Aura Overload

13 – Protocols in Place

Hector had only made it about twenty steps into the acid forest before a private comm channel between him and Kristy appeared on his AUI. He acknowledged it with a thought, and her voice came through: “Are you seriously going in there?”

“Need to concentrate,” he replied, scanning the strangely colorful world, made so by the multi-spectrum cams on his helmet. The helmet’s limited AI blended a dozen spectrums into a shifting palette, painting the midnight world in blues and greens, with acid burning bright yellow. He hoped it would be able to pick out any creeping reapers, too, because they were damn hard to spot. Their physiology let them match the ambient temperature almost perfectly. Their slow, deliberate movements—and their ability to break up their outline among the trees—only made it worse.

“You should have told Mathews to eat slag, Hector. We can find plenty to harvest out here; no need to go chasing fairy tales!”

Hector snorted, amused by her vehemence. Honestly, her sentiment was a little endearing; had he earned her loyalty so quickly? Back in the day, if a member of the team wanted to take a risk for a big potentia payoff, Hector couldn’t imagine he would have stopped them. What about now? The thought carried an image—Sass. Would he let her run into those woods, even if there was a good chance of her bringing back a potentia haul?

Bad example; Sass isn’t on this team. She isn’t ready.

As he was arguing with himself, Kristy kept talking, “Well, don’t be a hero, at least. We’ll be watching your signal.”

When he didn’t respond right away—not to be rude, but because he was staring at a dark spot on one of the trees, wondering if it was a reaper—Kristy cut the comm connection.

Hector held out his fist, slowing to a stop. Frederick saw the signal and stopped beside him, his armor sizzling with faint static as acid slid off the active shielding. “What?” he asked on their shared comm channel.

Hector’s helmet was painting the trees blue to contrast with the acid it identified, but that section of the trunk was dark, and it made Hector think it wasn’t a perfect match for the wood—temp or reflectivity or—

Even as he studied the shape, it flickered and filled in with flashing red; the AI had identified a potential threat. Hector and Freddy responded immediately, firing their rifles at the spot. The reaper unfolded, blood spraying in hot, iridescent droplets now that it wasn’t contained by the thing’s chameleon-like flesh. As it leaped at them, ignoring the damage their rifles had done, Hector dropped his gun, allowing the gimbal mount to stow it behind his hip, and summoned his Aura Blade.

As a crimson aura bloomed along his shoulders, flowing into his hand, Frederick beat him to the punch; with a series of compressed air bursts, he fired several dart-like projectiles out of his vambrace. They struck the leaping reaper and then exploded with arcing electrical discharges. The creature dropped, and Hector capitalized, stepping forward to decapitate it.

He looked at Freddy. “How many shots like that you got?”

“Twelve more.”

Hector nodded. “Good reflexes.”

The kid seemed to swell, and Hector would have bet his whole stack of bits that Freddy was grinning ear to ear inside that helmet of his. Evie, we’re still close to the edge. Put a pin here and alert Mathews so she and the others can grab the remains.

//Done.//

He snagged the cylinder off his belt—the high-end harvest extractor Mathews had given him—and held it close to the corpse. “Gonna scrape it, just in case they don’t pick it up.”

As the device hummed and softly ticked, Freddy said, “Thing wasn’t so bad. What’s the big deal?”

Hector made an affirmative grunt. “If you get eyes on them before they strike, they’re not bad—if you can dish out enough damage. Helps that you’ve got good gear.”

“And you’ve got that blade.”

Hector queried Evie, and she gave him an aura report:

//Aura Pool: 23/26

Aura Gain: 4.01 units per minute.//

The gain inside the rift was incredible—three times what he’d expect outside it. Still, in a prolonged fight, his ability to dispatch reapers had a hard limit. “Don’t have a huge aura pool, so we need to avoid combat if we can.”

Freddy didn’t argue; in fact, he added a new concern: “My batts are holding, but the shielding’s chewing through reserves. Four hours in this forest, tops—and that’s if I don’t burn juice elsewhere.”

“Yeah.” Hector lifted the extractor. “Damn,” he muttered, turning the display slightly. It had been a while since he’d scraped a reaper.

“Good one?” Freddy leaned toward him, angling for a view of the readout.

Hector held it up, exposing the little crystal-glass display on the near end: 112 aura potentia gathered.

“Should’ve just scraped it ourselves,” the kid remarked. “I mean, if you can.”

Hector started walking, keeping his head on a swivel, looking for any sign of reapers. “If Mathews is right about a bloom patch, this will be a rounding error.”

“You think she’s right?”

Hector didn’t answer but stretched his legs into a ground-devouring lope. He didn’t want to waste any time, not with the rift quickening, not with his acid gear slowly getting destroyed, and not with an unknown number of perfectly adapted killers stalking them through the woods.

The idea that he was being foolish hadn’t eluded him, but the reward warranted the risk. The otherworldly flowers were basically concentrated aura, a small percentage of which would be potentia.

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“I noticed you call them that, too, just like the commander—blooms.”

That got Hector’s attention, and he glanced sharply at the kid. “That’s what they are.”

“Sure, I get what you mean, but that terminology’s outdated. They’re fungi—people call the aura clusters spores now.”

Hector growled, tuning the kid out as he scanned for threats. Acid hissed on his poncho, and the sizzle carried a new note. He glanced at his shoulder and saw that part of the droplet had gotten through onto his armor. “Come here.” He grabbed Freddy’s shoulder and jerked him around so he could dig through his backpack for another poncho. “When you get a look at the blooms”—he emphasized the word—“you can tell me if you think they’re a damned fungus.” He hated the idea for some reason—probably nostalgia; he’d gained quite a few levels from finding the big, beautiful flowers.

“Look, I’ve seen vids of the things. I’m just saying the latest, most widely accepted theories indicate that”—Freddy stumbled forward as Hector jerked the backpack closed—“the planet is riddled with a massive, like, mycelial network. That’s why they crumble and die when you separate them from the ground.”

Hector snorted and started jogging again. When he heard Freddy’s steps off to his left, he said, “People have been looking for a mythical mother bloom for centuries. That theory isn’t anything new.”

“I’m just saying—”

Hector cut him off. “Judge for yourself when you see them.”

They ran in silence for a while after that, but then his helmet’s AI highlighted a flicker of movement that was too big to be acid dropping. He slid to a stop, pressing close to a tree trunk as he peered around it toward the shape, flickering yellow about twenty meters ahead—the AI’s color for caution. “See that?” he asked in comms.

Freddy tapped his shoulder twice—the signal for affirmative. Hector lifted his rifle, but then Freddy shook him and pointed. “Another!”

Hector saw his mini-map populate with a new blinking yellow dot and stared that way. Sure enough, another deep shadow shifted slightly under his gaze. “We’ll need to do this smart. You stun the left one, and I’ll use a speed boost to take out the right—”

Hector’s further instructions were interrupted when the tree shuddered, giving away a third reaper’s attack from above. He pushed off the trunk, leaping back, tripping and falling to slide through acid-soaked mulch. The reaper came down, hissing and clacking its jaws, smashing a flurry of claw swipes into Frederick. That was when the others attacked, streaking through the darkness as Hector’s helmet erupted in red flashes and alarms.

###

Lemon paused outside Sass’s door. It wasn’t closed tightly, and she peered through, confirming her suspicions. Sure enough, the girl was packing a bag. Scowling, Lemon pushed the door open and stood in the doorway. When Sass looked up, arching an eyebrow, she said, “Really? You’re just going to take off while he’s in there?”

It was Sass’s turn to frown. “I’m not taking off. I’ve got something to do.”

“Something?” Lemon wasn’t sure why she was so irritated; maybe it was because of everything Hector had done for the girl. Maybe it was because she felt she owed it to Hector to stand up for him, even if he was going to let Sass walk all over him. “And if he gets out while you’re—”

“Lemon, will you please take a tranq or something? I’m going somewhere for Hector!”

Lemon’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Sass nodded, grunting as she heaved her backpack up onto her shoulder and strode toward her. Lemon stepped back; she wasn’t small by any means, but the girl was tall and…tough. Not to mention that darn skull was in full effect as she locked those purple-tinted eyes with hers. “Yeah, the day before he went in, remember? He took me out to breakfast?”

Lemon nodded. “Um, yeah…”

“Well, he asked me to go get something for him while he was in the rift.” Sass looked past Lemon down the dimly lit hallway. “Are the boys here?”

Lemon shook her head. “Just Kit, but he’s out back. Demon and Orin are in town.”

“Good, because this is between us.” Sass jammed one of her chrome fingers against Lemon’s chest. The jab was almost painful, but she didn’t show it—didn’t flinch back. “I’m getting something valuable that he left behind, and it’s important nobody knows where I’m going, okay? If anyone asks, just tell them I had some family business back in the city.”

“Is that where you’re going? Back to Helio?”

Sass shook her head. “Better you don’t know, but it’s fine if you want to assume that. Did he talk to you about…you know?”

Despite her best efforts, Lemon’s scowl turned into more of a worried frown as her stomach performed a little nervous flutter. “If he doesn’t come out?”

“Yeah.”

“Um,” Lemon licked her lips. What was the girl looking for? Hector had told her to keep the life insurance a secret, and the same with the bit-vault, so what was—

“Well, I don’t know what he told you, but listen to me,” Sass leaned close, and her voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Hector thinks someone was messing with him—those thugs who jumped him didn’t feel random to him. He wasn’t sure if it was related, but there’s a rich guy who’s watching him, trying to get him to agree to take part in the Tharsis Games. You clock?”

Lemon leaned back, a little startled by the girl’s intensity. “The, um, games?” She knew what Sass was talking about, of course; even down in J-district people bet on the games every year. It all sounded so strange, so completely at odds with what she thought Sass had meant, asking her about what Hector had said, that she didn’t have to feign confusion.

“Yeah, doll, the games. There’s big money involved with that shit, and unfortunately some powerful assholes have noticed Hector’s talent. You get that he’s not normal, right?”

Lemon licked her lips, staring into the intense, angry-eyed skull. This was not the same puppy-dog girl who’d been following Hector around all week, soaking up his every word, and being overly polite to everyone—not the same woman who’d been acting like a big sister to Kit. “What’s your game, then?”

Sass frowned, but her skull tattoo faded a little. She nodded, pulling her hand back and hooking her thumb under her backpack strap. “I’m not playing a game.” She sighed and rubbed her other hand over her short, spikey hair. “Really, I’m just nervous and, yeah, sometimes I have to act tough if I want to be tough. You know?” When Lemon arched an eyebrow, she added, “Really! I’m just trying to learn from Hector because he fights like nobody I’ve ever met. He fights better than most of the guys in the city leagues—even down in the trench! He promised to help me with my aura system, and…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“So what’s with all the whispering?”

“Well, Hector told me he gave Orin and Demon instructions to keep an eye on you and Kit, but he didn’t want them knowing about the other thing. He doesn’t want Grando to get word about the rich guy and the Games in case he starts sticking his nose where—”

“It doesn’t belong.” Lemon nodded. “I get it. How long are you going to be gone?”

“Just a couple of days.” Sass hesitated, her mechanical fingers tapping on her strap. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I still don’t get what the fuss is about.”

Sass’s skull tattoo almost faded to nothing as she leaned close and whispered, “Because people might use you to get to him.”

Lemon’s heart-rate quickened, and she felt her mouth go dry. “Why? We’re not related! He’s not my man, he—”

“That doesn’t matter.” Sass smiled.

She has a nice smile, Lemon thought. She should do that more often—quit hiding behind that skull.

Oblivious to Lemon’s internal monologue, Sass continued, “What matters is how things look. So, yeah. You be careful. Stay safe in the house and make sure those boys don’t slack off. Oh! One more thing. I’m sure Hector mentioned it to you, but just in case.”

Lemon was already feeling overwhelmed, but she tilted her head and asked, “What?”

“Don’t believe anyone who says he’s dead. I’m sure he told you, but he’s got protocols in place. If he really dies, we’ll know it, and it won’t be because some Imperial bureaucrat comes to break the news.”