Berserker (Messenger Book 2) Read online

  Through it all, Janice had been exposed to humanity in its raw form, not filtered by layers of technological comforts, brainwashing propaganda, and pacifying pharmaceuticals; and what she had beheld was hideous: violence and savagery, survival of the fittest, no care for anything but one's own life and comforts. To call man an intelligent beast was an insult to the beasts.

  The worst part to Janice was knowing that she was human too, that she possessed all the same vile traits that filled her with such disgust in others. She would have given anything to rise above that, but she knew that was impossible.

  But to become a monster—that, at least, was within her grasp. At last, she could shed all vestiges of the humanity she hated so much and become a hunter of her own kind. It was everything she could ever hope for, abandonment and revenge all in one.

  Not everything within Janice longed for this nihilistic path. The best part of her recoiled in horror at what she threatened to become. But the Voice within had been eroding her resistance for weeks—no, for years. It had been whispering to her ever since she had arrived on Chalice, since long before she was consciously aware of it. And now, in such close proximity to the Cage, the last vestiges of her opposition crumbled away.

  Slowly, her mouth widened and her eyes narrowed into a smile of demonic exaltation. She turned to face the Regents, her eyes glittering.

  “OK,” she said. “Let's do it.”

  Twenty-third Escalation

  and the words that I've left unsaid

  “You do realize that this is insanely dangerous, don't you?”

  Hector glanced at Celeste, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the borrowed utility vehicle. Clouds of dust kicked up by the tires obscured the orange dunes of the Sunderland stretching to the horizon on all sides. Celeste continued staring out the window, ignoring Hector's objection.

  “I mean, almost the entire global comm net is down,” Hector continued. “The military is keeping some direct lines to the orbital elevator operational, so they can keep in touch with their boys in orbit. But most of Chalice is under a communications blackout, so we don't know what's going on anywhere. The 122nd had some aerial feeds of the settlement, and the place is a frickin' ghost town. You know what that means, right? It got hit by the pandemic.”

  Celeste turned her dichromatic gaze on Hector. “Or it could mean that they're all hiding.”

  “It could mean that,” Hector admitted. “But it probably doesn't. We could be walking right into a whole freaking nest of Messengers, and then it's game over for us.”

  “That's what these are for.” Celeste raised a pair of binoculars. “And this.” She held up a radiation detector.

  “Great,” Hector snorted. “Even if we can steer clear of the Messengers, ol' Doc Fingers is probably dead anyway.”

  “It's still worth trying,” Celeste said. “Even if the odds are a hundred to one against.”

  “I think that figure is a little optimistic.” Hector sighed. “So you're dead set on going through with this. Why is it so important to you to get decommissioned? I get that your physical handicaps must be a pain in the ass, but it hardly seems worth exposing yourself to certain death to get them cured.”

  When Celeste didn't answer, Hector added, “I heard that you were there when they offed the little urban thief. You really want to be the next one to get strapped down on a table while they inject you with fatal poison?”

  Celeste took her gaze off Hector and stared out the window. She thought a long time before answering.

  “I'm told that if I'm lucky, I'll live to maybe fifty, as long as my augmentations remain in effect,” she said. “And that whole time, I'll be dependent on Esther to produce the nutrient solution for me. If anything ever happened to her, it would be my death sentence.”

  “All this risk, just so you can live a few extra decades?” Hector said skeptically.

  “No, you're right,” Celeste admitted. “That's not the real reason. I...” She held up her left hand and struggled to clench it into a fist. “As much as I despise the Union, they revealed an important truth to me. I'm a fighter. As long as I remain a cripple like this, I feel like half a person. It's eating me alive.”

  “So you want to be a warrior again.” Hector nodded. “That I can understand.”

  Celeste let her useless hand drop back into her lap. “Please realize, this isn't some macho ego trip. If the world were peaceful, I could accept being an invalid. But there's still so much to be done, and I can't stand watching my friends fighting and getting hurt while all I can do is sit on the sidelines.”

  “I liked your other answer better,” Hector said. “About becoming a warrior again. How about we stick with that one.”

  Celeste glanced at Hector out of the corner of her eye. She had a knowing look in her gaze that Hector didn't like.

  “I know who you are,” she said after a long pause. “We've met once before, but I guess you don't remember me.”

  That caught Hector off guard. His coarse features furrowed as he pored through his memories. Finally, he snapped his fingers in sudden realization.

  “Hongpan,” he exclaimed. “Two augments came by to taunt the captured drug runners while we were in the holding cells. Well, I'll be damned. So who was it that trashed my exosuit in that fight? You or your hyena faced partner?”

  “My partner.”

  “Unbelievable.” Hector shook his head. “Sure is a crowded world, isn't it. Well, I ain't holding no hard feelings, sweetheart. We're all just making the best of the cards we're dealt. Yesterday's enemies, today's friends. Such is the way of the world.”

  “So it would seem,” Celeste said absently.

  A few minutes later, they came to the edge of a rocky dropoff. The town of Al Hufayr was visible in the distance, dyed crimson by the evening sun. Hector parked the vehicle and walked to the edge of the dropoff with Celeste. He activated the low light vision in his cybernetic eye and zoomed in on the town while Celeste looked through her binoculars.

  “Nothing. It's a ghost town, all right,” Hector said. “Any reading on the radiation detector?”

  Celeste lowered her binoculars and checked the detector. “No. But of course at this range there wouldn't be, even if the town is crawling with Messengers.”

  “Will that thing even be useful?” Hector asked. “Or is this one of those cases where if it's picking up a reading, we're already screwed?”

  “No, it will give us a little leeway,” Celeste said. “It's sensitive enough to detect less than lethal concentrations of repil radiation. But the second it starts beeping, that's our cue to run the other way.”

  “Fantastic,” Hector said. “Well then, let's get this suicide mission over with.”

  He retrieved a battle rifle, two pistols, and spare magazines from the back of the utility vehicle. He kept the rifle and one pistol for himself and handed the other pistol to Celeste. Her crippled arm prevented her from wielding a rifle effectively, but she would still be able to use a handgun. They tucked their weapons away beneath the desert cloaks they wore in place of their uniforms.

  Armed and ready, Hector found a part of the dropoff with a relatively shallow grade and led the way down the rocky incline, helping Celeste descend the more dangerous areas. Despite her impaired mobility, she demonstrated surprising facility in climbing down the slope. Or perhaps not so surprising, Hector reminded himself. Crippled or not, she was still an operational Chi strain.

  Preceded by several dusty rocks dislodged by their descent, Hector and Celeste reached the bottom of the slope. As they made their way across the sandy plain toward the dilapidated structures of Al Hufayr, Hector kept a constant watch on the radiation detector, as well as scanning the line of buildings through his cybernetic eye. He didn't like how exposed he and Celeste were out here in the open, but there were no better approaches. At least the deep shadows of twilight would make them more difficult to spot by unaided vision.

  Soon, they reached the edge of the town. Except for a breeze bl
owing dust through the empty streets, Al Hufayr was as silent as a tomb. Keeping to the shadows, Hector and Celeste moved deeper into the town. It had been years since Hector had last come here, but he still remembered the approximate location of Dr. Whisker Fingers' office.

  They were hardly a block into the town when the wind carried the stench of death and decay into their nostrils. Around the next intersection, they found several rat-eaten bodies littering the street and sidewalk, along with a single charred skeleton surrounded by burn marks.

  “Saris' Eyes,” Hector hissed. “Anything on the detector?”

  Celeste checked. “It's clear.”

  “I told you this place was a death trap,” Hector said. “There's no way the doc is still here. We should get the hell out.”

  “We've come this far,” Celeste said. “We should at least check out his office. If he got out before this town was hit, there might be some clues as to where he fled.”

  “For blood's sake. I should demand hazard pay for this.”

  “You're a mercenary,” Celeste pointed out. “All your pay is hazard pay.”

  They continued deeper into the city, finding more half eaten bodies that still carried traces of the wounds which had led to their violent deaths, as well as a handful of burned remains. Storefronts had been shattered, and the broken remnants of goods too damaged or worthless to be worth stealing lay scattered amidst the corpses. Although they saw no signs of life, Hector's sixth sense told him that they were not alone within the ruins.

  After a couple of wrong turns owing to Hector's faulty memory, they arrived at the old dance club beneath which Doc Fingers' office had been located. There was no dancing going on here anymore. Hector led the way to an alley behind the club and tried the back entrance. Finding it unlocked, he flung the door open and activated his low light vision, making his way down the stairs into the basement. Celeste limped painfully after him, her own enhanced vision eliminating the need for a flashlight.

  An old sign hung lopsided at the bottom of the stairs, proclaiming, “Office of Dr. Whisker Fingers. No certification means no reporting and no legal complications! Let the finger cure all your medical problems—legal, illegal, legitimate, or morally ambiguous. Loan services available. Free consultations.”

  The door was locked. Hector readied his rifle and forced the door open with one swift kick. He ran through with his rifle at his shoulder, ready to shoot anything that moved. Celeste was hot on his heels, holding her pistol in her good hand.

  The office had been stripped bare. All the medical supplies in the drawers and cabinets, computer, machinery, chairs, even the examining table—everything was gone. A single solar lantern sat in the middle of the empty floor, providing the suite's sole source of illumination. In one corner, gaping in fear at the new arrivals, huddled a man and woman in their thirties or forties. A mostly empty vial of clear liquid lay next to them. The room was filled with their stench mixed with a pungent chemical odor.

  Hector dropped the muzzle of his rifle, but remained alert in case the squatters turned hostile. “Where is Doc Fingers?” he demanded.

  The squatters responded with slack jaws and wide, red-rimmed eyes. Although they registered the presence of the intruders, that seemed to be the limit of their cognitive capabilities.

  “For blood's sake,” Hector snorted. “These wipes are strung out on ether shroud.”

  “Can we get any information out of them?” Celeste asked.

  “We can try, but don't get your hopes up.”

  Hector stomped over to the squatters and leaned over them. “Hey assholes. I'm gonna say this nice and slow, so sort out what's left of your brains and listen close. Where is Dr. Fingers?”

  They stared blankly up at him.

  “The guy who used to live here,” Hector tried again. “You know where he went?”

  The woman's slack mouth curled into an empty smile. She reached up to paw at Hector. He swatted her hand away and backed off in disgust.

  “They're wasted,” he said. “Probably nothing left in their skulls but jelly. They ain't talking, and as the only thing left in this office is their stash, I don't think we'll find any clues about where the doc went. You ready to get out of this pit yet?”

  Celeste could not conceal the disappointment in her voice. “I guess we don't have much choice.”

  As they turned to leave, the man rasped in a barely intelligible voice, “Who are you?”

  Hector stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, so now you want to talk?”

  “Who are you?” the man repeated.

  “Just a couple of travelers.”

  The man let out a sickly laugh. “There's nothing here. You're both idiots, picking over a corpse what's got no meat left on it. Just the... invisible light.”

  “This place used to be a doctor's office,” Hector said. “You know where that guy went?”

  “Dead, probably.” The man flicked a piece of lint off his pants. “You'll be dead too if you stay here. Dead from the light.” He let out another crazy laugh, then his eyes glazed over and he lapsed back into a glassy stare.

  “Let's get out of here,” Hector said in exasperation.

  As they traipsed back up the stairs, Celeste said, “You used to peddle that stuff, didn't you? Or at least, that gang of drug runners you worked for did.”

  “Yep,” Hector replied. “Never used it myself, though. Nasty stuff, ether shroud.”

  “I wonder how many lives you ruined with that garbage.”

  “Hey, don't blame me for other people's bad habits, sweetheart,” Hector said. “If they didn't buy it, we couldn't sell it.”

  “If you didn't sell it, they couldn't buy it,” she shot back.

  They emerged back into the red evening light. Hector closed the door behind them, then turned to Celeste, towering over her.

  “Look, missy,” he said, “I'm doing you a big favor here. I'm risking life and limb to help you with your problem, and I ain't getting jack out of it. You might consider being a little nicer to me.”

  Celeste looked like she might have another angry retort ready, then she let out a sigh of resignation. “Whatever. The mission's a failure anyway, so let's just get out of here and put this graveyard far behind us.”

  “Exactly what I've been saying all along,” Hector said. “Glad to see you've finally come around.”

  They left the alley and emerged back onto the street. Within moments of starting back toward the edge of town, the radiation detector began emitting a faint chirp.

  Hector froze. “What's that?”

  “We're getting a signal,” Celeste said, her voice tight. “Repil radiation.”

  “Shit. Which way is it coming from?”

  “I don't know. The instrument isn't that sophisticated.”

  Hector spun in place, looking from one side of the street to the other. While he hesitated, the chirping from the detector grew louder. His mind raced. Unless a Messenger was overtaking them from behind, it probably lay in the direction they had been traveling.

  “It's probably in front of us,” he said. “We'll double back.”

  Celeste nodded her agreement and followed Hector toward the opposite end of the street, moving as quickly as her limp would allow. By the time they reached the intersection, the detector's beeping had grown slightly fainter. They took cover around the corner of a building and Hector readied his rifle, aiming it at the opposite end of the street.

  “Should come into view pretty quick, I'd imagine,” he said. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, my sweet Messenger.”

  The chirping of the radiation detector continued to intensify. Celeste checked the streets to the left, right, and behind while Hector kept his rifle pointed in front. Despite the cool evening air, he could feel his hands and brow becoming slick with sweat.

  Finally, something lumbered into view at the intersection a couple of blocks away. Hector zoomed in with his advanced vision for a closer look. The creature had been human, once—a woman by th
e looks of it. Now, advanced Messenger syndrome had reduced her to a shambling pile of malformed growths, the remains of her face twisted in a grimace of agony.

  Hector fired. The Messenger dropped and began flailing on the ground.

  “The detector is still getting a reading,” Celeste reported. “She isn't dead.”

  Hector continued shooting rounds into the flailing body until it grew still. A few seconds later, the detector went silent.

  “She's gone,” Celeste said.

  Hector lowered his rifle. “Those shots echoed through the whole damn town,” he said. “If there's anyone still alive in this hellhole besides those two ether heads, they know we're here now.”

  “All the more reason to expedite our withdrawal,” Celeste replied.

  As they started back down the street, the last vestiges of twilight vanished, replacing the red of sunset with the velvety blue of early night. Hector did not even spare a glance for the corpse of the Messenger as they hurried past it, keeping on the far side of the street from the gruesome body.

  After continuing straight for several blocks, Hector and Celeste turned to the right. As they neared the next intersection, several dark figures armed with pistols and shotguns emerged from around the corner. Hector and Celeste brought their weapons up, but they could see several snipers with rifles rise into view on top of the buildings to either side. A standoff ensued, with both sides silently aiming their weapons at one another.

  “We're not looking for any trouble,” Hector said after a brief silence. “Just let us pass, and we'll be on our way.”