Chapter 127: Substance Abuse
I took a deep breath, keyed the mic, and gave the group the most honest battle plan of my entire career.
"...I don’t know yet."
The static hissed while four people seventy kilometers west absorbed that, and I kept going before anyone could beat me to the next part.
"So let’s talk about it..."
"...Huh." Kara’s voice came back dry as paper. "It took."
"I’m a fast learner." I chuckled.
"You’re a five-day coma patient."
"A fast one..." I retorted.
Nia snorted beside me, and on the far end, Nora made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sniffle, and the channel loosened another notch.
"But in any case..." I went on, "Nia and I would need a few days before we can head out."
"I want it said out loud, Nikki..." Kara said, and I could hear her pulling the conversation into her hands. "Every day you two sit in that penthouse is a day off her clock. I’ll do the trade if there’s a reason, but I want to hear the reason."
"The reason is that we’re useless," I said.
"...Elaborate."
"I lost a fight to a staircase this morning, Kara. Nia’s got one working arm and a bloodstream that just went twelve rounds with the end of the world... If we come to you right now, you’re not getting reinforcements..." I looked at Nia, and Nia looked at me, and she leaned into the mic with her chin up.
"You’re getting liabilities..." Nia finished it for me.
"So we sit still a few days," I added. "Eat, sleep, heal, let Doc’s schedule run us... and then we come to you strong enough to actually matter."
A pause worked through their end, and then Kara let it go with a long breath.
"...Fine. A few days. I’m counting them."
"Wouldn’t dream of stopping you."
"And how are you getting here anyway?" Leo came in slow from behind her, and I could hear the frown in it. "Seventy kilometers isn’t usually a lot... but these are no usual circumstances."
"We’ll fly." I chuckled, and the channel went silent for one full second before-
-Kreek-!
A chair scraped hard across the ground, and then the far side detonated all at once.
"FLY?!" Nora arrived first, at full volume, zero punctuation. "Fly HOW?!"
"Nikki." Leo, flat and careful over her. "...What did you do?"
"I got myself an NH90... It’s basically a tactical transport helicopter... and I used a System Integration Token on it, so it flies itself now. The System has direct control over it... It holds station, follows orders, runs its own threat math, and when I went down, it flew itself somewhere safe and parked. It’s got missiles too... the name’s Ghostbird."
Silence this time was that of a very different flavor.
"...Right," Leo sighed.
"Hold on..." Nia’s good hand came off the desk beside me. "He told me about the helicopter this morning. Flies itself, very impressive, husband material, whatever... He did not mention missiles." Her eyes narrowed at me. "What kind?"
[Ah... Right. That part.]
"...Spike ER," I replied with a grin. "And some HE rockets. Plus three fifty-cals on the doors, but those need hands on them."
The silence that followed had two different textures, one on each end.
Theirs was four civilians not knowing what HE or Spike ER mean.
Ours was an ex-army marksman rotating in her chair one vertebra at a time, sling and all, with her eyes shining wide and bright and way too hungry.
"Spike ER," she said. "Spike. E. R... Nikki, I watched one delete a bunker from four kilometers out, and we weren’t even allowed to touch the crate it came in."
"WE OWN A WAR HELICOPTER?!" Nora’s voice hit a register the speaker wasn’t built for.
"Mea," Tikki confirmed toward the mic, cracked and thin and profoundly smug.
"HE’S FLOWN IN IT?! The CAT has flight hours?!"
"Combat flight hours," I corrected.
The sound Nora made in response was not language, and under it I caught Leo’s low laugh, and under that, one quiet syllable from an old man.
"...Good," Mr. Norton said, and left it there.
Then Kara’s voice came through, flat and level and dangerously calm.
"Nikki."
"Present."
"First that Grapple Gun, then the Ascender, and then your movement with your Telekinesis... and now this helicopter... You’re basically Batman-"
"To be frank-"
"I’m not finished! You-..."
The volume ran out all at once, tidewater going, and the sigh that crossed those seventy kilometers came out long and tired and fond, and when she came back she came back quiet.
"...Does it have seatbelts?"
"Yes. My word of honor."
"Your word of honor died at that staircase this morning. Buy. Seatbelts."
"Yes, mommy..."
"Y-YOU-"
Nora’s cackle detonated over whatever came next, and I sat there at the edge of the bed grinning wide enough to pull at scabs, because this, exactly this, was the sound the world makes when it’s still worth the effort.
"Alright, alright..." Nia leaned in. "Because I know where his head’s going, and I want the crew’s input... The bird’s not staying stock. Tell them, Nikki."
"I have two upgrades in mind..." I said. "One, a fourth fifty-cal, chin-mounted, slaved to the System. Right now the bird can fly itself, but every gun on it needs a person, so out alone it’s all missile and no broom... I wanna give the System its own gun..."
"Right," Leo said, which from Leo is a signed permit.
"Two..." I said. "Napalm."
The word sat on the channel by itself for a second.
"I’m thinking, a belly rack, with drop canisters... And the tactic’s already field-tested... I’ve seen military use it in my previous life... the rotor noise alone pulls Infected in from every direction... So the bird just hovers around for a bit, rings the dinner bell, waits while the street fills shoulder to shoulder, and then it drops the sun on them... Burn, bank, repeat."
"A self-cleaning oven~" Nia’s grin had gone full unhinged professional. "Hover, let the density peak, drop, and the chin gun polices whatever crawls out the edges... I have goosebumps. Look at my arm."
"I’d like it noted for Kara’s records that the scary one is on my side," I said, giving Nia a side eye.
"Noted," Kara said wearily.
"The tactic’s sound," Leo said, slow. "But it needs open ground... You light that off between towers and the fire starts making its own wind, and the smoke takes your visibility with it. Do it over a field. A parking lot, a stadium... Not a street you ever want to walk down after. Besides, there are probably still people in the city."
"Agreed. Open ground only." I nodded instantly.
"And understand what that much fire is," Norton added, measured. "A column of smoke that size is a flare... Everything with eyes for fifty kilometers will know exactly where you are."
"Also agreed... We pick the venue like we’re hiding a concert."
"Could I fly it?" Nora said.
"No."
"Could the System teach me to fly it?"
The pause I left there was, in hindsight, a tactical error, because I could hear her writing something down.
"Look, none of it happens tonight anyway," I said. "Upgrades need me standing at the bird... For now, we heal, you hold, and everyone starts thinking about the money... so when we’ve regrouped, we vote on the play. Deal?"
"Deal," Leo said.
"Deal, and I’m timing the healing," Kara said. "Your hour’s up... Dinner. Then sleep."
"LOG TIKKI’S VOICE TOMORROW," Nora ordered. "Both scheds! Full syllables!"
"Mea."
"LOGGED!"
"Get here," Leo said, warm and level. "...All three of you."
"Home out." I smiled.
And the channel clicked over into soft, empty static.
Neither of us moved for a while after that, while the set hummed under its dials and the afternoon came through the panoramic glass in one wide white band that lay across the floor and halfway up the side of Nora’s bed.
"So..." Nia folded her good arm over the top of the SR-25, watching me sideways. "A few days of eating and sleeping... What’s Nikki actually going to be doing?"
"Glad you asked." Catching a light in her eyes a second too late and regretting immediately, "System, balance..."
-Ding!
{
Balance: 11,214,500 Credits.
}
"And pull up the Enhancers."
-Ding!
{
Physiological Enhancer: 250,000 Credits.
Cognition Enhancer: 250,000 Credits.
}
The panels hung there in all that afternoon light, bright and clean and completely invisible to the only other person in the room, so Nia read my face instead, then read the grin arriving on it, and sat up slowly.
"...Nikki."
"TK’s out of order for who knows how long..." I said, eyes on the panel "... which means this body is all I’ve got, and this body is basically an eggshell... So let’s see what we can do about that with eleven million."
"You’re not seriously-"
"Two fifty thousand credits each. And the cost climbs fifty grand every time you come back for another... which sounds like a punishment right up until you look at what it buys, because it isn’t half of what I started with, Nia. It’s an increment of half of whatever I currently am. Every single dose..."
[Two point two five x baseline. Three point three seven five. Five point six...Oh, that ladder goes stupid.]
"Nia." I turned to face her fully, and gave the question every gram of gravity it deserved. "How do you feel about performance-enhancing substances?"
She stared at me for three long seconds.
"...Professionally or recreationally?"
"Yes."
"Mea," said the only other enhanced individual in the room, without opening his eyes.
[Time to abuse some substances...]