Lia the Killer

Valeria and I made it through the security checkpoint and trailed after other guests. I recognised most of them, given their status in Aquinor. Corvus Corinthian, a third-tier lieutenant, walked a few paces ahead. He’d given us information on the evening and compound. I’d met him in my younger years, as he’d been good friends with Mum. Despite not being a first- or second-tier lieutenant, Corvus had a good reputation in the syndicate, including a favourable friendship with the boss, which occurred after Corvus married one of his daughters. Therefore, he looked to be a decent candidate for underboss.

I glanced over my shoulder, to check on Aki and Serizawa. For the first time, I drew an obvious parallel between us: Valeria and I, Aki and Serizawa. Our respective syndicates. Our respective ages. Our respective reputations. While lounging around the hammock, back in Neo-II Sendai, I did some perfunctory research into Serizawa Masako.

Ex-military; commendation for bravery. Served as a Corpse Maiden; expelled from the organisation for undisclosed reasons. Became an official member of the Sumiaka-kai. Became a Venator. Unsound reputation in the syndicate. Used the post-DelStag drug kyratalsate. Smoked Carcass Shed cigarettes.

I didn’t trust her or understand why Aki did, so I was secretly glad when she didn’t make it past the security checkpoint. I wanted Aki for the plan, not her.

Valeria and I went inside. Milled around. Usual Summit stuff, not that I’d ever attended. I mentioned recognising a lot of the guests, but the inverse wasn’t true. Nobody looked at me. I’d met many of them, but they knew the Viper’s daughter, not the misshapen 94% mess. It bothered me more than it should’ve.

Valeria kept me focused. As the minutes ticked by, she told me to let Aki inside. As I climbed a staircase, my blood turned to ice. Horace descended. He wore his usual beige suit with tangerine pocket square. I kept my head low. And like with the other guests, Horace didn’t notice me.

I opened the window and used a thin rope hidden in my clutch to get Aki inside. Hiding behind a vase, I gave his instructions and easy-clicker. I didn’t want to linger. Horace’s speech was scheduled to start soon.

Returning to Valeria, we confirmed our roles, and then split up.

The speech began.

‘Now,’ Valeria told me, via our earpieces.

I pressed the easy-clicker. Aki fulfilled his role. The alarm went off. The guests moved with painful ease, as if they expected an evacuation drill. Not enough chaos. Worst of all, Horace didn’t use the escape behind the stage. He followed a small group deeper into the compound.

‘What should we do?’ I shouted at Valeria.

‘New plan: Cut him off.’ She gave me directions through the compound and I rushed to follow them. Aki spoke to me, but I didn’t have the composure to respond. Rounding a corner, I saw Horace’s group enter a small room. I followed them inside but stayed by the door. The group made their way to the opposite door. Valeria appeared at my side, as if manifested from the shadows. She shoved a gas mask at me.

‘Room secured,’ Valeria said. On cue, the group discovered that the far door didn’t open. Valeria had locked it. We started to move toward the nearer door, but another dozen people surged through, before closing and locking it behind them.

‘Two S-K members spotted on the premises,’ one of the guards said, not knowing he’d just sealed us all in.

Valeria slid on the gas mask.

‘What’re you doing?’ I said.

‘Put it on. Now!’

I gestured at the people and hissed, ‘We can’t do this here.’

‘Here or never.’

‘They’re not all Aquinor.’

Too late. Valeria had triggered the ignition pins on her canisters of nerve gas and rolled them toward the crowds. I scrambled to put my mask on. Shit, shit, shit. If you’ve seen what K-Type does to people, you’d scramble too. Haste makes waste, though, and it took me dangerous seconds of fidgeting to fasten the mask correctly. I took my first filtered breath a second before gas the colour of coral seeped from the canisters.

The effect was instantaneous. The crowds fell. In stricken horror, I could do nothing but watch. That is, until left among the dying was a man in a beige suit. Horace removed his tangerine pocket square and dabbed sweat from his forehead. I couldn’t believe it. He had an O2-reserve cybernetic. He could walk through a storm of molten ash and be bothered by nought but a dry-cleaning bill.

My rage moved quicker than the gas. Adrenaline pulsed. I seized a pistol from a fallen guard and open fire. Horace had a kinetic displacer. I emptied the magazine. One bullet made it through. Call it my personal agent of fate. Red bloomed among the beige. I rushed him, not letting any more tricks stop me.

Again, Aki shouted. Again, I lacked the composure to listen.

I jammed a fist into Horace’s side, where the O2-reserve was installed. He gripped my hands and showed his teeth, but his strength waned. Some of the gas had already reached him. I wrenched the O2-reserve from his body. In seconds, the gas filled his lungs. His body began to fail – and death came soon.

I couldn’t witness his death. My sight vanished with a blinding whiteness.

#

The whiteness cleared. Rather, it gained form. I stood in a glass box. Adjacent, others stood in similar boxes. Among them, I was comforted by familiar faces: Aki, Valeria, and Corvus Corinthian. Some battered the glass, but we were all deaf to each other. From nothing, Horace appeared before me. He appeared before all of us, an identical Horace within each glass box, as if a mirror maze.

‘If I am here,’ Horace said, ‘it means my Dead Man’s Switch has been activated.’

I reeled back, unable to formulate a response.

‘Reviewing my memories reports that…you killed me, Aurelia Sorannus.’ He smiled. ‘How interesting.’

I pressed my back to the glass, mouth dry. ‘What’s going on?’ Did the K-Type gas have other effects? Around me, the Horaces in other glass boxes did other things. To some, he spoke, as to me, but to others he did nothing; perhaps he had no business with the latter people.

‘You are confused,’ he said. ‘Do not be. In simple terms, I am a construct of Horatius Claudius Nerva. I—well, the living version—had a Dead Man’s Switch programmed to transmit a pulse that would affect anybody in the vicinity with a cerebral implant. In other words, anybody who could go cyber-side. The pulse is an adaptation of the Rat King’s virus. Ah, speak of the devil.’

A vicious, living storm of ash and fangs exploded through the whiteness, like it came from another plane of reality, and battered the glass boxes. ‘The Rat King’s virus,’ the Horace-construct said. ‘Nasty thing.’ He chuckled and tapped the glass. ‘The Rat King does not only kill people. He brings them close to death, indoctrinates them—he morphs them and has the world, and themselves, believe they are an android.’

I spent a moment calming my nerves. The Horace I hated, the Horace who exiled Mum, had been killed. By me. But this Horace-construct was being…helpful?

‘I attempted to develop a sort of hypnosis tech to counteract the Rat King’s virus. I had no clearance to test it, so I experimented on myself.’ He gestured at the glass boxes. ‘This is the result.’

‘Why?’ I said, barely audible.

‘As I said—because of that.’ He jabbed his thumb at the Rat King’s virus. ‘Long ago, during a near-death experience, the same virus attempted to hijack me. I kept it trapped but couldn’t purge it. Upon my death, it would prey upon everyone in the vicinity. I cannot prevent its escape, but I can prepare “everyone” for what will happen.’

‘…Which is?’

‘Imprisonment in a digital underworld: The Rat King’s personally-designed hell.’

Numbness emanated from my chest to extremities.

‘These barriers will not hold. The virus will bring you to the underworld. But I have transferred my technology to everyone here. Your minds will be your own, for a brief time. You must escape before that time expires, or your body will no longer be your own. Travel in a single direction; do not waver. When you’ve travelled far enough, you’ll find the Genesis Port, where the underworld originated from. Use it to escape.’

I wrestled with conflicting emotions over Horace’s death. On the one hand, bastard. On the other hand, his construct worked to save my life – after I killed him. On the other-other hand—

I stopped myself. It wasn’t productive going back and forth, hand-to-hand, a Durga deliberation.

The Horace-constructs in the other glass boxes had stopped moving. Mine continued to talk. ‘One last thing, Aurelia,’ he said. ‘I’m transferring my Venator licence to you.’

…Excuse me?

Of all the outcomes—

W-What? I stammered internally. Why?

‘Make no mistake,’ Horace continued. ‘I still hate you, and your mother for being an ignorant pawn of the Rat King. But I realised something. It occurred some months ago, when I fired a 40mm grenade at you.’

I rankled at the reminder.

‘In all honesty, I had no idea you were there. I suspect the Rat King guided you, to cause your death. Yet, miraculously, you survived. Initially I regretted your survival, for you posed a threat. But after some weeks I formed a theory: What if your survival branded you as an aberration? A semi-daemon? I thought to myself: There may be hope for her.’ He sighed, arms folded. ‘And, of course, I’d rather my licence went to an Aquinor member than those CVC bureaucrats.’

The storm outside the glass boxes worsened. Cracks formed. A howling reached my ears.

‘Do not waste my death,’ said the Horace-construct. ‘Do not waste time forgiving me. Let hatred burn and harness it to focus on what I have told you. Find the Rat King. Stop him.’

Every box shattered. Sudden noise exploded around me. My scream joined dozens more as the crowd plunged into nothingness.