Song of Redemption Read online

  “What do you want?” he asked, surprised that his voice was so calm.

  “What do we want?” the leader, a heavyset man with a bull neck, asked. “We want you off Safe Harbor.”

  “I’m a citizen, just like you. Born and raised here in Swansea.”

  “Don’t matter none where you were born,” the man said with a sneer as the other three laughed. “You’re a Genny now. An assault on all that’s holy.”

  “I am not a Genesian,” Rev said, noting the positions of each of them while he started to formulate a plan of attack.

  “So you say. You Marines, you think everything’s all secret behind the gates, but we’re not stupid, and we have eyes. We know they’re creating Gennies again, despite all the laws and stuff. Taking nature into your own hands, and we know what happens when you do that.”

  “And why do you think I’m some sort of android?” Rev asked, using the corner of his eyes to watch the guy on his right who seemed too excited for his own good. He was going down first or second, Rev decided right there.

  All four laughed at that. “Look at you. You look like they made you with wax, and then you melted. And your arm. They cut off arms first, then make you guys Gennies. Just like the old guy Monday night,” the guy on the right said.

  Rev slowly turned, his glare enough to make the guy take half a step back. “You were the ones who attacked Mr. Oliva?”

  “If you mean the old Genny, then yeah. Taught him a lesson.”

  Rev almost snarled in anger. He took three deep breaths and said, “Mr. Oliva is ninety years old. He lost his arm in combat years ago.”

  The first guy shrugged and said, “Then they shouldn’t have done that shit to him.”

  Rev was close to his breaking point, but he was going to try one more time. “Yes, I’ve been augmented. But only so I can fight the Centaurs. To keep you safe.”

  The first guy looked up to the night sky and howled. “Oh, that’s fucking precious. You expect us to believe that? Centaurs? Those ancient myths.”

  Rev wasn’t expecting that, and for a moment, he was taken aback. “You know we just call them Centaurs, right? They’re not like half man, half horse.”

  “They’re not like half man, half horse,” the first guy repeated, but in a high, sing-song voice. “They don’t even exist, you idiot. They’re a figment of the government’s imagination, all to keep us in check, under their thumb. Everything’s for the war effort, and they take away our rights. And you guys. You’re going to be the enforcers when they try to push us down.”

  Rev couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was Children of Angels-crazy. “I’ve fought them. They’re real.”

  “Sure you did. And if they’re supposed to be so tough, then how did you survive?”

  “’Sides, even if they are real,” the guy on the right said, “they sure the hell ain’t coming here. That’s all for the central worlds to worry about, so why do we have to suffer out here?”

  That was it. There was no reasoning with these idiots. “If I really am a Genesian, you know I can destroy all four of you, right?”

  The first guy smiled, his eyes glinting in the street light. He brought out a vibroblade and activated it, the hum unmistakable. “I don’t think even a Genny can stand up to this.”

  Rev’s warrior self took over, and he moved into a fighting stance. The man could be right. With a molecularly thin edge and point, it might be able to pierce Rev’s spider web. It would certainly do a number on his skin, and while that wouldn’t be fatal, it wasn’t something that Rev wanted to go through.

  But it was the guy on the right who moved first, whipping out a baton and moving in to coldcock him. Rev spun around with a spinning backfist, bashed through the baton, and connected with the side of the attacker’s head, dropping him like a sack of flour. But the move was designed to draw Rev out, and the first man was lunging. He was quick, with the reflexes of a street fighter. But Rev was quicker. He spun back, raising his social arm and catching the blade. The knife’s edge skittered across his arm’s metal surface, rising up along it until the blade nicked his skin on the shoulder. The man grunted in surprise before Rev’s right fist caught him on the chin.

  Rev had pulled the punch. Killing a citizen would be much harder to justify, even if they attacked first. And the man was tough. He staggered back, barely keeping his feet, his eyes unfocussed. But he managed to retain the blade, which he held out, pointing at Rev.

  One of the other two hit Rev from behind. Rev didn’t have time for him. He shot back an elbow into the guy’s face, feeling it crunch, then stalked forward. The man took one step, two steps back.

  “I’ll kill you, you metal freak!” he shouted, waving the vibroblade. “You should all die!”

  Quick as a snake, Rev’s social arm darted out and grabbed the man’s wrist, then twisted it upward. The man screamed in pain and went to his knee, but he wouldn’t let go.

 

  Rev’s anger was boiling, and while he knew Punch had been controlling the adrenaline surge, this was the first thing his battle buddy had said. And it was to protect these cretins.

  He poured power into his arm, crushing and twisting. Bones snapped, and the man finally let go of the blade, which stopped the vibration. It bounced off the sidewalk, now just an unremarkable-looking inert gray. Rev raised his right hand, ready to cave in the man’s head.

  “Stop, stop. Please,” the guy shrieked.

  There was a sudden dip in his anger, and Rev didn’t think it was because of the man’s pleas. If Punch could raise him to fighting mode, it stood to reason that he could take Rev back as well. He knew he should be angry at being manipulated, but he couldn’t muster up the emotion. Which made its own kind of perverted sense, if that was what Punch wanted.

  Rev let go, and the man fell to the ground and curled into a fetal ball. Rev turned around. Two guys were in motionless heaps, one of them, at least, groaning. There was no sign of the fourth guy.

  Damn. He sure beat feet quickly.

  His shoulder burned from the slash, but a little probing revealed that it was only skin. His spider web was still intact.

  What now?

  He was tempted to call the police. For attacking a Marine, the three—four, if the other guy could be tracked down—would get conscripted and find themselves in uniform soon enough. But he just didn’t want to deal with it, and even if he did, were these the kind of lowlifes he wanted fighting beside him?

  What happened couldn’t be hidden. The police would get involved, and they’d check the secdrone recordings. But if Rev didn’t hang there until the police arrived, if he didn’t press charges, then maybe the police would let it go.

  The autocab pulled up to the corner, and that was the deciding factor. Leaving the bodies in place, he got into the cab.

  “Camp Nguyen.”

  If the authorities wanted him, all they had to do is pull the autocab’s records. If they didn’t, then the four could rot for all Rev cared.

  4

  “Any bets on what this is about?” Tomiko asked Rev as they sat in the small theater in the bowels of the Second Division Headquarters.

  “Maybe we’re finally getting another mission,” Rev said.

  “They could have briefed us that back at Nguyen,” his fellow sergeant said. “No reason to drag us to Kamachi.”

  Rev looked around the theater. There were the three IBHU Raider Teams: the two from Second Division and the one from First, each one with a single Integrated Bionic Hoplological Unit Marine—Rev, McAnt, and Randigold. The rest were a handful of senior Marines. No Sieben employees, not even Doctor Chakrabarti, the IBHU civilian project lead, which was telling. Of the Marines, there was Colonel Destafney, another bird colonel who Rev figured was from First Division, two lieutenant colonels, four majors, and four sergeants major. Rev was more impressed with the sergeants major. One of them was Sergeant Major O’Hara, the Eighth Marines senior enlisted advisor. But Rev had never seen two of the rank in one place before, much less four.

  “Hey, what do you call a group of sergeants major?”

  Punch, his battle buddy, asked.

  “No. Well, maybe a little humor. I was just wondering. I mean, didn’t you tell me a couple of weeks ago that a group of crows is called a murder?”

 

  “Well, I’d hate to run into a murder of sergeants major some dark and stormy night.”