann. He kept his eyes on Kaplinski as he skirted the wreckage in the corridor. One of Kaplinski's feet shuddered and drew swiftly into the compartment.

  "Lehmann!"

  Lehmann bent to Chures, looking over him with Ky-tech eyes. "Chures isn't looking good, Otto."

  "Just get them out of there." Otto watched via his IR as Kaplinski's massive bulk moved.

  Shots rang out. Autonomous eye cams swivelled on the Stelsco, zooming in on the source of noise. Cossacks aboard the next carriage. More were working their way back, cautious for the moment.

  They'd got out of the barracks carriage then. An alarm pinged on the Stelsco's sophisticated sensor suite – energy emissions from the flatbed, airbikes powering up.

  Otto swept the Stelsco turret round, blasting with limited bursts around the windows the Cossacks shot from. They drew back.

  "Lehmann! Now!" Kaplinski was pulling himself up onto his hands and knees. Blinding whiteness played around his form, massive energy consumption. What the hell was he drawing on?

  Lehmann stood. Valdaire hanging onto him like a child to its father, arms round his neck, legs wrapped round his waist. Under his other arm he held the limp form of Chures.

  Lehmann indicated via MT that he was ready, his face set in concentration.

  Otto opened the two left doors of the Stelsco, leaving the entire side of the vehicle open to the elements. He had the rearmost door fold back and reconfigure, forming an armour plate protecting them to the rear.

  
On the count of three,
thought out Otto.
One. Two. Three.

  He swung the drive wheel to the left hard. The Stelsco's folded back door caught on the train, shaking the car and ripping a chunk of shattered carbons from the carriage side.