



Crusher

We were on sniper detail, anticipating arrival of two heads of state. Even inside the temperature-controlled armour, my knees ached from the rain. After two front-line tours near the end of the War, our new mechanised systems still couldn’t undo the scars of months spent in arduous mountain combat.

President Xiyi, of the United Provinces of China, and Prime Minister Cho of the newly-unified Corea were en route in a motorcade five blocks away.

Only a year after the multilateral armistice, I can’t complain. Standing like a half-human gargoyle on the twelfth-story ledge of H.K. Multinational Lending is a definite upgrade from kissing rattlesnakes in Pashtun-controlled Pakistan.

A civilian looks up and catches the glint from my eye, an orange-white glow softly projecting from my helmet camera’s targeting system. I slowly shake my head; the pedestrian obediently moves on amid a throng of afternoon shoppers and gawkers, some hidden by colorful umbrellas.

Around the corner is Leela, one of our team’s eyes on the ground. There’s been a N.K. post-communist faction suicide bomb threat against the Corean Prime Minister. In addition to eyes in the sky and every building in a two-mile radius bristling with snipers, we have cyberkinetic support blending in at street level.

“Monitoring pedestrian ID number 1507 traveling north,” Leela reported.

“Ah. You saw that. Good eye. Didn’t I tell you to quit smoking, already?”

“GOFO – you know that chewing gum just doesn’t cut it, honey. StayAlert ciggies re-up my CNS on low sleep.” Leela’s usual hard operational monotone broke into the mocking half-smile that I had heard a thousand times: “And you know I see everything, tin man. Try to keep a low profile, Crusher. It’s almost show time.”

Leela

Our moment was almost here. We were on loan from Japan’s NAICHO agency, the first international counterterrorist unit authorized by the U.N. to operate across the Pacific theater. The Greater Hong Kong de-militarized zone might have been the safest place for a summit outside of Tokyo.

The cigarette’s atomizer coil sizzled and popped against constant drizzle, struggling to deliver the adrenalized vapor that keeps me high-speed after two solid days of iron rations and three-hour sleep shifts. I may be enhanced, but at core, still human.

For some reason, they decided my camouflage would be a short fringed skirt, metallic black bomber jacket with fur-lined hoodie, tight ponytail coordinated with long false eyelashes and neon pink lippie. Thankfully I talked the NCO into a pair of solid chunky punk-style lace-up boots rather than those ridiculous clear-soled stripper heels. Yet another pencil-pusher’s post-adolescent sexbot anime fantasy nearly bites the dust.

Then, the glint. Crusher, twelve stories up. Snake-eaters aren’t supposed to sparkle.

I kept him in my peripheral while scanning the street. There: a half-block down. Hanhwa Eagles baseball cap pulled low. Long brown duster with shoulders slick under the downpour. Early-to-mid forties. Apparently male.

Being half-Korean, I’ve never met anyone who would choose the upstart Hanhwa Eagles over the venerable Doosan Bears. I mean, Eagles fans send robot surrogates so they can cheer from home, for Christ’s sake. No true loyalty at all.

Crusher and I exchanged pleasantries as I automatically checked the stunner at my left hip. Full charge, Non-Lethal. Couldn’t risk a fatality on anything less than a confirmed imminent threat.

“…Crusher. It’s almost show time.” One last delicious drag on the cigarette. I crouched down to check the Aura SEAL-9 tactical shock knife tucked into my boot. “Make sure Rotorhead knows I’m mobile. He’s way too itchy for door-to-door ops.”

“Roger,” Crusher responded. I looked up, squinting, and double-blinked to zoom. Crusher gave me the thumbs-up, then motioned to the corner of the street, signaling that the motorcade was only one block away.

Our newly interesting Hanhwa Eagles fan quickened his pace, heading toward the corner. “Shit,” I muttered, cardiovascular system responding as I weaved easily through the foot-traffic congestion, a nimble ghost in a haunted forest.

The brown duster fell from his shoulders, revealing a vest strapped with enough explosive to take out a tank. Or in this case, a motorcade of armoured black sedans rounding the corner. “Crusher!” I shouted silently between breaths, embedded microphone picking up the flutter of my vocal chords.

I was only seven steps away when the first shot cracked through the air. Electromagnetic heat electrified the blade as I unsheathed the shock knife.

Two steps away, the bomber staggered, stopped, turned to face me, and smiled, blood pouring from his mouth, no doubt the result of a fifty-caliber round that should have pulverized his heart. But he was still standing. Smiling. Hand on the detonator. In one move, my blade excised the hand and caught the detonator, then sliced up through arteries, flesh, and windpipe. The bomber fell and pedestrians scattered.

As the motorcade began its procession down the street, a V-280 tiltrotor helo came into view. I blinked through the eyes-up interface to share its video feed and saw seven infrared outlines converging from various points on either side of the street. Two of them immediately went dark as they crossed paths with members of my cyberkinetics team. Rooftops flashed with sniper fire as waves of pedestrians stampeded in all directions.

The motorcade stopped, then slowly began to reverse course, too slowly to keep death-frenzied antagonists from reaching their targets.

Trapped by the crush of panicked bodies, I could only watch as one of the incoming bombers bounded toward the motorcade. Rotorhead’s view showed a red targeting lock on the attacker’s outline, and the bomber – along with at least five civilians in proximity – exploded in a storm of ballistic munitions.

“Charlie Foxtrot, Charlie Foxtrot – Rotorhead, cease fire!” I knew that I would have to be surgical: to cut my way through the mass in order to help save half the block from being completely torn apart.

Looking up, I saw Crusher. Something wasn’t right. He stood still and rigid like a stone statue; his helmet display was missing its telltale orange-white glow. I double-blinked to zoom, and what I saw nearly made me flinch.

I may be enhanced, but at core, still human.

Detonator separated from the dead bomber’s vest, I unholstered the stunner at my left hip while switching from “Non-Lethal” to “Gun”. All emotion was pushed a million miles away as I shoved forward into the rain-soaked urban battlefield. Fear will have to wait; now, it’s time to fight.