torg 05 - City of Pain Page 2

  Havoc's four friends stopped dead in their tracks. They all remembered the bumbling would-be Mystery Man in the bright red suit.

  "Don't tell me he's a member?" Corey ventured.

  Havoc nodded again. "And to make it worse, he's probably one of their more powerful members."

  Daremo clicked his tongue, Kayla growled, and Marcel quickly crossed himself. The mission was starting to stink even worse, as far as Corey was concerned.

  "I'm tired of being handed assignments," Havoc declared flatly. "I'd much rather wander through Cairo and let the action find me. And if it isn't some desk-bound paper-pusher telling us what to do, it's the Gaunt Man or some other damned High Lord using us as pawns against the competition."

  Berge smiled and shrugged. "We are in the position to change things in this sad world," he explained. "It surprises me not that others seek us out for the succor we can provide."

  Daremo looked at his CyberFrench comrade, read the sadness in the man's eyes. Three years ago, he had turned away from Malraux and the atrocities he demanded of his Hospitallers. Yet, even with all the good Berge had done since then, he still carried the guilt of his past actions. Stranger, still, he continued to carry his Cyberpapal prayer beads ...

  "Daremo! Wait up!" a voice called from down the hall. The group turned to see one of the Japanese executives dashing toward them.

  "Go to the helicopter, friends, I shall be with you shortly," Daremo said, waving his friends on ahead. "He is a friend of mine."

  The man caught up to Daremo as the ninja's friends left for the heliport. "Konichi-wa, Daremo-san!" the young man exclaimed, grasping Daremo's hand.

  "Konichi-wa, Nakatone-san," Daremo said, smiling. It was good to see a friendly face from his world.

  "I came to say goodbye to you," Nakatone grinned. "And also to ask you, what do you think all this is about?"

  "Now why would you want to know that?" Daremo replied in exaggerated suspicion.

  Nakatone gave a shrug of resignation. "I work for the Rauru Block, you know that. Even though they oppose Kanawa, they are also interested in new technological breakthroughs, and a hefty profit. What do you think this priest fellow has found?"

  The ninja's expression was unreadable. "Look, Hikaru, I must go. I am the copter's pilot. If I find anything interesting, and I happen to remember it, then maybe ... maybe I will bring it back."

  The two men clasped hands warmly, and Daremo slipped down the hall toward the heliport.

  Once outside, Daremo saw that his four companions were strapped into the modified Oda Butterfly. Kay la the barbarian was, as usual, adverse to flying in mechanical contraptions, and she gripped her knees and stared straight ahead.

  Daremo put on his headphones and fired up the chopper. Huge droplets of rain began spattering on the cockpit's canopy. Daremo hoped this sudden ill weather wasn't an omen of troubles to come.

  Shortly after the helicopter had vanished into the afternoon sky, a solitary figure entered an office in the NATO headquarters. Picking up the telephone receiver, he attached a small device to it and began typing in a complex series of numbers.

  A few moments later, he heard the telltale sound of someone picking up on the other end of the line, but no words of greeting were spoken.

  "I need to speak to Mr. Kanawa," the man said. "Priority code Five, Four, Chrysanthemum, Crane, Fujiyama, Twelve."

  V V

  On the other side of the world, 3327, High Lord of Nippon Tech, sat in a corporate boardroom. He had been spending altogether too much time in such meetings lately, he knew — there were times when his role as "Ryuchi Kanawa," CEO of the Kanawa Corporation, was a bother. Surely he didn't believe he was still fooling anyone into thinking he was just another Japanese industrialist?

  The news was the same as it had been for months: budget cuts in all operations, lay-offs, failure. Nippon was losing ground on all fronts, and soon it would be time to cut his losses and abandon this cosm to its fate.

  A secretary entered the room bearing tea on a tray. All conversation stopped as a Kanawa security guard inspected the tray and ran a scanner'over her to ensure she carried no weapons. When she had been cleared, she served the tea and departed.

  Kanawa was spared any more dismal reports by the ringing of his private line. With a gesture, he ordered the room cleared.

  Now he was alone — or so he thought. Unfortunately, the result of a brief and passionate liaison between the secretary and the security guard had been the introduction of a listening device into the conference room, one carefully overlooked by the periodic sweeps. Yuriko, the secretary, now huddled over a small receiver in a private office, listening to 3327 discuss the Storm Knight called Daremo.

  Yuriko had heard of this one, but never met him. But it was clear she would have to get word to him somehow, and even the Rauru Block could not be trusted completely to carry a message this critical. No, there was nothing for it

  hut to travel to Berlin herself ...

  Pulling out a Misaki XE laptop computer with built-in modem, Yuriko logged into the Kanawa Corp's mainframe. Deftly hacking through passwords and other restrictions, she entered the Personnel directory and began her work.

  An hour later, the fruits of her labor became evident. She had been reassigned to Sato Investments, Berlin, Germany. She was to leave immediately.

  She smiled inwardly. Kanawa was so efficient, so well- organized — it was the corporation's only weakness, and one she would gladly exploit.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Of Demons and the Dead

  In the long months since the Tharkoldu maelstrom bridge had crashed into Humboldt University in Berlin, the city had undergone some drastic alterations. Entire neighborhoods had shifted, become dangerous in a way that even modern city-dwellers could respect... and fear.

  It was in one of these neighborhoods that the Deutschestheater und Kammerspiele loomed, gloomy and apparently abandoned, a silent monument to times that nostalgia made seem far better than the present. The building was no longer in use, since few were foolish enough to travel in this part of town. Strangely, the main doors remained unlocked, an invitation to things of the night, who would find only dust and cobwebs inside.

  But there were sections of the theater, small rooms forgotten by all, or nooks and crannies where the angles didn't seem quite right. In these special places, if the Fates were most unkind, a wanderer might find himself of a sudden beneath the building, in a sub-basement complex plucked from a madman's nightmare.

  The walls and floors were of a metal not of this Earth, and strange fluids whose textures defied description pooled on the tiles. Clouds of noxious steam shot out of conduits that appeared to be made of living, biomechanical materials.

  The corridors, a twisted maze bathed in a blood red or phosphorescent green light, turned in at angles that the human mind couldn't understand or navigate. The halls echoed with the sounds of small — and not so small — things that scrabbled over the living metal flooring.

  And then there was the screaming.

  You would hear the screams, faintly at first, echoing from some unknown point down the corridor. As you got closer, you would realize that the screams were very much liuman, and seemingly coming from everywhere.

  You might think you were in Hell, at first. But when you saw a flash of scales and cyberware in the corner of your eye, and heard the growl of a Great Alpha techno-demon on a hunt, you would know you were someplace infinitely worse: the Chakeum, nest of the Tharkoldu in Berlin.

  And that realization would be your last living thought...

  Twenty-four hours after the Storm Knights departed Brussels, a recovered Brother Deveaux worked at his computer terminal, humming happily to himself. Vutark watched the mad cyberpriest, while its aide, the Great Alpha Dechkez-Tar, watched its master.

  After a time, Vutark left Deveaux to his work, and ambled through the maze of hallways, Dechkez in tow, until the two Tharkoldu reached a vast, cavernous chamber. Vutark pressed an olive drab butto
n on the wall, and the clanking of machinery and the rattling of chains filled the humid air.

  Vutark and Dechkez watched dispassionately as a Race prisoner, missing both arms and legs, was lowered on a chain until he was at eye level. The man moaned in pain, which pleased Vutark — the demon plucked an acetylene torch from a nearby table and lit it, then set to work. It was in an artistic mood.

  But human screams had long since ceased to be much more than a diversion to some Tharkoldu. Dechkez touched its forehead as a gesture of submission to Vutark. "I do not wish to seem impudent," Dechkez began, eyes on the floor, stained crimson with blood. "But I ask for the Privilege of Freespeak."

  Vutark paused, amused. Its "work of art" collapsed into sobs and moans. Both techno-demons knew that a dominant Tharkoldu could either grant the right of Freespeak to a submissive, or else kill the submissive outright.

  The Demon Prince made a sweeping gesture with its left arm, hand empty and clawed fingers splayed out wide. "Freespeak is granted," it announced. "You may speak freely until sunset."

  Dechkez inclined its head in gratitude, then looked Vutark in the eye. "What are we doing?" it demanded. "That French fool with the Messiah complex is the second outsider that you've set up a lab for. Aren't our Race slave scientists enough? Why do you persist in these foolish side ventures?"

  The Tharkoldu Prince smiled as it put down the sculpting tool. "There is much we can learn about from the other realms," it explained calmly. "I merely wish to understand our foes."

  "Bah!" Dechkez spat. "Jezrael should have known better than to appoint an —" It searched for the right word, then with an expression of distaste, spat"... artist to command. Your type is too soft."

  Vutark's eyebrows lifted in mock amazement. "You had best watch your tongue, impetuous one. Even Freespeak has its limits. I simply seek to expand my horizons, to utilize all resources for my eventual goal of world domination."

  "World domination, Vutark? Would you challenge Jezrael, then? I vow, since the day the Nile meat moved into Berlin, you have changed."

  "I am well," was all Vutark replied, reactivating the

  torch and reaching for a scalpel. "And as for our mistress . you dislike the Race bitch as much as I. And if our little pseudo-Christ in the lab creates what I think he can create, (hen she will cease to be a factor."

  Dechkez looked doubtful, but nodded. "We have word Irom the gangs — new stormers have entered the city, looking for the priest." When Vutark did not react, Dechkez said, "What shall we do about them?"

  "Ah... just a moment," Vutark replied, still staring at his masterpiece. With a few swift, skillful sweeps of its tools, he transformed the Race prisoner's face into a mask of agony. His scream would have shattered human eardrums.

  "Stand back!" Vutark commanded, as it pressed a button on a nearby console. Both Tharkoldu moved aside as a panel in the wall opened in the blink of an eye. A huge, piston-like instrument shot out of the hole and slammed into the prisoner's face.

  When the process was completed, Vutark peeled a white mass off the former Race soldier's face. It was a perfect cast, unimaginable pain preserved forever. The subject, however, had finally found the only escape.

  "The stormers, Vutark?" Dechkez prompted.

  Vutark waved a dismissive hand. "Let the gangs deal with them. Paingiver knows that we have outfitted them well enough to do the task."

  Dechkez grimaced. In the time before the Nile usurped total Tharkoldu control of the city, Vutark would have insisted on the right to shed the stormers' blood. Turning a kill over to humans — Dechkez pledged that from now on, it would keep a careful eye on this one before its madness went too far.

  Vutark's mind had already moved on to other matters. A second button had been pushed, a second chain lowered, art was about to made once more. "Leave me," the Demon Prince ordered.

  Dechkez turned and stormed out, its dark thoughts

  blotting out the fresh screams of pain from behind it.

  ❖ ❖

  Jape tossed and turned on the mattress in the dingy little Kreuzberg flat. The DreamChip he'd purchased was providing him with a particularly satisfying erotic dream, and stimulus of his artificial nervous system to go with it.

  In his mind, a quartet of leather-clad women with sharp metal fingernails closed in on him, predatory grins on their faces. As the dream women drew closer, they rhythmically clicked their talons in expectation, filling Jape's mind with a "clik-clik-clik" sound. Klik. Klik. Klik. Klik.

  Jape's eyes opened and he found himself looking at a quartet of cybernetically enhanced punks, their pistols aimed squarely at him.

  He groaned. He didn't need this on top of the headache that was threatening to bore through his skull. He made a memo to himself: whiskey and Totalamine don't mix well. The young Storm Knight smacked his mouth, trying to get the dry, fuzzy feeling out of it.

  "'Allo, Jape! Long time, eh?" one of the gangers, a muscular teenager with a missing front tooth and a strong Cockney accent, said. The Herod IV pointed at Jape's head never wavered.

  With a defiant sneer, Jape raised his left hand and issued a mental command. An Avro PR IIV wrist gun emerged, but it produced only an impotent "click."

  The gangers laughed. "Oh, Jape, not even you would be so daft as to go to sleep with live ammo in your wrist!" the second young man, an overweight specimen with a large green mohawk, guffawed.

  "Let's see if he's packing any other weapons," a thin, rat- faced young man sneered as he pulled the yellowed old sheet off of Jape, exposing his nakedness.

  The four laughed again. Jape, on the other hand, was

  fuming. Here he was, starkers, groggy, gun empty and I'ladder full. These blokes are in a lot of trouble, he thought to himself.

  "What brings you here?" Jape asked thickly, rubbing his eyes. "You lot still choirboys for those Froggie holy rollers?"

  The first ganger's face clouded. '"Ey! The cyberpriests play square with us! They gave us this chrome and flash, and in return we run a few ... errands for them."

  "You four run out of old ladies to cosh on the head for shillings back in Croydon, eh?" Jape sneered, his head beginning to clear ... a little. "So how did you find me?"

  "Oh, it wasn't too hard, you stupid sod. Hard to miss someone like you dashing about to every Eurotrash, C iothpunk, and Cyberrock club in Berlin, shooting off your bleeding gob about how you're hunting down a renegade cyberfrock."

  "Which brings us to why we're here." These were the lirst words spoken by the fourth ganger, by far the best looking of the group. "CyberFrance wants to know what you know about their poor, wayward brother. Where's Deveaux, Jape?"

  "Bugger off," Jape snarled.

  "Must say, you have some nerve wandering into Berlin, asking the kind of questions you've been asking," the fourth man continued.

  "I'm a real curious guy," Jape said, sending another mental command down his cyber systems. An instant later, a tiny capsule slipped from his wrist gun assembly and hit the floor, exploding into blinding white light.

  Rat-Face recovered his sight first, only to see Jape standing there, slashers extended from his knuckles and a cruel grin on his face. Jape swung and connected, tearing Rat- Face's gut open and spilling his intestines. It felt good to deal out some pain — maybe I'll take a little more time with the other three, he said to himself.

  The second ganger raised his pistol. Jape chopped downwards and cut his hand off at the wrist.

  The other two proved to be even less sport. They'd caught the full burst of the magnesium flare, and never even saw the blades that killed them.

  Jape forced his heart to stop pounding so he could hear. There were footsteps outside the door — more of them? He hastily tossed on a pair of jeans, a black Motorhead t-shirt and his boots, then grabbed for his shoulder pack. With speed born of practice, he fitted his cyberdeck and a few other effects inside and made for the window.

  Someone was pounding on his door.

  Jape opened the window and looked down.
It was a four story drop to the rain-slicked street below. The door to the flat exploded in a cloud of burning wood splinters, making Jape's mind up for him. He jumped.

  Four years before, he would have wound up in a hospital

  or dead — from a leap like this. But the Possibility Wars had brought new tech, and his cyber legs absorbed the force of the impact when he hit. He was down, but not away

  there were more gangers on the street, and he was tonight's target.

  Running and loading his wrist gun at the same time, Jape made his way through the twisted maze of alleys and side streets. His cybernetic eye would pick up a few odd shapes lurking in the shadows, and he suppressed a shudder at the unearthly configuration of some of them.