The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3) Page 6

  The man dropped into a crouch, a ready stance with his knees bent as Frankie raised her gun and fired.

  He scurried sideways, leaping from the top of the stairway and up onto the wall above her, claws from two of his arms slamming into the wall to propel him upwards and forwards.

  Frankie backed off, tracking him with her gun and trying to bring it to bear on him, but he was simply too fast and sprang from the wall once more.

  He hit her like a freight train, slamming himself into her with his shoulder and knocking her back against the wall and onto her backside.

  He wound up his arm once more, moving to swing at her with his wicked clawed hand. Frankie smashed her gun forward into his face as hard as she could, trying to give herself room to manoeuvre. She saw the clawed hand coming in to rake at her body, and swung her arm out left to parry it away as she noticed an arm to her right bringing a gun to bear on her. She kicked at it, smashing her boot into his hand and knocking it away for the time being.

  She felt like she was scrambling for an advantage in a street fight that had been reduced to a scramble on the floor as arm after arm went for her, punching, kicking, stabbing, or shooting at her.

  Somehow, although, she wasn’t sure how exactly, she managed to get her foot up between them, and with all her strength, she kicked out, ramming her foot into his chest and sending him soaring into the wall behind him. Frankie twisted and rolled left, jumping down the stairs to the landing below as gunfire sounded behind her. The bullets exploded into the wall where she had been fractions of a second before, sending plaster and stone flying as she turned to face him. He moved like an insect, skittering over the floor one moment, before leaping to the wall as she fired at him. She scored a couple of hits, but they seemed to just spark off his armour, doing barely anything to him at all.

  He leapt again, but she’d been ready for it, and dodged sideways at the last second. He flew past her but reacted in time to drop into a roll and skid to a halt next to her, just in front of the fire door to the room with the elevators.

  Frankie kicked, smashing her foot into his chest for the second time and threw him backwards again.

  He hit the door with enough force that it flew off its hinges, but he caught the door frame with four of his arms to keep from falling too far back.

  He went to bring the two pistols he was holding up to aim at Frankie, but she was already there with her own gun aimed at him. He twisted away as she fired, using his two extra artificial arms on his left side as shields.

  He fell back through the door with a yell and scrambled away from her as she continued to fire. She just held down the trigger and advanced upon him, not letting him get away from her as her bullets shredded his prosthetic arms.

  Her gun clicked to empty. Frankie cursed silently to herself. She should have been monitoring it a little more closely.

  The man lowered his arms and sneered at her. Suddenly, he was up and, with a wild yell of someone losing control, he charged her.

  He looked crazed as if the anger had taken over and he wasn’t thinking about what he was doing anymore. He looked like he just wanted to rend her limb from limb with his blood covered face and the broken mess of the two extra left arms trailing loose wires.

  She didn’t put any finesse into it as she went to kick him again, broadcasting her action way too early, figuring he was too mad to notice.

  Suddenly, he shifted right and swept her raised leg with his arm. Frankie spun and found herself in a bear hug with his arms gripping and squeezing her. If she’d still needed to breathe, she would have been struggling right now

  One of his right hands went for her with its claws, but with limited movement in her pinned arms, she somehow managed to knock it away by swinging her rifle at it.

  Frankie needed to get herself out of the hug; she was at a huge disadvantage and would end up on the scrap heap if she couldn’t free herself quickly enough.

  Frankie planted her feet and threw her body forward, managing to lift him bodily off the floor with a grunt of effort.

  With the little extra control she now had, she threw herself backwards, hoping to slam him into the wall behind her with as much force as she could muster.

  They careened back, a touch further than she expected, suddenly hitting what turned out to be an elevator door, but she only realised that after the doors had buckled and they were dropping into the lift shaft beyond.

  The attacker let go of Frankie as they fell, probably thinking he had more pressing concerns than to hold onto her. Frankie twisted and grabbed him, forcing him to fall face down and keeping him beneath her as the ground shot up. Barely a second later they landed, somewhat awkwardly, the multi-armed man lay still, his head cracked open and blood leaking everywhere. Frankie dropped to the floor from the crouch she had landed in and took a moment to think. She had no idea how she had managed to survive that. Whoever that was, he was quick and skilled. He’d made a few fundamental mistakes, though, which had cost him in the end. Frankie focused on the display in her vision and took note of the extra red flashing icons in there.

  She’d taken some minor damage in the fight itself, but the fall had given her some stress fractures in her endoskeleton, which her cyberbrain now reported were being repaired by her Nanobots.

  She’d tried to make this a controlled landing, but she’d been fighting this man the whole way down and frankly, was surprised she’d escaped with as little damage as she had.

  She checked her weapon. It seemed fine and undamaged, but she still had the empty magazine in there.

  Gingerly, Frankie brought herself up into a standing position, noting a couple of minor warning icons warning her of extra stresses on her frame that were even now being repaired.

  Standing up, she looked down at the body at her feet. His head was cracked open, and she could quite clearly see the organic matter within his reinforced skull.

  He was dead, and he was one of Hellion’s team. He was tough, but not invulnerable. Could she take these guys? If the fights were all one on one, maybe, but what were the chances of these guys fighting fairly?

  Unlikely, she thought.

  A noise, movement maybe, suddenly caught her attention, and she realised she still had to reload her rifle. She ejected the magazine as the lowest doors, the bottom of which were at waist height for her, slid open beside her.

  The familiar sound of guns being cocked filled the lift shaft as she held the new full magazine in her hand, ready to slam into her gun.

  ‘Don’t you fuckin’ dare,’ said a voice.

  She looked up to see about five or six men and women, all with guns of some kind, aiming them at her. These weren’t operatives though, they clearly didn’t work for the Corporations, and, if she had to guess, she would say they were most likely to be gang members.

  Frankie raised her hands in surrender. There was no fighting and surviving this.

  3.08

  ‘Drop your gun,’ said one the gang members. He had a huge cybernetic left arm with all kinds of blades and gun attachments on it. It looked kind of ridiculous, but also wickedly lethal. Frankie wondered how he slept with it. He could roll over and kill himself without even knowing it.

  Frankie held her rifle out and slid it onto the ground before them, being careful not to do anything to provoke them, yet.

  They backed off a touch at the lead gang member’s direction. ‘Out you come,’ he said.

  Frankie climbed up out of the lift shaft and stood up before them, raising her hands again. They were in a basement of some kind. It was dark down here, with just a few lights shedding a dim light around the area they stood within.

  It was a room, a few meters across, with pipes and cables running along the walls and ceiling with a few corridors leading off in different directions.

  ‘Come over here,’ he said, bringing her closer to one of the lights. Frankie stepped forward, cautiously, looking around the room at the gang members surrounding her. They all had fairly obvious prosthetics, fro
m replacement arms or legs to eye augmentations and more. They were Jackers, she felt sure of that, and they were likely looking at her as potential prey. She’d been hurt and scratched a few times in the fights she’d been in already, making it obvious to anyone getting a good look at her that she was a cyborg,

  Plus, they found her standing over a dead body, also clearly a cyborg, after having dropped down a lift shaft and was apparently unharmed. They would have to be idiots not to suspect something.

  Frankie stepped into the light.

  ‘Hey, Gus, I think we have some good salvage here,’ said a voice from behind her. She looked back to see one of the Jackers had dropped down into the lift to have a look at the man who had attacked her.

  ‘Good,’ Gus said, his weapon arm clicking as some of the blades actuated. ‘We might have some here, too.’

  Frankie raised her eyebrows incredulously at him.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, you know what we do, right?’

  ‘I do,’ she said.

  ‘Good, then please, don’t be offended. It’s nothing personal,’ he said.

  Frankie knew what was coming. Her highly attuned senses could hear and almost feel the movement and knew what was about to happen. ‘As long as you don’t take this personally,’ she said, before she spun around, grabbing the gun that the Jacker behind her had been pointing at her head and twisted his arm. She forced the gun around and pointed it at the underside of the Jacker’s jaw and fired. Blood went everywhere as Frankie moved again. Swinging the body around and throwing it into the Jackers at one side of the room before ducking under the huge handgun of the man closest to her on the other side, breaking his arm and then smashing her fist into his nose, making it explode with blood. Frankie brought the gun up to point at Gus.

  ‘Wait! Frankie, stop!’ said a voice from nearby. ‘All of you, freeze.’

  Frankie paused, her finger hovering over the trigger as she pointed it at Gus’ head. She flicked her eyes sideways and watched as a figure rolled into the room on tracks where his legs should have been.

  She recognised him and started to relax her stance as shock washed over her.

  It was Jude: the young man she had been talking to and helping when a Jacker gang had attacked and shot her a few months ago. They had taken Jude. She thought they’d killed him, wanting his prosthetic legs, but here he was, alive.

  She couldn’t quite believe it.

  She’d spent the entire time since then feeling guilty for not having protected him, thinking he had been murdered, killed by the Jackers who were after his legs. Apparently, though, he had survived.

  ‘Jude?’ she asked.

  ‘Hello, Frankie. It’s been a while, hasn’t it.

  ‘You’re… I can’t believe you’re alive? Is it really you?’

  ‘It’s me, in the flesh,’ he said.

  ‘But, I thought…’

  ‘Understandable. They did take my legs,’ he said, gesturing down to the strange tracks - like tank tracks - that he was wheeling about on.

  ‘But they let you live?’ she asked.

  ‘They had an opening, so they hooked me up with this sweet ride,’ he said, sarcasm dripping from every word, ‘and now I’m here.’

  ‘Jude! Who the fuck is this?’ Gus asked.

  ‘Sorry, man, this is Frankie. She’s a good friend of mine, so I’d appreciate it if you would stand down, for the moment,’ Jude said.

  Gus looked back at her, a mix of fear and anger in his eyes.

  Frankie smiled at him. ‘Sorry, man, it wasn’t personal,’ she said, echoing his earlier comment.

  ‘Fuck off, you killed T-Bone,’ he said.

  ‘And he would have killed me. Hey, I was about to kill you, so you should be thanking Jude, here. He just saved your life,’ she said.

  Everyone had recovered by now, and several of them pointed their guns at Frankie again. Gus looked over at Jude, and then back to Frankie.

  ‘So… What? I owe you one? Is that it?’ Gus asked.

  ‘Hey, this is on me. I’m taking her back to Spider, so she’s my responsibility. Got it?’ Jude said.

  Frankie looked over at Jude, feeling surprise and admiration. He’d been quite timid and broken when she’d last seen him, now he was standing up to Jackers. This was a new side to him.

  ‘Sure, why not. She’s your call,’ Gus said, clearly wanting nothing more to do with it and moving over to the lift shaft. People lowered their guns and walked away and picked up the two bodies, both of which would be salvaged for parts now.

  Jude rolled over to her. ‘I can’t believe you’re alive,’ he said to her as a message appeared in her vision.

  -New Link Request – Jude Cornell.-

  Frankie accepted it. ‘Yeah, I am. Seeing you alive is something of a shock to me, too. I guess you somehow convinced them to spare you?’ she asked through the neural link they now had between them, allowing them to speak silently.

  ‘I overheard them talking about the loss of one of their guys. Sounded like a computer guy, a hacker, maybe, anyway, I was able to convince them that I could be of use to them. Spider, the gang’s leader still took my legs, but they saved my life. Eventually, when they saw that I was actually helping them, they fitted me with these so I could move about, but it’s not easy,’ he said, scowling at the prosthetics.

  ‘I can imagine,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I survive. It’s better than living in the camps, but not by much. I’d love to get out of here,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, let me see what I can do,’ she said.

  ‘You’re going to get me out of here?’

  ‘I’m going to try,’ she clarified. She’d attempted to help him once before, and had ultimately failed. She’d thought she’d blown it, lost her chance to help him, guessing that he had been killed by the gang that had taken him away. But now she had a second chance. How many times in life did you get a second chance at things like this, she thought? She swore to herself that if she got out of here alive, she would take Jude with her, no matter what.

  ‘Okay, well, good luck with that. But tell me about you, how come you’re alive? I saw Razor shoot you,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you’re right; that woman did shoot me. But I was found and saved by a back alley doctor and given this new body. There’s not much of the old me left anymore, just what’s in here,’ she said, tapping the side of her head with her finger.

  ‘Shit, man, I thought you were against all this,’ he said, gesturing to his tracks.

  ‘I wasn’t against it, I just never really wanted to do it. It just didn’t appeal to me,’ she answered him.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

  ‘It was difficult to come to terms with, and I still struggle with it a bit, but, for the most part, I love my new body and what it’s capable of.’

  ‘So, how come we just found you in a lift shaft? With a dead body?’

  ‘Well, that’s a long story, but let’s just say that me and my friends fight against the Corps, and that was a Corporation hitman,’ she said.

  ‘You and your friends? So, you’re not alone?’

  ‘No, I got separated from them, so I need to find them,’ she said.

  ‘Then I think I have some good and bad news for you,’ he said.

  ‘Good and bad?’

  ‘I think I know where one of your guys is, but he’s being held hostage by the gang,’ he said.

  ‘Aaah, okay, so I need to come with you to meet this Spider and Razor anyway, then,’ she said.

  ‘You weren’t going to?’

  ‘Not if I didn’t have to. I don’t need the extra hassle,’ she said. Gus may have wanted to bring her back to his boss, and Jude would no doubt need to play by their rules to keep his position safe, but she had no intention of being captured by this gang. But, seeing as it appeared that they were holding one of her team hostage, she figured she might as well play along.

  ‘Okay, well, that’s something, I suppose. But, be aware, tensions are quit
e high right now with the Corporations all over the building,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ she answered him.

  ‘I’d guessed,’ he said.

  ‘Have they been causing the gang some trouble, too?’

  ‘They’ve killed a few of them, I think. I don’t get told everything,’ Jude answered her. Frankie couldn’t help but notice he had referred to the gang as “them”, revealing his view that he didn’t really think of himself as part of the gang.

  ‘Understandable,’ she said, thinking about it. One phrase started to run through her head that she hoped would be applicable here. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, and it sounded like the gang was not feeling too friendly towards these Corporation forces who were now on their territory.

  Frankie wondered if she might be able to recruit them to her cause. It was a long shot, but you never did know.

  ‘We’re heading back, you coming, Tracks? Don’t forget your girlfriend,’ Gus said as he wandered past, the two bodies being carried by the other Jackers.

  ‘Yeah, we’re coming,’ Jude said out loud.

  ‘Tracks?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘It’s a term of affection,’ he said, brushing it off.

  Frankie smiled to herself, raising her eyebrows at the same time.

  They didn’t go far, just a few rooms and corridors over before they dropped down into a sub-basement. A few more passageways along and Gus walked up to a door and bashed on it. A security hatch on it slid sideways for a moment before it was closed again and the door opened up to let them in.

  Gus led the way, with Jude and herself bringing up the rear. Frankie walked in beside her friend and into a large garage that seemed to go back a fair distance and looked to have partition walls to separate areas. Frankie spotted several motorbikes in here, some of them were being worked on by other gang members who now looked over at Gus and his group.