Extensis Vitae (22 page)

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud whistle from the crude outlaw Durdin. “Damn, Rin! You’re lookin’ fuckin’ good!” He was the first to pass below and he leered up at her. “Maybe Haze will finally let me take my turn with you. How would you like that?” he asked, grabbing his crotch.

Rin ignored him. “Don’t keep him waiting,” was all she said to the group.

Izzy winked at her as she passed by next. “He wasn’t lying, girl. You really are looking good. You should play with us—we could really have some fun together,” she giggled. Her breasts threatened to spill out of the tight, low-cut top she wore as she wriggled her chest at Rin. Izzy followed Durdin down the passage through the breached wall and into the cavernous storeroom.

Rin watched the rest of them pass. Mason looked her over and simply nodded in greeting. A few of the others spoke greetings, but for the most part, they ignored her and went on their way. They would be tired from the long trip and looking forward to food, drink, and rest. It was the perfect time for an ambush.

When they had all gone past her, she hopped down and followed them into the storeroom where Reznik was waiting.

***

They started spilling into the storeroom, laughing and bantering. Reznik watched the first two enter the dim room, unaware of his presence. A wiry man and a voluptuous woman were joking about Rin, from the sound of it. They started toward the corridor leading deeper into the complex, unaware of the danger that awaited them. Two more filed in behind the first pair.

The fifth person to enter drew Reznik’s attention. He was a muscular black man wearing a body armor vest and a low-brimmed dark gunslinger hat. He had a mechanical right arm that gleamed silver in the dim light. Reznik noticed the chrome glint of his eyes as he scanned the room.

This must be Mason
, he thought. From his manner, Reznik could tell he was the most dangerous of the group. He eased back the hammer of the shotgun.

Mason froze immediately at the faint sound, eyes locking on Reznik where he leaned against the wall in the gloom. A large, burly man with a shaved head and fiery beard loomed in the entrance behind Mason. The big man noticed that Mason had tensed up, and moved up beside him, eyes scanning for any hint of danger.

Mason raised a hand and those behind him stopped. The four outlaws already in the room continued walking, unaware of the situation.

“Who are you?” Mason demanded, scrutinizing Reznik. He had his hand near his belt, but didn’t move, as he saw the shotgun Reznik had leveled.

The first four into the room stopped at Mason’s challenge. They looked around, trying to find the source of the danger, hands going for their weapons.

“Don’t move,” Reznik called out. “First one to touch a weapon dies.” There were now a dozen outlaws in the room, four or five of them jammed into the entrance where Reznik wanted them. He saw Rin slip into the room and around behind the outlaws that had first entered. That was the signal that they were all inside. She made sure to put distance between herself and the entrance.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Mason demanded again. “I suggest you lower your weapon and get the fuck out of our way, or you’re a dead man. In fact, you’re desperately outnumbered, so I suggest you drop your weapon now and start talking.”

Reznik almost laughed. He wasn’t in the mood for talk, and knew that bloodshed would be inevitable. He noticed a bit of hesitation in Mason’s voice. That meant he was smart; he was wondering why anybody would be stupid enough to take on a dozen armed and battle-hardened outlaws by himself. He was waiting for the hammer to fall.

Reznik obliged him. He keyed the trigger for the anti-personnel mines he had planted near the entrance. He had carefully placed them so the force of the blast would be inward, so as not to risk collapsing the tunnel.

The first two charges went off in the entrance, the explosion sending shrapnel ripping into the outlaws still crowded at the choke point. The third mine had been placed a little to the right of the doorway, and it went off a split-second after the first explosion. Mason and the burly outlaw next to him were caught in the blast radius of the third charge. The big man was thrown forward, his arms flailing as he hit the floor. Mason had started moving the instant the first explosion went off. He dove to the side just as the third mine blew up, avoiding the brunt of the blast.

And then everything happened at once.

The four outlaws to the left of the entrance drew their weapons. Steel flashed in the shadows as Rin drew her katana. Reznik blasted the nearest outlaw in the chest with the shotgun, sending him down in a spray of blood. He pivoted to his right, searching for Mason. Somewhere off to his left, a gun started firing.

He saw movement behind some crates and fired another blast from the shotgun, blowing a crate to splinters. He heard a grunt as Mason took some buckshot. Reznik let the sawed-off shotgun drop and pulled the .45 in his left hand. Reloading the shotgun would take too much precious time.

Mason rose from behind the crates with a large gun in his hands. Reznik’s HUD highlighted the weapon, and he recognized it as an AA-12 automatic shotgun.

Oh shit
, he thought.
This could get messy
.

***

Rin slid along the wall unnoticed as everyone focused their attention on Reznik.

She saw Durdin and Izzy share a glance and their hands tensed up near their waists, ready to draw their weapons, yet mindful of the shotgun in Reznik’s hands.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Mason demanded.

Rin’s hand tingled in anticipation of drawing her katana and joining the battle. She knew that there would be no surrendering unless death was the only other option.

And then the explosives went off. Durdin, Izzy, and the other two near Rin instinctively ducked from the concussive blast. Her katana was already in her hand as they drew their weapons. One of the four near her was thrown back from a shotgun blast to the chest. Durdin managed to get off a couple wild shots from his pistol before Rin was on him.

She dove forward, sword slicing out as she came out of her roll. Durdin stumbled forward, his leg severed at the knee, and fell on the stump of his right leg. He looked down in shock and started screaming as blood spurted out.

“Rin, you fucking bitch!” he screamed before she silenced him with a stroke across the throat.

Rin saw motion in her peripheral vision, and instinctively parried the lash of Izzy’s electrified whip. The whip crackled as it wrapped around the blade of her katana, but the insulated hilt protected Rin from the electric charge.

Izzy untangled the whip before Rin could sever it. She readied another swing, but Rin was no longer there.

Rin had sensed movement behind her and had darted sideways as another attacker came at her with knives in both hands. The man threw a knife, but she easily deflected it with the katana. Another knife appeared in his hand and he lunged forward, slashing at her.

With the length advantage of her katana, Rin was easily able to keep him at bay. She slid sideways to keep Izzy in her peripheral vision.

And then the thunder of Mason’s weapon sent everyone diving for cover.

***

Reznik brought the .45 up and snapped off a couple shots at Mason, but the first went wide, and the second pinged off the shoulder plate of the outlaw’s body armor. The roar of the .45 was dwarfed by the thunderous report of the AA-12. Before Reznik could get off the third shot, the shotgun blast hit him in the arm, sending the revolver flying out of his hand. The second slug hit him squarely in the ribs, sending him into an unintentional pirouette. He clumsily dropped to take cover.

Mason slowly turned machine-like as he fired from the hip, the trigger held down and the automatic weapon firing slug after slug across the room. Storage crates were turned to splinters, and Mason carelessly hit one of his own men in the back who was struggling to rise after the explosion. The man fell back down without a cry, as the slug tore through his body and erupted from his chest. Reznik saw everyone taking cover, but couldn’t see Rin in the mayhem.

Mason’s shotgun finally ran out of ammo, the thirty-round canister having been expended in less than eight seconds. Streams of light pierced the shadowy room where the slugs had punched through the wall.

Reznik hurriedly checked himself for damage. Luckily, his nanites seemed to have absorbed both blasts, although he could imagine their protests from all the damage he was taking. He could easily have been dead already, instead of just having a couple ugly welts from the slugs. He looked around for his dropped .45, but couldn’t see it due to all the bodies and debris strewn around.

Mason stood among the wreckage and scanned the room, the light glinting off his chrome eyes and metal arm. The ribbons of light streaming in from the next room reflected off the smoke pouring out of the barrel of the shotgun. He let the gun drop on its sling, and a long blade appeared in his metal hand with a quiet
snick
.

Reznik saw the burly, bald man rise to one knee. He shook his head to re-orient himself, like a fighter trying to shrug off a powerful haymaker, and got back to his feet. The clothes on his back smoldered from the explosion, but other than that, he seemed relatively unscathed, other than looking angry. Now that he could get a good look at him, Reznik could see he looked freakish. It appeared that metal plates had been sewn under his skin. His limbs and torso bulged not only with muscle, but with the crude armor as well.

And that must be Angus,
he thought
. Looks like he’s got the low-budget type of dermal plating
.

Reznik got to his feet with nothing more than the heavy crowbar he had scavenged in his hands, and stepped forward to meet them.

***

Rin got back to her feet after the thunder of shotgun fire died down. The man with the knives came at her again. She feinted with a high stab and, predictably, the man ducked. She kicked him in the elbow and heard a
crack
. The man grunted in pain and one of the knives flew out of his hand. He lunged up toward her, off-balance. She dodged and saw she had an open strike at his back. She reversed the blade, punching it down and into the man’s back. The blade easily slid through the back muscles and into the man’s heart, dropping him instantly.

Looking around, Rin saw that Izzy was moving forward to try to flank Reznik. Two others were rising out of the clearing smoke from the explosives. Rin recognized Milena and Janko—two of the veterans of Haze’s group. Milena was a hard looking woman with short-cropped dark hair and a mass of scars and tattoos covering her rail-thin body. Janko was a tall, gaunt man with burn scars covering part of his face and half of his body. The two of them were both nasty pieces of work.

“Rin, you traitorous bitch,” Milena growled as she drew an Uzi submachine gun. Janko had his chainsaw in his hand. He hit the starter button and it coughed to life. “I don’t know how you were able to turn on Haze, but I told him not to trust you or those fucking tokens.”

“I had nothing to do with that. Haze died from his own overconfidence,” Rin replied, her eyes narrowing as she crouched into a defensive position, sword at the ready.

Janko didn’t say a word. He let the howl of the chainsaw speak for him.

Milena squeezed the trigger and the Uzi started spitting 9mm bullets. Rin dove into a roll and came up in a crouch with the katana twirling in her hands like a baton. Milena tracked her without letting up on the trigger, bullets tearing across the floor and through debris and bodies. As Rin came up out of her roll, Milena concentrated the stream of bullets on her.

Rin twirled the katana in a circle, the blade blurring like a propeller. Bullets sparked and ricocheted off the twirling blade, which effectively created a shield for her as she crouched behind it. Milena emptied the fifty-round clip of the Uzi. Rin felt the expected impacts of a couple bullets—one hitting her in the side and another across her thigh—but she deflected the majority of the rounds. The bullets that struck her failed to inflict any real damage.

Milena’s eyes widened in astonishment when she saw that Rin was unharmed. She fumbled for another clip as the swordswoman leaped at her. Janko jumped forward and shouldered into Rin, chainsaw hammering her katana blade aside in a shower of sparks.

Rin landed awkwardly and had to take an additional hop to regain her balance. Janko was almost on top of her, chainsaw howling as he lunged. Rin parried the chainsaw, and there was a horrendous sound of screeching metal and more sparks were thrown up, resulting in a violent recoil as Janko fought to control the machine. A normal sword might have shattered or been badly damaged from the fury of the chainsaw, but hers was no ordinary katana. The alloy blade was much harder than the teeth of the chainsaw.