Darkness & Light (9 page)

Owens' eyes suddenly got really big. I hadn't
managed to open up anything really important, but he was worried
now. He launched a flurry of attacks, one of which brushed the
outside of my thigh hard enough to leave a very spectacular bruise,
and then he let my wonderful razors get just a little too close to
the side of his neck and it was all over.

Even though we'd been fairly quiet as such
things go, it would be a lost cause trying to hide the massive pool
of blood already spreading out from his corpse.

So much for finding Croaker's chosen one.
Even in the out-of-the-way little corner where I'd ambushed him, it
was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon the
body.

I collected the briefcase and his gun, and
then made a quick trip to the bathroom to put my appearance back to
rights. Like I said, blood wipes right off of leather.

I was on my way towards the back entrance
when I saw them. Actually I heard them first. My damn ears are only
second generation and sometimes they buzz until I reset them, but I
can still pick out a single conversation from more than forty feet
away.

At first glance neither of them were really
all that remarkable. They were both slender, the taller,
dark-haired one slightly more muscled than the blond, but neither
of them were in the same class as the wannabe magazine model from
earlier. Still, their discussion was something else. It suddenly
made the vague hints start to click into place.

“I'm telling you man, there's nothing out
there. Nothing. Science can explain away every phenomenon there
is."

“I'm afraid I have to disagree with you yet
again. Science can explain many things, but not all. Otherwise
you'd preclude the possibility of miracles. I'm not saying that I
believe in the supernatural, far from it in fact, but I think
you've established yourself far too firmly in the secular with this
particular position."

I let my hips sway a little more as I changed
my course and approached them.

Whether or not I'd found Croaker's turning
point, the world's salvation, still remained to be seen. Either way
I was sure in the end they'd accept the bet, and in so doing
eventually find themselves in a world that bore little resemblance
to the one in which they thought they lived.

Author's Note:

"Backlash" was my first attempt to really
explore the technology in my 'Serial Story' world. I'd spent a
little time developing a bit of an overall story arc, and I'd
decided I was going to have super-human operatives, working both
for and against The Company, but I hadn't really settled on the
form that technology would take.

At the same time, I'd just finished
spending a huge amount of time writing 
Broken
, and was gearing up for 
Torn
. I loved--still love--both of those books, but was
in the mood to write something much grittier. I could have, and
nearly did, turned to a Dark Reflections piece to fill that need,
but I really wanted to branch out, so "Backlash" began to
evolve.

Jerome may be the kind of bit villain that
nobody expects to remember after the final page, but he sure was
fun to write.

Sadly, "Backlash" is the final story
in 
Darkness and Light
, but before I
leave you to the business of reading it I wanted to take just a
moment and thank you again for your support. Hopefully if you've
made it this far, something in at least one of the stories
resonated with you. If you did enjoy one or more of the stories
please help spread the word. Forums, reviews-either on the big
sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble or just on your blog, all
help. The question of how many of the stories currently rattling
around in my head get written in the next few years depends in no
small part on my fans and the way in which they spread the word
about my writing.

So once again, thanks-I can't wait to sit
down again with everyone so I can tell you what happens next.

Jerome pulled the clutch in with two fingers
of his left hand, and goosed the throttle as he dropped a gear. The
gleaming black bullet bike shot forward with a surge as though
trying to buck him off. The yellow four-door coupe that'd been
loitering in the fast lane disappeared behind him with gratifying
speed.

The assignments from the idiots at Central
usually ended up being nothing more than a wild goose chase. Still,
the assignments did get him briefly away from the shrinks running
observation duty and back onto his bike.

Of course the knowledge that those same
armchair dweebs would be analyzing everything he heard or saw while
out on assignment did tend to suck most of the fun out of even his
brief moments of freedom.

The needle on the speedometer crept up
towards 110 and Jerome felt a grimace pull at the corners of his
mouth as he started to run out of open freeway. Up ahead some idiot
cut off a semi, and the physics module in the chip located just
behind his right collarbone went into overdrive. The results surged
out on scores of fiber optic lines, and he shot towards a transient
gap between the semi and a minivan, accelerating all the way.

His normal, unaided gray matter was screaming
that there wasn't enough space to permit the bike safe passage, but
at these speeds his chip was ramped up all the way to combat mode,
and it hadn't ever been wrong before.

A split second later the difference in
relative velocities of the two vehicles opened up the space just
enough to permit a one in a thousand chance of survival. The
slipstreams of the two vehicles hammered at him with a fury the
bike's windshield wasn't able to fully redirect and then he was
clear.

He was getting soft. Too much time stuck away
from the action, too many fruitless missions. There'd been a moment
there where he'd felt his muscles starting to tighten up, to fight
the synthetic fibers lacing his being.

Those computer-controlled artificial muscles
could've ripped his skeleton apart, but that tended to be rather
hard on the operatives in whom they were installed. Standard
procedure was for the eggheads to ensure the governors stepped
things down to something that wouldn't over stress normal
bones.

Of course that introduced other
complications, like interference from the human host whose
genetically wired reflexes didn't understand that survival lay in
not jostling the elbow of the cybernetic henchman trying to keep
him from being wrapped around the back corner of some soccer mom's
urban limo.

The psycho babblers would take him to task
later for having unnecessarily risked an important asset, but they
didn't understand. The only way to be sure you could still ride the
edge was by testing it. If you didn't test it, then you never knew
you'd fallen off until after you found yourself up against a flesh
beast some staffer puke had been confident was still weeks away
from degeneration.

Loss to degenerate form containment was the
number one explanation given anytime he or one of the others asked
after a missing face among their brethren. The potentials were
generally much less dangerous when they were still walking around
and talking like normal people. Of course even then they weren't
really normal members of the monkey family, but at least they
usually couldn't rip you in half or freeze you into a block of ice.
Once they lost it and gave into the animal inside, all bets were
off.

At least most of them chose to succumb to the
hunger rather than the thirst. A slavering monster that could kill
two operatives before most people could blink wasn't anyone's idea
of something you'd want to bring back to your bed for a little romp
and cuddle, but it was far better than some of the
alternatives.

The current target was probably going to go
that way eventually. The video they'd downloaded to him had shown a
man that was plenty fat even before there'd been any reports of
unusual activity. At some point Jason Roberts was going to give
into the hunger that'd become his constant companion. Once that
happened, someone like Jerome would be called in to help dispose of
the corpse.

Telekinesis was a fairly common ability.
Normally there wasn't much need for additional genetic samples, but
Roberts was apparently displaying a depth of power far and away
beyond the norm. The analyst who'd briefed Jerome had been all but
drooling over that last piece of information. Exciting or not for
the whitecoats, it hadn't exactly been something designed to
reassure the operative actually tasked with bringing in
Roberts.

Exiting the freeway, Jerome down shifted
again, feeling the bike buck beneath him before the slipper clutch
kicked in and let the back wheel resume moving. It was amazing how
quickly the real estate in LA could change. Less than four blocks
from the exit and already he was seeing burnt out cars and boarded
up shops.

Things went progressively downhill as he
closed the last little distance to the address he'd been given. The
few people on the street as he finally arrived at his destination
either had the fearful scuttle of victims or the confident swagger
of street tigers.

There was one fairly prominent exception to
those two categories and Jerome slowed to a stop just in front of
the half-naked, twenty-something, who had to be a whore.

“Kind of early still to be working isn't it
sister?"

“Hell yeah. Still, a girl's got to eat."

Jerome let his eyes, safely invisible behind
the wraparound shades, linger for a heartbeat or two. He wasn't
about to go further than that. Not with someone who was probably
carrying half a dozen STD's, but he wasn't going to catch anything
by looking. And there was plenty to look at, and even review later
if he wanted.

She seemed to sense his scrutiny. “You want
to give a working girl a job?"

“Sorry, sister. I'm on the clock right now.
Actually I'm looking for a white guy that's supposed to have shown
up around here pretty recently. Heavy guy, running towards fat
even."

Prostitutes always seemed to make the best
sources. This one was probably sleeping with half the neighborhood,
and the johns were all probably confiding various secrets to her in
an effort to create an illusion of intimacy. Not that Jerome had
anything against the oldest profession, but he was at least smart
enough to keep love and sex separate.

She was sizing him up now, trying to decide
if he was a cop, or somebody that was otherwise going to cause the
kind of trouble that would eventually end up complicating her
relatively simple existence.

Jerome flashed a lazy smile that revealed
gold caps and waited for her to decide what exactly to tell
him.

“Snowman came rolling in a couple of days
ago. Must know somebody because he hasn't been around since that
first day. Dis-appeared."

She accepted the fifty he pulled out of his
jacket with a nod. “I'll put the word out to leave your bike
alone."

Another fifty and then Jerome was off to the
nearest apartment building, one that looked particularly close to
being condemned. Every third step was missing from the stairwell
and it looked like you could easily catch something contagious just
by breathing the air. Of course the leprous feel to the wall
probably had something to do with that. Decades worth of graffiti
attested to just how many different people had at some point
claimed this piece of real estate as their own.

Undoubtedly a few of the urban artists had
gotten out of the game and gone on the live more or less productive
lives. Most of the rest were probably dead. Too bad they hadn't
fallen in with the Company. Grabs, hits, extortion, it was mostly
the same kind of work, but the pay was better and Jerome never
spent more than a couple hours in jail on the rare occasions when
he was stupid enough to get caught.

There was no answer to his first few knocks,
but that wasn't anything to worry about. The kinds of people who
were most likely to know where the target was, were the same kind
of people who were constitutionally unable to pass up a chance to
talk to someone. Sooner or later someone would answer. Even if they
didn't, it wasn't really much of a loss. A call back to
headquarters would have a regular grab bag of assets deployed to
this area.

Since that bitch Coffee had defected, things
had gotten pretty sparse in the manpower department. Back in the
day a random lead like this would have at least gotten a two-man
team. Now, between the operatives she'd taken out and all the
people who'd been pulled off of normal duties in an effort to find
her, the staff pukes were really scrapping the bottom of the
barrel. Still, it meant that Jerome got out more frequently.

Of course all things considered, Jerome would
have much rather been back down with the whore on the street than
sweating his way through the building. His patience was starting to
run thin by the time he knocked the first two floors without any
kind or response. The second-to-last door on the third floor proved
to be exactly what he was looking for.