novelraw Chapter 105: Soundless.
Chapter 105: Soundless.
V O L U M E F I V E
Chapter 104: New LayerTheria. 23:27.
"Street's clear." One of the spies murmured as they crossed the near-empty road. They slipped into an alley and stopped, not the kind of alley either of them was used to. No garbage, no stench, no discarded remnants of whatever the city preferred to forget. This one had charging stations built into the walls, clean and free to use. Just Sit and Charge was printed on placards at each one, and the slogan appeared again further down on a mounted sign, and again after that.
Elysium ran without currency. Everything was provided because everyone contributed, that was the logic the culture had been built around. A robot without work wasn't just idle here. The polite term was Open Thread. The common one wasn't polite at all.
The first spy went by S7, a designation assigned specifically to keep his identity out of any intercepted communication. Elysium held the entire Altean database, and the people in it had refused to surrender their names because of it, so field designations were the compromise.
S7 pressed himself against the side of a charging station while S8 stood at the alley entrance, smartwatch out, working through the map his superior had provided, compiled from satellite coverage that a few stations on the Western side still controlled.
S8 moved further in, scanning as he went. The alley was clean, aside from a few crates stacked without much thought in the far corners. Even robots cut corners sometimes. He searched for anything worth noting while S7 worked on the connection behind him.
Then S8 felt something shift at his back. He turned fast. Nothing there. S7 hadn't reacted either, still focused on the device in his hands. S8 turned back, and then he saw them. Two green eyes, low to the ground, sitting in the shadow cast by the base of the charging station. Small. Still.
S7 tapped at his screen without looking up. "The street's quieter than it should be. Don't they have enough units to fill a city this size?"
"Maybe." S8 kept his eyes on the green glow and reached for his weapon, bringing it up slowly. "Hey there," he said, barely above a whisper. "I don't like going after something small. But you'll report us the second we leave, won't you." He clicked the charge mechanism. "Sorry about this."
The eyes rose.
They kept rising.
One meter. One-fifty. One-ninety, at least. The figure straightening out of the shadow to its full height. Thin enough that the darkness had held it completely, right up until it chose otherwise. S8's face drained of color.
His voice cracked over the comm. "Phil—I mean S7, we have a problem."
"Why are you using my real name?" Phil turned without looking up from his device. "Let me work. The satellite connection isn't locked in yet."
“Sorry,” S8 kept his weapon aimed at the green eyes ahead of him, voice low and tight. "I'd strongly suggest not doing anything we'll both regret."
Sleek.
A black blade with a neon green edge passed through his left arm so cleanly, so quickly, that his brain hadn't registered the loss before his right hand was already reaching down to find out what had fallen.
Clank.
The sonic weapon hit the ground.
S8 looked down. Blood, spreading fast across the stone. He looked at his right hand, intact. He looked left, eyes dragging upward along where his arm should have been, following the absence all the way to the shoulder.
Then the pain arrived.
The scream that tore out of him bounced off every wall in the alley. Phil spun at the sound, reaching for his pack before he'd even fully turned. "Stop messing around—" He saw S8 on the ground and the blood beneath him and stopped talking entirely. "What the hell!" He dropped beside him, ripped the backpack open, and pulled out the bandages, wrapping fast and tight.
S8 had gone past words. The screams came in deep, ragged waves, each one worse than the last.
"What happened!" Phil pressed harder on the bandage.
"I DON'T KNOW!" S8's voice was raw with panic. "Green eyes, corner of the machine, and then my arm was just gone. I barely saw anything. A green blur, that's it. We need to move right now—BEHIND YOU!"
Phil spun, weapon up.
Obsidian stood behind him. Tall, still, blade in hand, no blood on it. The swing had been fast enough that none had stuck.
Phil pulled the trigger.
Obsidian was gone before the shot left the barrel.
The blast hit the wall, a compressed, localized sonic burst that pulverized the concrete into a fine, gray mist. It was a new design. A weapon built specifically to shatter armor, courtesy of the Western State.
Phil swept his weapon across the alley, corner to corner, shadow to shadow.
Obsidian came down behind him without a sound. The soles of his feet were lined with sound-absorbing material, no impact, no scrape, nothing.
"Behind you!" S8 screamed from the ground.
Phil turned and fired.
The alley was empty.
S8 pressed his palm against his eyes. "He was right there."
"I know." Phil moved in a slow circle, barrel tracking. "I can feel him shifting but the moment I turn, he's already gone."
A calm voice drifted down from above them. "Having a second pair of eyes calling out my position isn't exactly convenient for me."
Obsidian dropped from above, landed beside S8, and moved before Phil had even registered the descent.
Sleek.
The blade swept through S8's leg, clean through meat and bone, and Obsidian was already airborne again before Phil's finger found the trigger. He came back down in the same motion and clamped a hand over S8's mouth.
The scream came out muffled and violent as S8 finally understood what had just happened to his leg.
"Bite down!" Phil ordered.
S8 clamped his teeth into Phil's arm. The thick black vest absorbed most of it. Phil stripped it off anyway, leaving just the grey shirt underneath, ignoring the cold entirely. He raised his weapon and aimed upward, toward the edge above the alley, where the voice had come from.
The moment his eyes went up,
Sleek.
A neon edge passed through his leg just below the knee. He didn't feel it right away. He took one step, shifted his weight, and went down hard.
His leg remained upright for a moment, standing on its own.
Thud.
Then it fell.
Phil pressed his hand over his mouth. He'd been through enough to know how to absorb pain, Obsidian seemed to notice.
Sleek.
The arm covering his mouth came apart at the elbow.
Before Phil could process it, Obsidian was already behind S8. S8 had been watching Phil get dismantled piece by piece and had forgotten entirely about his own back. Phil tried to warn him, tried to raise what remained of his right arm and point, but the arm was gone below the elbow now, blood falling in a steady stream. He aimed anyway.
"S8—" His voice was barely holding together. "Run! He's right behind you."
S8 looked back.
The first thing he saw was the green eyes. He sat there on the ground, locked in place, trading stares with Obsidian for a few long seconds, neither of them moving.
"Who's the small one now?" Obsidian tilted his head and raised the blade.
Sleek.
The head dropped before the body knew it was over.
Thud.
The body followed. Blood spread fast across the stone, then the rain started, light at first, then heavy, washing the alley clean. It cleaned everything except Obsidian. He hadn't been touched. Not once. His footsteps were deliberate now as he turned toward the last man standing, slow enough that Phil could hear each one coming.
Phil pushed himself backward along the wall with what he had left, one hand, one leg, leaving a dark trail behind him that the rain erased almost as fast as it appeared.
"P-Please." He hit the wall and stopped. "Spare me. I'll tell you everything, the next operation, the plan our superiors have in place, all of it. Please. No more blind hits."
Obsidian stopped directly in front of him and drew his blade back with a sharp hiss, sheathing it cleanly. "Cooperation earns you the right to live. Good choice, Mr. Thomson Philip."
The man's eyes went blank. He was out before his head finished dropping.
Obsidian looked up toward the balcony overhead. Two E-PHONEUS appeared from the rooftop and pulled the body up without a word.
"Two of fifteen." He turned and walked away.