Extensis Vitae (21 page)

“Indeed, that is very true! It’s been a pleasure, sir,” Reznik said and shook the doctor’s hand.

June stepped forward with a smile. “I just wanted to thank you again, Mr. Reznik. For saving our lives, for the training—for everything.”

“Don’t mention it. Just keep whipping those slugs into shape, and this place will have a crack security team in no time,” he said with a grin. “And please, call me Michael.” He extended his hand.

She ignored it and surprised him with a big hug. “Best of luck to you, Michael. Be safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised. Everyone else stepped back to allow him and Myrna some space. He took her hand and guided her a short distance away.

“Well, I guess this is it for now,” he said. “Give me a call when you guys reach the surface, Myrna, and if you need anything, I’ll be there. I have a feeling it might not be too much longer before the administrators collectively decide it might be time to inherit the earth, as they say.”

She gave him a fierce hug, her beautiful green eyes filled with tears. “You take care of yourself up there, Michael. If I have any say in the matter, you can bet that you haven’t seen the last of me.”

He hugged her back. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. You take care, as well.” And with that, he kissed her deeply. She grasped his hand for a moment after they separated, and, as their fingers reluctantly slipped apart, he wondered if he would ever see her again.

He looked over to where Rin watched, her face inscrutable. “Ready?” he asked.

She nodded, and without further ado, turned and strode into the rough-hewn tunnel. Reznik waved to the others and followed Rin into the tunnel. He was surprised that he had come to care about these people in such a short time.

He tossed the katana to Rin. She snatched it out of the air, and hung the sword at her waist with practiced efficiency. “You’re probably going to be needing that.”

“Undoubtedly,” was her response.

Behind them, Swanson bellowed for the vault door to be closed, and then the rumbling of the massive portal drowned out all other sound.

***

They made good time on their way to Colony 13, moving at a brisk walk. Neither of them needed to stop for rest, so their only stop was for Reznik to install the wireless relay in the tunnel.

When his HUD indicated the approximate halfway point between the Colonies, they stopped and Reznik fished through his pack for the device. He noted a metal girder spanning the tunnel about a dozen feet overhead.

He stuck the relay in one of his cargo pockets and leapt up, easily getting enough height to grab onto the lip of the girder. Hanging by one hand, he snapped the comm relay onto the girder by its magnet. He flipped the switch and a red light came on. Within a few seconds, the light changed to green.

“Guess that’s it,” Reznik said as he dropped back down. “Wish everything worked that easy.” He picked up his pack again and they continued walking.

Reznik was surprised when Rin broke the silence a short time later. She had seemed content to walk in silence the entire way thus far.

“So what is your story?” she asked. “It’s obvious you aren’t a part of these Colonies. You have a fairly decent military-spec skin and extensive training. How did you get here?”

“Strangely enough, I just found that out myself not long ago. I was part of a DARPA experiment many years ago—before the Cataclysm, as you call it.” He went on to give her an abbreviated version of the story as he understood it.

“You are an interesting character, Reznik,” she said when he finished. “You will no longer recognize the surface world. It will be a bit of a culture shock, I think.”

“I would imagine so. And you? Do you remember much of the world before the Cataclysm?” He had always been bad with guessing ages, but he estimated Rin to be in her early thirties. He had no idea if she was a skin or if that was the body she had been born with. If she was a skin, she could be any age.

“Oh, I remember quite a lot from before the asteroid strike. That was certainly one hell of a bad day for everyone,” she said soberly.

“Were you on the surface when it happened?”

Rin nodded. “Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to secure a place in one of the
Extensis Vitae
Colonies. Being a soldier, I imagine you’ve seen some rough stuff before, but those last days—they were exponentially worse, as far as the anarchy and sheer desperation of everyone fighting to survive…” She trailed off, as if reliving the day.

Sensing that she was becoming more reluctant to talk about it, he simply said, “Well, if you feel like sharing, I’d be interested in hearing more of your story and what the Cataclysm was like.”

“My story is…complex. Perhaps another time. Right now, however, I need to make a brief stop to do something, or else I won’t be of much use during the confrontation.”

They were fast approaching the scene of carnage from the last battle. Reznik could tell by the stench of three day old corpses and the faint buzzing sound of flies.
Surprising how flies seem to appear out of thin air when there is decay to feast on.

The corpses lay where they had fallen, bloated and ripe. What looked like gallons of dried blood painted the floor and walls. Reznik nearly gagged from the stench in the enclosed space of the corridor.

Rin appeared unperturbed as she stepped over a corpse and made her way to where Haze lay slumped against the wall. The outlaw’s eyes stared vacantly, and the butt of his final cigarette was still perched between his cracked blue lips. His abdomen was bloated from the effects of decomposition.

Grasping the corpse by the shoulders, Rin dragged Haze clear of the gore. His joints popped noisily from the lingering rigor mortis as if in protest as she pushed the corpse flat on the ground and knelt down beside it. A slender knife blade appeared in her hand, protruding between her second and third fingers.

Reznik went over and watched as she scraped at one of Haze’s eyes with the blade. He briefly wondered where she had been hiding the knife, since he had only returned her sword.

Seeing his curious look, she explained, “I need to peel back the cornea to expose the iris for the biometric scan, or else it won’t work. He has optical implants, so there won’t be any internal decay, but it looks like the cornea is organic—it has deteriorated since his death.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” Reznik replied.

Rin didn’t reply as she peeled the cloudy membrane free of the eye and flicked it aside. She withdrew her token from her pocket and reached back to pull her ponytail to the side. Reznik noted that the blade in her hand had disappeared. She placed the interface of the token against the unbroken skin at the base of her skull. The token somehow slid into the skin and snapped into place, a blue LED lighting up on it when the connection was made.

She looked at Reznik and he could see a red glow in the pupil of her left eye. “I can’t make any changes on my own once I enter command mode,” she told him. “You will need to do this to override the directives that Haze implanted. It uses voice command.”

Her vision was unfocused, as she was apparently looking at her HUD. The glow in her eye brightened, and then a faint beam of light projected Japanese characters onto Reznik’s chest. She turned her head slightly in order to project the letters onto the wall of the tunnel. The characters blurred for a moment and then transformed into English.

“COMMAND MODE ACTIVATED. INSTRUCTIONS?”

Reznik thought for a moment. “Remove previous directives,” he stated.

“INPUT BIOMETRIC FOR OVERRIDE,” the letters read. Rin leaned over the corpse’s face and a quick flash of light like a camera flash was reflected in Haze’s eye.

“IRIS SCAN SUCCESSFUL,” the message said when Rin sat back up and looked at the wall. “DISABLE CURRENT DIRECTIVES?”

When he replied in the affirmative, the next words displayed were: “PREVIOUS DIRECTIVES SUCCESSFULLY DISABLED. DO YOU WISH TO INPUT NEW DIRECTIVES?”

For just a moment, Reznik was tempted to give Rin new directives to keep her honest in upholding her end of their bargain. But he realized that doing that would make him no better than Haze. He found the whole process distasteful. She had entrusted him with access to her command mode, and he knew he would feel guilty if he took advantage of that. Besides, he would much rather earn her trust instead of having to compel her by using the token.

“No new directives. Do I need to do anything else, Rin?” She shook her head and he continued, “Disable command mode.”

“COMMAND MODE DISABLED.”

The projection winked out and the red glow was gone from Rin’s eye.

“That takes care of that,” she said. “Now I should be of more use to you in our upcoming confrontation.”

They entered the portal room and were again met with the grim sight of the woman hanging by the electrical cord in the open bay. The corpse was bloated, and in a much more advanced state of decay than the last time they had seen it. Reznik looked around, trying to determine the best way to climb up and untie the cord. Rin watched him for a moment.

“Shall I do it?” she asked. Reznik shrugged, not seeing an easy alternative.

Rin sprang into the air, and faster than the eye could follow, drew her katana and severed the cord just above the corpse’s head in one smooth motion. She sheathed the sword again before her feet hit the ground.

The corpse hit the ground with a sickening
splat
as the abdomen ruptured. Fluid from the abdominal cavity splattered on the concrete and fetid gas was released into the air. Reznik backpedaled before he could get hit with what was sure to be an even riper stench.

Holding his breath, he moved in and grasped the length of cord and dragged the corpse to the side of the bay and then unwound the cord from around its neck. He made a mental note to find a cloth to cover the body with.

“Maybe that wasn’t the best idea,” he muttered as he joined Rin on the loading dock. “It wasn’t right to leave her hanging there, but it sure left a nasty mess to clean up.”

“Well there’s going to be a much worse mess to clean up before we are done here,” she replied.

“I guess we should be glad that this mission doesn’t entail any clean up, then,” he quipped.

After that, it was just a matter of making preparations for the impending confrontation.

Chapter 19

R
in sat on the roof of the enormous drilling machine’s cab where it was parked in the tunnel just outside the colony. It had been about three weeks since Haze’s band had driven out to this remote site in the desert with the mining rig in tow.

Her anger returned at the memory of the senseless slaughter that day. The stunned colonists hadn’t even been going to put up a fight, but Haze had given the order to cut them down anyway. “
If we instill a little fear in them, they won’t even think of fucking with us,” he had said.

When the other members of the band returned this time, things would be different. They wouldn’t be expecting resistance, especially from one of their own.

With her heightened hearing, she heard the approach of their vehicles outside the tunnel several minutes ago. According to her internal clock, it was early evening. She could tell from the group’s banter that the mood was celebratory, and several of them were probably drunk or high or both.

After several minutes, she heard the crunch of footsteps on loose gravel. Long shadows appeared well before their owners did, and dust began choking the tunnel from the tread of many feet. The sound of loose gravel giving way was followed by a curse as someone lost their footing.

Rin remained motionless atop the cab, waiting for their approach. She thought the plan would be effective due to its simplicity. The band—for the most part—was simply comprised of hardened thugs who were used to ambushing and terrorizing their prey. In a toe-to-toe battle with warrior class skins, she doubted they would be able to impress her. Mason and a couple other members of the band were the only ones whose fighting skills concerned her.

She didn’t know if both she and Reznik would survive the upcoming confrontation, but if Reznik fell in battle, it would actually benefit her, since she would be released from her obligation. On the other hand, traveling alone on the surface could be a dangerous undertaking. She respected the man’s sense of honor and didn’t wish any ill will upon him, foolish though his plans may be.