A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.
Wolvren are not Werewolves.
It is a common misconception, one perpetuated and propagated as a racial slur against the species by the Bloodliners, who themselves are not the Vampires of lore.
Thus, what are the Wolvren?
Not human. That is the short answer, and thus the question of where they come from is open for debate amongst Bloodliner and Wolvren anthropologists.
However, there are a handful of theories in circulation.
One speculates that Wolvren are all that remains of an ancient civilization that predates humankind. That would make them very, very old as it implies they have existed for more than fifty-five million years. Unfortunately, no evidence to support this theory has been uncovered, and not for lack of searching for it. As human scientists tackled the question of whether a technologically advanced species existed before humanity, so too Bloodliner and Wolvren researchers have piggy-backed on those endeavors to search for evidence that would scientifically explain their respective origins.
Another theory is that Wolvren evolved as a parallel species to humanity. They share all the obvious traits of being human without being human. They have X and Y chromosomes, though they possess 25 base pairs rather than 23. They are stronger, more disease resistant, yet develop and age much like humans do. Their blood is red, though their cells oxygenate better, making them superior athletes.
However, even if we subscribe to the notion that Wolvren evolved alongside humans, the question of how they remained undiscovered for tens of millennia is difficult to answer. In fact, the earliest recorded tales of Werewolves date back to the Greek myths. Then we have to consider the Nordic folklore, such as the Saga of the Volsungs in the 13th century, and the recorded killings of suspected werewolves in Europe during the 1400’s and 1500’s. These can be considered recent and isolated occurrences, hardly evidence that Wolvren – mistaken for Werewolves – have existed since time immemorial.
Two more possibilities abound.
One is that Wolvren did not evolve but were instead ‘created’ by an unknown power.
The other is that Wolvren are not of this Earth, in other words, they are extraterrestrials.
Both are considered contentious by Wolvren and Bloodliner anthropologists and geneticists who are quick to point out that Wolvren DNA possesses the 5 base nucleotides of all life on Earth.
However, are they possibilities that can be discounted?
As a final point, why do Bloodliners refer to Wolvren as Werewolves?
The reason is that some Wolvren possess the ability to reconfigure their appearance. In other words, they can transform, but it isn’t a Hollywood style human-to-wolf transformation, though it is surprisingly quick and involves a lengthening of their limbs, turning fingers into claws, and restructuring of their jaws, allowing them to open wider than humanly possible. Complemented by their golden irises and the growth of wolf-like ears, this gives those Wolvren a distinctly bestial appearance, yet quite different from the almost comical Wolfman portrayed by Lone Chaney Jr.
In fact, it makes them look rather…alien.
Every Vampire and Wolvren who has ever faced a Fury in battle – whether they be man, woman, or child – has died.
There is no running from them.
There is no bargaining with them.
And pleading on hands and knees will be in vain.
They are death incarnate with no natural predators.
Thus, it is true that only a Fury can a stop a Fury.
And the Lord help anyone who comes between them.
I’d been humiliated by a couple of homeless geezers.
Correction.
I’d humiliated myself before a couple of homeless geezers.
What had I expected would happen when facing them with knives in hand?
At sight of me would they turn tail and run away?
Well, one of them had, however that didn’t help my case.
The problem was that I lacked presence.
From appearance alone, no one would infer that I was a Lanfear – someone superior to the Aventis that were mass produced by Pantheon. Thus, how was anyone to know that I could wield my Diva, Anthea, like the finest scalpel the world has ever seen? With her in my control, I could cut down a dozen men so quickly they’d be dead before their blood landed on the floor.
Suffice to say that in certain circles, Anthea’s reputation preceded her, and she wasn’t known as Anthea of the Slaughter for no reason. But in the backstreets, underpasses, and dark, decrepit alleys of New Angeles, Nikola Sola Raynar was fresh meat because I looked like a girl who’d blown out her sixteen birthday candles not long ago.
In short, I was about as intimidating as a hamster.
Swallowing my battered pride, I tossed the folded-up sad excuse for a man at my feet into the plastic shack. Then I laid out the deceased individual into the middle of the narrow alleyway, and then waited for the Undertaker bot to arrive. It flew in a few minutes later, floating down between the surrounding buildings on geysers of hot air, plopping down on telescoping legs over the dead body resting on the wet permacrete. This was one was the older coffin-shaped model, and it soon lowered itself to collect the corpse, then rose on its metal legs. A minute after its arrival, the Undertaker lifted off, superheating the air in the alleyway to a near scalding temperature as it rose on its lifters.
I watched it ascend from the safety of a doorway while waiting for the chill in the air to return before stepping out into the open.
Alleys like these were dark during the day, and they were darker at night, but there was enough light from the city buildings for me to see my way. If not, all I had to do was slip on a pair of night-vision glasses to turn the night into day. However, since my intention of seeking out a secluded spot was to swap out with Anthea in the Cradle, I forewent the glasses.
I gave the plastic, ramshackle shack a quick look.
The old man I’d thrown in there was out cold.
As for where I was standing, it was far enough away from the street to hide me from passersby.
In other words, this place would have to do.
Stifling a sigh, I summoned the Cradle.
The air in front of me wavered like the surface of disturbed water as the large device hiding in Pocket Space started to emerge out of its fold in space-time.
I couldn't say that it didn’t scare me a little when thinking how easily the Cradle could manipulate the fabric of reality.
Pantheon’s technology wasn’t just advanced.
It was godly.
Time and again, I wondered why those self-proclaimed gods and goddesses weren’t ruling the world. Then again, they were already pulling a great many of its strings.
Slender, metallic tentacles reached out from the within the rippling air and grabbed onto me, lifting me off my feet, before carrying me into the space-time pocket. With my eyes squeezed shut, I endured the usual discomfort of immense pressure that built up to painful levels as I was pulled through the threshold into the folded region where the Cradle was ensconced. Once through, the pain of being crushed was replaced by an icy cold that thankfully lasted only a heartbeat before I was safely tucked inside the large device.
What does a Cradle look like?
Picture a giant sarcophagus fit for an Egyptian pharaoh, not made of stone but from hyper-alloys that could withstand a nuclear explosion…or so I’d been told.
I had seen Anthea’s Cradle when I was first chosen to be a Lanfear, as opposed to a lesser Aventis, and it was indeed shaped like an Egyptian sarcophagus, one that would have made the Ramesses pharaohs drool green with envy.
Standing upright, it was over 5 meters tall, a couple of meters wide, and just as deep. Its elaborately decorated and burnished exterior was a mixture of gold and gun-metal grey that gave it an ostentatious, militaristic appearance that was quite fitting since Anthea was a weapon made by Pantheon’s so-called gods. As for Anthea herself, I could best describe her as a tall, slender, and very pretty brunette girl in her late teens that just happened to be one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. As soon as I was secure inside the Cradle, the device linked my awareness – my consciousness and will – to that dangerous existence. In essence, my ego passed into her, and at that moment I ceased to be Nikola Sola Raynar and became the Diva, Anthea.
The Cradle ejected Anthea’s Anima crystal out of Pocket Space and into the alleyway. Before the fist-sized, emerald jewel could land on the ground, a black cloud of dark matter burst out of it, nearly instantly shaping and hardening into Anthea’s body. By the time her feet touched down on the alleyway, she was fully formed. Even so, her crystal was tossed out so quickly, that she barely had time to land in a crouch.
Standing up, I looked down at her body – now my body – and quickly checked her over.
Anthea did not emerge out of the Anima crystal buck naked.
On the contrary, she was fully clothed.
Like her body, Anthea’s outfit was constructed out of dark matter. At least, that’s how I referred to it since I didn't know what else to call it, let alone what she was actually made of. But leaving that aside, her attire could be summarized as skintight and black, with dull silver boots, a dark purple ladies short coat that looked more like a dress – what with its navel revealing split down the middle – and a golden, fantail breastplate that extended from her neck to cover her chest. As for her arms, they were sheathed in purple-black gloves that ran from her fingertips and up to her shoulders but left them bare.
I had to admit that I approved of her appearance.
Anthea was a beauty, with long, flowing, dark brown hair, a heart shaped face, and mesmerizing green eyes, and while her garb was a touch masculine, it didn’t hide her femininity.
With my Ego now inside her, I felt as though I’d literally jumped out of Nikola’s skin and into my Diva’s.
I stood taller which was only natural since Nikola was a mere 5 foot 3, while Anthea stood 5 foot 11, though two of those inches came courtesy of her high heeled boots. I also felt considerably lighter, a product of Anthea being several times stronger than Nikola who was herself significantly stronger than the average Joe in the prime of his youth. And not only was she strong, but my Diva was also quick on her feet, though not fast enough to outrun a cheetah across open ground. Instead, she had a preternatural sense of balance, and was familiar with an ensemble of parkour techniques that came easily to her, but not so easily to me.
I looked skyward.
The walls of the megascrapers formed a canyon that loomed over the alleyway. The higher I looked, the more the buildings faded in the rain, eventually disappearing into the dark storm clouds
Storms in the city were a bitch to deal with.
Running across a skyline buried in a storm was like running through thick, black fog. Even with Anthea’s preternatural eyesight, I would have a hard time seeing where I was going. And then there was all the water making the roofs and ledges slippery. Anthea was agile on her feet, but even she had trouble when wet weather blanketed the city.
However, when the going gets tough, the tough get going…or so goes the song.
That’s something I learnt from Zenovia.
I was about to start making my way up the narrow manmade canyon when I sensed something from inside the Cradle. Rather, what I heard was a distinct, familiar melody playing from within the confines of the device.
Even though my consciousness was now in control of Anthea, we shared a bond through the Anima crystals in her body and mine.
That was how I could hear my phone was receiving a call.
What I didn’t know was how the phone was still part of the cellular network while inside the Cradle’s Pocket Space. It was a question that I’d asked various people, including my Handler, but the only explanation I got from them was that it was Pantheon magic. Granted, Pantheon’s tech was godly so why bother asking for an explanation that I wouldn’t understand, and yet it wasn’t answer that satisfied me because in part my curiosity stemmed from my fears regarding how advanced some aspects Pantheon’s technology was.
Half turning, I held out my hand – now Anthea’s hand – and waited for the Cradle to deliver the phone to me. A slim, dull grey metal tentacle emerged from a pool of distorted air and placed it on my waiting palm, then swiftly disappeared from view. A split second later, the region of rippling, wavering air vanished, and the alleyway was back to normal.
While that was happening, I answered the incoming call without looking at the caller ID.
I already knew it was my Handler by the melody I’d assigned to his number.
“Yes, Master. How can I serve you?”
There was pause before I heard a man’s voice ask, “What happened this time?”
“Answering a question with a question is rude.”
“What happened?”
I snorted softly. “Nothing I want to talk about.”
“Did you start something you couldn’t finish?”
I felt a growl well up in my throat. “Have you been spying on me?”
“Do you think I have the time for that?”
“Then you know me so well we should date.”
“Dating a Diva is not my cup of tea.”
“Of course, not. You like them petite like Nikki.”
“Need I remind you that Pantheon has rules regarding romantic liaisons between its employees?”
I sighed heavily while shaking my head. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk. Orders just came down from on high the mountain top.”
“What an archaic way of putting it.”
“Should I mention they were delivered on the wings of a dove?”
I felt a chill crawl down my spine. “Those birds give me creeps….”
“It keeps communications off the grid.”
That much was true. Orders delivered by Pantheon’s messenger doves were difficult to intercept. After all, they were nearly impossible to tell apart from the real thing. You’d have to shoot all of them down, and that was strictly against Federal preservation laws.
And Pantheon didn’t just use doves.
Pigeons, rats, dogs, cats – you name it.
It was enough to have me check the lifeforce of every member of the animal kingdom I crossed paths with, picking out Pantheon’s creations from Mother Nature’s by the light of their auras.
To put the unsettling chill behind me, I decided to push the conversation along. “So what are my orders from above?”
“We’ll discuss them in person.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Where are you now?”
“Why are you asking when you can track me by my phone?”
There was a lengthy pause before he asked, “District 11, Block 6?”
I growled at him. “Seriously? You have to ask?”
“Since you’ve swapped into Anthea you can make it over in no time.”
Anger sparked aflame inside me. “Are you shitting me? You want me to run over—”
“It’s raining. I’m not going out there to meet you in person.”
“What? Are you afraid of melting in the rain like the Wicked Witch of the East?”
“West. Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Just tell me my orders,” I complained.
“Not over the phone.”
Was he worried about someone listening in?
The phone I was using was a commercial model upgraded by Pantheon so it should be secure, but the network it used wasn’t. There were backdoors and openings left behind by the provider to allow for the authorities to eavesdrop on communications. And despite appearances, even alleyways like these had eyes and ears. When I thought about it in that context, I realized I should have been more careful when choosing a spot to bring Anthea out of her Cradle.
Again, I felt like a careless fool, and it wasn’t an easy feeling to swallow down.
It was bitter. It was foul. It was downright unpleasant, and I ended up ducking my head a little in humiliation.
“Fine. Tell me where to meet you….” That earned me a lengthy silence that I eventually grew tired of. “Well?”
“It sounds like you have something you want to tell me.”
I wrinkled my nose while picturing his face in my mind.
That bastard really knows me well.
He’d figured out I was embarrassed by something.
I doubted he’d drop the matter, so the question was whether I should come clean or not.
After a moment’s thought, I choice to avoid dealing with it for now.
“Just tell me where to go,” I more-or-less repeated.
“The Tower.”
That was his way of telling me to meet him at his apartment located within Century Tower.
“Fine. I’ll be there in 30 to 40 minutes.”
“Just hop on a maglev. It’ll be quicker.”
“No, I need the exercise.”
Hardly the truth, but what the heck.
“Very well. Let me know when you arrive at the Tower.”
A simulated click told me he’d ended the call.
Lowering my phone away from my ear, I tapped its screen, ending the call on my side.
After a while, I looked up at the walls of the megascrapers surrounding me, then peered up at the dark, clouded heavens.
“Hop on a maglev?”
Yes, I could do that.
I could have Anthea jump onto the roof of a speeding maglev.
Riding the train that way, I’d shave a few minutes off my travel time.
“Or I could race the maglev….”
Truthfully, I hadn’t done that in a while either.
Handing Nikola’s phone back to the Cradle for safekeeping, I gave the buildings another thoughtful look.
“Ah…what the Hell.”
With a deep breath, I made my choice.
“Anthea, let’s go for a run….”
A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.
Author's Note: This is a sequel to the GPR series, not to GPR Book Three. Gun Princess Royale is a planned 9 book series.
I am writing Remnant Fiestas and GRP in parallel to save time.
In the beginning, there were eight Bloodlines.
Now, there are only seven.
Vesper. Umbra. Nosfer. Tenebris. Erebus. Stryga. Lamia.
Remember them well.
Burn their names into your heart.
Make them fear the darkness.
Make them fear you.
Make them feel the might of your Fury.
Anthea’s strength was abnormal.
No flesh and blood creature could exert such physical power from a body her size without tearing itself apart. However, her strength was not to the degree where she could flip a two-tonne truck over onto its side, though she could probably wrestle a tiger or lion to the ground.
That said, I couldn’t be certain since I’d never tried to outdo Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.
However, just like Tarzan, I needed to travel the high ground to make best speed across an urban jungle of permacrete and krono-steel.
The question was how to make my way up to the city’s skyline a few thousand feet above me.
The answer was by jumping up the walls of the megascrapers that loomed over the alleyway.
To be specific, I employed a method of teleporting we Lanfears and Aventis called Shifting.
It involved Anthea bursting apart into a cloud of whatever dark matter she was composed of then have the Anima crystal teleport from one location to the next.
Shifting was line-of-sight only, meaning that I couldn’t travel through walls because I need to see where I’m going in order to jump between places. Thus, by seeing through a window, I could Shift into and out of a building or a room.
I could only speculate on how the teleport was achieved.
Pantheon’s tech is Godly, but they were loathe to divulge its secrets.
However, I suspected that the Cradle hiding in Pocket Space was responsible for folding space around the Anima Crystal, then throwing it from one location to the other. But I stress that this was purely speculation on my part.
Looking upwards at the building walls around me, I then focused on a distant point of open air between them.
Anthea could Shift farther than 100 meters, so I could travel from street level to rooftop in a handful of jumps. With that in mind, I executed my first Shift for night.
It was a weird sensation.
I felt myself sucked inwards toward the crystal deep in Anthea’s chest, while simultaneously breaking apart. My vision narrowed, turned grey, then black for a mere instant before it expanded and grew clear again as Anthea’s body rematerialized. The whole process took less than a second, though I once used the Cradle to time myself and discovered that if Anthea was in a hurry, she could Shift between locations in the blink of an eye. Not only that, she could successively Shift several times with nary a pause between them, and travel nearly a kilometer before she needed to take a breather. That was something I kept to myself, especially after learning that Anthea’s stamina and range was significantly greater to that of a Fury like Zenovia’s, Ravena. It was just one of a few areas where my Diva’s abilities outstripped and outpaced those of a Fury. However, it was a secret that I kept for good reason.
After Shifting a handful of times in rapid succession, Anthea arrived at a point a hundred or so feet above the surrounding megascrapers. I Shifted once more to an area over one of the rooftops, and after popping back into existence, Anthea landed in a crouch on the roof of a machine room.
Standing tall, I looked around me at the city’s skyline.
The building I was standing on wasn’t the tallest in New Angeles. Quite a few of the nearby megascrapers towered even higher over the streets far below. The light coming from their upper floors was diffused by the rain and low-lying clouds, giving the night sky an ethereal, otherworldly ambience. Perhaps I should describe it as ghostly, as though light from the afterlife was bleeding into my reality.
In truth, I’d often wondered what would happen if I ran toward that ghostly light.
Would I cross over into a netherworld?
Was it Heaven or Hell that awaited me?
It was nothing more than an idle curiosity – a flight of fancy – that I entertained from time to time on nights like these. Yet, in some respects, I was indeed gazing upon a different world since life on the streets of New Angeles was not the same as life in the upper echelons of the city. In some circumstances, they were literally almost a mile apart, but it was the quality of life that separated them the most, a fact that made me sneer at my surroundings.
Despite having lived all my life in New Angeles, most of my existence had been spent surviving amongst the lowest levels of the city. It was only this past year that I’d come to experience the rooftops of the megalopolis. Thus, I couldn’t claim that I knew the high ground like the back of my hand, but thankfully, I had a guide for this concrete jungle.
Glancing over a shoulder, I called out to the Cradle with a thought pulse.
*Send out Speedy.
The air behind me warped and wavered as the Cradle slightly unfolded the Pocket Space enveloping it. A second later, a disc shaped object about eighteen inches across, shot out of the distorted air. It quickly circled around and came to a stop a couple of feet away.
It was Zenovia who’d nicknamed my bot Speedy Gonzales. Until then, I’d never heard of the self-proclaimed Fastest Mouse in all Mexico. However, the machine didn’t look anything like its namesake. Instead, it bore a striking resemblance to those hubcap UFO’s from Plan 9 From Outer Space. Again, that was a bit of movie history I’d learnt from Zen. But what set Speedy apart from the Plan 9 UFO’s were the four grilled domes arranged symmetrically around the center cap. They housed high speed rotors that could propel the craft at well over 100 klicks an hour at altitudes exceeding 5,000 feet. Ergo, the reason why Zen had called it Speedy Gonzales, since it had to keep pace with Anthea.
I wasn’t the only one with a bot.
Zen had one too, as did the other Aventis girls.
While not indispensable, they were handy to have around. Surprisingly, they weren’t manufactured by Pantheon. Instead, they were mostly built from high tech, off-the-shelf parts. As to why Pantheon chose not to supply us with bots of their making was up for debate. I chalked it up to the gods and goddesses lounging in Olympus working in mysterious ways. However, leaving their reasons aside, the flying bots we sourced for ourselves were fast and nimble, capable of scanning their surroundings, mapping out the urban terrain, and plotting an efficient course through the city in milliseconds. They could eavesdrop on wireless and wired communications within a kilometer’s radius, hear through walls, and listen to a mouse squeak in panic at two thousand feet. In short, they were spy hardware at its modern best, and we were free to customize and upgrade them to our heart’s content. So perhaps this was Pantheon’s way of giving us some freedom on how we went about our duties as Lanfears and Aventis. In other words, they allowed us to choose our toys.
The foggy air swirled around Speedy in little vortices as it hovered about five feet above the ground. Its four impellers were whisper silent, and what little noise they made was lost in the rain. With its surface lights turned off, its matt-black polycarbonate body was like a shadow floating in front of me, allowing it to sneak about in dark alleyways with little risk of being discovered. However, it did have powerful lights that it could use to blind people.
For now, Speedy was operating in stealth mode.
“Awaiting your command,” the bot reported in a slightly metallic voice that was intentional since a lot of people were bothered by machines sounding too human.
That said, people were also bothered by not knowing if they were talking to a machine or a person, so making them sound metallic helped assuage their phobias.
As for me, it didn’t bother me at all.
Instead, I sometimes wished Speedy was someone that I could talk to, like a sounding board of sorts, but I’ll refrain from calling it a ‘friend’.
“My command…?” I gave the buildings a sweeping look. “Find me a fast route to the Century Tower. I don’t mind jumping on a maglev to save time.”
“Understood.” A couple of seconds later, Speedy reported, “Course plotted. Estimating arrival in 23 minutes at best speed. Maglev departing from overhead platform at District 11, Block 7, outside the Wallcot Tower in 3 minutes.”
I clenched my jaw unhappily. “Best speed?”
Though I had asked for a fast route, running flat out at my Handler’s beck-and-call nonetheless didn’t sit well with me. I also felt like kicking myself for earlier wanting to pit Anthea’s speed against that of a fast-moving maglev.
Exasperated, I threw Speedy a look. “The Wallcot Tower, was it?”
“Correct. Shall I provide directions?”
“No, I know that building.”
While turning around in a circle, I looked through the mist in search of a narrow, permaglass and krono-steel building that resembled a giant spinnaker.
The Wallcot Tower was also known as the Wallcot Sail. It was so distinctive it should have been easy to spot from miles away if not for the dozens of towering megascrapers surrounding me.
To better gain my bearings, I searched for magnetic north.
Anthea had the ability to sense magnetic fields. Provided it was strong enough, she could point a few degrees off the north pole in a couple of heartbeats. Combining that talent with my knowledge of the buildings around me and using them as landmarks, I sought out the Wallcot Tower, but the strong mist at this altitude, the steady drizzle, and the clutter of surrounding megascrapers all worked against me. At this altitude, and with poor visibility, the megascrapers all looked the same, leaving me with little recourse but to rely on Speedy to point the way.
“Okay, fine. Which way do I go?” I asked the bot.
Speedy spun swiftly, then shone a green laser light through the mist. “That way. Distance 915 meters.”
My gaze followed the laser light.
I was both surprised and annoyed to hear the building was almost a kilometer away. However, after a brief nod at Speedy, I took off at a run.
“Don’t fall behind,” I warned the bot as I rushed across the rooftop.
Anthea’s sharp hearing caught the sound of Speedy’s rotors whirring up as the machine hurried after me, however, they faded quickly as I opened up a gap between us.
I had my Diva running at a sprint that took me to the edge of the rooftop in seconds.
Jumping onto the waist-high ledge wall, I kicked off the coping and launched myself high into the air.
The megascraper ahead of me was taller than the one I’d leapt off. I knew that because I could see the light from a dozen odd floors above me, but the mist and low-lying rain clouds hid the rooftop from view, denying me a glimpse of its true height.
Cursing inwardly, I picked a point in the air overhead, and then concentrated on Shifting toward it. However, without a reference point, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d teleported, so while dropping like a stone after emerging in the misty air, I decided to Shift toward the tall building instead. Bursting back to life from a cloud of dark matter, I found myself close enough to grab onto a ledge that then I hauled myself onto.
It was time for Plan B.
Standing against the building’s wall, I pointed skyward and called out to Speedy.
“Get up there.”
Speedy would be my reference point.
I would simply Shift to wherever the bot was.
It wasn’t the first time I’d relied on Speedy to lead the away, and it was somewhat humbling for the mighty Anthea, scourge of the night, to be reduced to following a bot in order to travel across the city. But when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade.
The flying bot had been trailing behind me, but it caught up when I stopped on the ledge. Despite the rain and city noise, Speedy received my command with its sharp, spy worthy hearing, then quickly changed direction and raced high into the air toward the rooftop of the building lost in the clouds.
Picking a point just behind the bot, I teleported over to it, emerging into the open air, but finding myself in freefall shortly afterwards.
“Keep going,” I yelled up at Speedy, who rose fast on its four, powerful propellers.
When the bot had almost disappeared from view in the glowing mist, I Shifted toward it again, and caught up to it a second later. I did this twice more, until I’d cleared the roof of the megascraper. After one more teleport, Anthea touched down on an air-con machine room wedged between a stack of satellite transceiver towers.
In frustration, I kicked the hard, wet roof beneath me.
“This will take forever!”
The mist, the rain clouds, and the rain were making it difficult for me to Shift with any accuracy. If not for Speedy leading the way, I would have struggled even more. In the end, I had no choice but to admit Anthea had been humbled by Mother Nature. However, what really got my goat was that this wasn’t the first time. Whenever the weather went south, things got tough for us, and not just for a Diva of Anthea’s caliber, but for the Furies as well.
I pointed at the saucer bot. “To the Wallcot Tower.”
Speedy barrel rolled, then raced off to the opposite end of the rooftop.
Following the bot would be simpler, easier, and a lot quicker. So that’s what I ended up doing – traversing rooftops, jumping between megascrapers, and teleporting in pursuit of the Fastest Flying Hubcap in all New Angeles, and after what felt like an eternity chasing down Speedy, Anthea touched ground on a wide ledge of the Wallcot Tower about half a mile above the streets.
With the bot hovering nearby, I looked down the side of the building and spotted the brightly lit maglev station far below.
What I had to do next was a freefall jump to the station’s rooftop.
“Here we go,” I whispered.
Stepping of a ledge and plummeting several hundred feet to the ground is not for the faint hearted, especially when there’s no parachute or safety harness involved. What makes the experience even more frightening is having buildings around you, because they add to the scale and speed of the drop. For me, it was less terrifying going up than down, something I could admit surviving dozens of freefalls since becoming a Lanfear, so in that respect, every jump was still almost as frightening as the first.
With a gentle leap, I left the safety of the ledge behind and dropped like a rock beside the building, but seconds before crashing through the station’s beetle-like shell, I Shifted and re-emerged a few feet above it. Gravity quickly grabbed onto me, but I landed lightly, nonetheless.
That scared me the most about every drop – missing my Shift point and emerging too close to the ground. In my early days, I frequently made the mistake of emerging either too high or too low, but tonight, I got it just right.
The next step was actually getting into the station.
That proved a trickier and it involved Shifting through a window into the Wallcot Tower standing tall beside the maglev station. Once inside, I had to swap my real body – Nikola’s body – with Anthea’s and then stow the latter into the Cradle. Fortunately, I’d teleported into a deserted public washroom, so I did the swap with Anthea from inside a toilet stall.
I felt like Superman changing into Clark Kent while inside a phone booth. But it all worked out and I casually walked out of the washroom, and then traversed the building’s lower floors, soon crossing over to the adjoining station. Swiping my phone over a scanner built into the turnstile gate, I was granted access to the station’s platforms. I would be charged when I left the station at my destination. For now, the system merely recorded my entry into the maglev transport network.
On a crowded platform, I waited for the maglev to arrive.
I’d abandoned using Anthea as a means of travelling to the Century Tower. Instead, I chosen to commute like the vast majority of the city’s bottom dwellers and less privileged. No expensive sky taxi for me. Pantheon paid me a decent salary through a private security firm I was ‘officially’ contracted to, but I had to be careful with how I spent it. Most of my money went into a bank account as part of my post-retirement plans, thus for now I lived a frugal existence.
The sleek maglev swept into the station, dragging along with it a strong breeze that carried cold rain that smelt like stale, dirty water.
I was used to the smell, having grown up with it, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
Wrinkling my nose at first, I held my breath for a while as I waited for the gusting breeze lagging the maglev to fade away.
Then I braced myself for the crush to board a carriage.
It was like an ocean wave breaking onto a beach.
People surged out of the carriages, then a host of new people surged into them.
I was swept along with the wave ‘heading back out to sea’ so to speak and once aboard a carriage, I found myself wedged tight between the other commuters. It smelled as bad inside the train as it did out on the platform, but unfortunately there was no escaping from it. Thankfully, my nose grew a little accustomed to it after a short while, though I didn’t care for the stench.
To avoid being groped – whether deliberately or otherwise – I backed myself against the carriage door so that I had my butt pressed firmly to its permaglass. But I was still able to twist my neck around and peer outside the carriage to see the station slide by as the maglev pulled away from it. However, as the city buildings came into view, I stiffened sharply as I suddenly remembered leaving something important behind.
Speedy.
I’d left Speedy out in the cold.
In the mayhem to catch the train, I’d forgotten all about my trusty sidekick. And since I was hard pressed against the carriage’s door, I couldn’t safely pull out my phone to send the saucer bot any commands.
I felt like kicking myself, but instead I cursed inwardly at my stupidity.
If I had done things properly, I would have stowed Speedy in the Cradle when I arrived at the Wallcot Tower. Instead, I’d jumped off the building and fallen toward the station while leaving my saucer behind.
Fortunately, all was not lost.
When I had to change maglevs at a station a few kilometers down the track, I used my phone to send Speedy an urgent instruction, directing it toward the Century Tower. Then after arriving at the station closest to the building, I hotfooted it through the crowded sidewalks to my Handler’s apartment, hoping to meet Speedy along the way.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of my bot, and I arrived at the Century Tower lamenting the loss of the late Speedy the Fourth.
A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.
Author's Note: This is a sequel to the GPR series, not to GPR Book Three. Gun Princess Royale is a planned 9 book series.
I am writing Remnant Fiestas and GRP in parallel to save time.
Recent developments have challenged a long-held assertion that Pantheon’s Furies are undefeatable. This belief has pervaded since the early ages when the Bloodlines relied on primitive means to combat them. However, the times have changed, and with it our ability to defend ourselves and our interests.
In contrast, Pantheon’s Furies have not evolved, and they continue to rely on medieval weapons to suppress and oppress both the Bloodlines and the Wolvren Clans. This is to their detriment, and newly adopted combat tactics employed by our elite Bloodliner kill squads, and embraced by the Wolvren pack hunters, have shown a statistically higher survival rate among our personnel. On one recorded occasion, a kill squad was able to defeat a Fury and briefly take the Aventis controlling it into custody. Unfortunately, the Aventis was recovered by Pantheon operatives before she could be interrogated.
Nonetheless, this marks a significant milestone in our ability to attack and defend against Pantheon’s Furies, while necessitating ongoing evaluation and evolution of our tactics for the successful apprehension of a Pantheon Aventis in the foreseeable future.
The Century Tower was a looming, megalithic megascraper.
Its designers may have sought inspiration from the futurist film noir of the prior century because it was rather bleak and utilitarian on the outside, yet surprisingly luxurious on the inside.
Built atop the remains of Century City, its footprint occupied most of the old grounds, and it was one of the few mile high buildings in all New Angeles, and as such its upper floors were lost in the low-lying rain clouds.
The closest maglev station was a block away from the foot of the building.
Swept out of the carriage by an outflowing tide of passengers, I hurried to avoid getting swept back in by the throng that had been waiting on the platform. I weaved and sidestepped between commuters as I made my way through the station to a broad set of steps leading down to the street, then subsequently endured a hard slog through the crowded sidewalks before arriving at the entrance to the Century Tower, soaked to the skin by the incessant rain that swung between a misty drizzle and a pelting downpour.
I didn’t stop to admire the view of the building, but instead trudged up its permacrete steps to a set of glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows through which I could see an elegant, opulent lobby that was enviably dry. I gained entry by means of a keycard given to me by my Handler, and by passing the facial recognition scans conducted by overhead security cameras.
Nobody inside the lobby challenged me, but I was given a fair share of dark, questioning looks by a handful of well-dressed people sitting in a nearby lounge area. Those behind the concierge’s desk and information counter also regarded me curiously. Ignoring them, I walked over to a bank of elevators, pushed the UP button, then waited a short while for a lift to arrive.
Obviously, it wasn’t my first time here, so I played it cool, though I was a tad embarrassed by the water dripping from my clothes and pooling around my feet.
Thankfully, a lift car arrived shortly and once inside, I made use of the keycard again.
Slipping it into a slot in the door panel, I was granted access to one specific floor out of five hundred – the floor where my Handler lived. Then the doors closed, and the lift raced up the building’s innards.
With no prying eyes except those of the security cameras, I couldn’t resist the temptation, and shook myself like a wet dog, splashing water about the interior, then I wrung Nikola’s long dark hair a couple of times. I left yet another puddle when I stepped out of the lift into a plush corridor with warm lighting and Navajo white carpeting and walls. This was the 455th floor and I knew my way about it too, so after a handful of turns down spacious corridors and hallways, I arrived at my Handler’s apartment.
I pressed on the door plate.
Unsurprisingly, the door opened without anyone asking who was there. After all, I was expected, and the apartment’s monitor AI would have informed the owner that I was at the door. However, when it opened to reveal a young man in his late twenties, wearing black summer trousers, indoor slippers, and a white shirt, while cradling something familiar in his arms, I gaped at him dumbfounded.
It took me a few seconds to recover my poise and to ask, “Why do you have my bot?”
Yes, it was Speedy in his arms.
Adding to my confusion, the flying saucer was wrapped up in a blanket like a baby recently delivered by a stork.
“It knocked on my balcony window,” he replied, then handed Speedy over to me. “It’s freezing out there at this altitude, so it had iced over. I had to warm it up by the heater.”
I looked down at Speedy in my arms, all snug and comfy in a fluffy, lavender blanket. “Speedy…I thought I’d lost you.” I bent over it and gave it a hug. “Please forgive me.”
“You left your bot out in the cold. How irresponsible can you be?”
“Huh?”
“Come inside. You’ll catch a cold in those wet clothes.”
Before I could retort, my Handler had turned away and walked into his apartment.
I growled at his back, but then followed him in with Speedy in my arms, grateful that I didn’t need to close the door behind me as it did so automatically.
“Greetings Miss Raynar.”
I blinked in surprise, then remembered the apartment’s monitor AI was watching over the place. “Yeah, greetings.” Then I sneezed.
“Miss Raynar, shall I prepare a warm bath for you?”
I was carrying Speedy, so I had trouble wiping my nose. “That actually sounds like a good idea.”
I then promptly sneezed again.
Making my way deeper into the apartment, I was soon reacquainted with how spacious it was. The living area alone was bigger than the entire apartment I rented in a megascraper far smaller than the Century Tower. Even the open kitchen was larger than my apartment’s living room. It was true that I could afford a better place, but saving money was a priority for me. That didn’t mean I was living in squalor. I just wasn’t living in luxury like my Handler who stepped out of the open kitchen carrying a steaming mug in one hand.
He stopped in the living area to study my appearance.
“You’re making a mess on the carpet.”
Tristen Fiori was somewhere in his late twenties. I didn’t know for certain since I knew little about him. He’d been my Handler for over a year – ever since Pantheon made me into the fraud I was today – and yet he remained a mystery to me, except for what I could see with my two eyes.
Leaving his suspected age aside, Fiori stood 5’11, had a svelte, swimmers build, and thick dark, curly hair that he wore at shoulder length.
The first time after Zen met him, she told me that Fiori resembled Jim Morrison from The Doors, and I had to agree there was a passing likeness. But in my book, Fiori had Morrison beat, and I’ll admit that saying that makes me feel weird inside because I’m not supposed to be into guys. However, for the moment, the Jim Morrison lookalike was staring at me reproachfully while I drip dripped rainwater onto his Mohawk carpet.
He casually waved his mug in the direction of the master bathroom. “Go and take a shower. You’ve got a change of clothes in the Cradle, right?”
I snorted softly. “I’ve got everything I need in there….”
Including a few other things that I wasn’t going to mention to him.
Fiori then waved his mug in the direction of a quaint looking oil heater resting alongside a living room wall. “You can put your bot over there.”
“You're treating Speedy like he’s a cat I neglected.”
“Then would you care to explain how your bot ended up knocking on my balcony window?”
I took a deep breath, then released it slowly as I relaxed my shoulders. “I took the train and forgot about it.”
Fiori shook his head slowly. “Why am I not surprised….”
He walked over to a three-seater sofa in his living room, then sat down. “Hobson, warm up the bath for our guest.”
I sneered at him when he wasn’t looking my way. “Didn’t you tell me to take a shower?”
“A bath would suit you better.”
“Yes, Master,” I mocked him, then placed Speedy on the floor before the heater. I patted the saucer’s hub. “Be good and wait for me here.”
The saucer briefly spun its rotors.
It made me think of a purring cat and that made me grin.
“Good, Speedy.” I patted it again before rising to my feet. “Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t peek at me while I’m taking a bath.”
“No chance of that,” Fiori flatly remarked. “You’re not my type.”
With hands on hips, I frowned hard at him. “Of course not. You like real girls. Not fakes like me.”
He sipped the hot liquid in his mug with a calmness that got under my skin. “Go on. We have matters to discuss.”
Shaking my head, I headed to the master bathroom while muttering, “You don’t have to be such a prick.”
Closing the bathroom door behind me, I gave the 6-by-6 meter interior a quick look.
Almost all the facilities in the apartment were automated. This included the doors, lights, faucets, the kitchen appliances, and so forth, and the place was also furnished with servant bots to aid apartment’s monitor, nicknamed Hobson, in its duties. Hence, I wasn’t surprised to discover that a warm bath had been prepared for me. Instead, I was shocked or perhaps unsettled to learn it was a bubble bath.
At first, I thought it was Fiori’s doing, but then I rationalized the AI was probably treating me to a bubble bath as part of its programming. In Hobson’s photronic mind I was a girl, and the stereotype was that all girls liked bubble baths.
I started to laugh.
It sounded a little deranged, so I stopped myself with a hard slap that I instantly regretted.
And yet, Heaven help me, it was hard to say No to a bubble bath, and the thought of making Fiori wait appealed to me.
“Okay. A bubble bath it shall be.”
I took my time bathing.
Indulging in the warm water, I blew bubbles into the air.
When I climbed out a long while later, I patted myself dry, wrapped a towel around my head and another around my body, then summoned luggage from the Cradle that was delivered by a slender, metal tentacle. I changed into clean underwear, a less raggedy pair of Jeans, a black T-shirt, and a grey sweatshirt. It was all clothing I’d picked up on the cheap, but there was nothing wrong with it.
“That’s right,” I told myself. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Then I dried Nikola’s long hair with Fiori’s hairdryer before tidying up the bathroom, put my dirty clothes away in a laundry bin to be washed later, and sent my luggage back to the Cradle for safe keeping.
After checking my appearance once again in a large wall mounted mirror, I walked out of the bathroom and into the living area where Fiori was watching multiple news channels on wall-screen about ninety inches across.
He spoke to me without looking away from the screen. “If you’re hungry, you know where the kitchen is.”
“I’m fine. I ate already.”
I started walking toward a single seat sofa when I noticed a small service bot headed my way.
It was carrying a tray with beverages both hot and cold.
I threw Fiori a narrowed eyed glare but then Hobson said, “Mistress, perhaps you would care for something to drink?”
I couldn’t get mad at the apartment’s monitor for being thoughtful.
“Thanks,” I replied and took a mug of hot chocolate milk from the service bot’s tray.
After plonking my derriere on the sofa seat, I crossed my legs under me, and sat back to sip the hot milk.
Fiori glanced at me, frowned critically, but then resumed watching the various news channels displayed on the wall-screen.
“I’m here,” I told him. “So what is it you couldn’t tell me on the phone?” At a sudden thought, I teased him and coyly asked, “Or did you just miss me?”
Fiori narrowed his eyes for a heartbeat, but replied while his focus was still on the wall-screen. “Pantheon issued you a new assignment.”
I snorted softly. “You told me that much.”
“You’re going to back-up a team of Aventis.”
“What?” I mentally floundered for a few seconds, then sat taller on the sofa seat. “Why?”
“Does it matter? Orders are orders.”
I felt like grinding my teeth but fought down the urge. “Fine. Orders are orders. It sucks but I can live with it.” Taking a quick breath, I then asked, “Wanna tell me the rest?”
“Three Aventis have been put on executive protection duty. They’re watching over a Primogen Legate that’s drawn attention to himself and his family.”
This was sounding a tad familiar to me. “They’re protecting a Juicer?”
“And you’re going to back them up.”
Curious, I leaned slightly toward Fiori. “What are their ranks? Can you tell me?”
“A-Ranks. All of them.”
For a heartbeat, my chest tightened when I thought of Zenovia being an A-Rank, then I leaned forward a little more. “I’m backing up A-ranks? Three of them?”
Fiori nodded.
Definitely feeling uneasy now, I hesitated before wondering aloud, “What kind of trouble is a Juicer in that he needs Pantheon to protect his ass?”
“Not just him. His family as well.”
I blinked quickly. “Oh?”
“A Pureblood wife and two Pureblood daughters.”
“Is that so…?”
Slowly sitting back, I wet my lips while sinking into thought.
Being matriarchal, the Bloodlines placed enormous value on Pureblood females – girls who were born with the Blood Filial inside their bodies, having inherited the symbiote from their mothers. This was in contrast to girls who were Sired into the Bloodlines at a later stage in their lives, usually during their teenage years after puberty set in. In other words, they were girls who were born human but had joined a Vampire Bloodline when they ingested the Blood Filial symbiote into their bodies. While they too were important to the Bloodlines, it was the Pureblooded girls that were valued the most.
I drank hot chocolate milk from the mug, while taking a little time to organize my thoughts.
Actually, I was trying to sort through my anxious emotions.
Three A-Rank Aventis could take on a platoon of heavily armed soldiers with exoframes and power armor. A triumvirate like that was rarely deployed unless Pantheon intended to take down a Pride or a Wolvren Clan bunkered in a hideout. In a manner of speaking, it was a lot of firepower, but it was rarely used to protect. As I said earlier, more often than not, it was used to crush and obliterate.
I sipped more of the hot chocolate milk, then cleared my throat. “Tristen…why three A-ranks? What are they expecting to face? An army of killer cyborgs?”
Fiori stared at me in disappointment. “Killer cyborgs are illegal in New Angeles. And anyone caught with weaponized cybernetics who isn’t part of law enforcement will face a hefty fine and jail term.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t bring in killer cyborgs into the city.”
I was speaking from a lone experience, but it was enough for me to counter his argument, and Fiori knew it as well, judging from the solemn silence coming from him and the distant look in his eyes.
I lowered the mug onto my lap. “I mean, three Aventis together means that Pantheon thinks they’ll be up against some stiff opposition. Right?”
Fiori blinked and focused on me. “I can’t disagree with that.”
“So are they facing killer cyborgs or something worse?”
“I cannot say.”
“Can’t say or won’t say?”
His eyes narrowed marginally in reproach. “You know me better than that.”
I slowly wet my lips, tasting the chocolate milk on them, then swallowed quietly. “Then can you tell me what the Juicer did do that earned him this much trouble?”
“Officially, I don’t know.”
“Officially?” Confused, I raised my eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”
Up until now, Fiori had been alternating his attention between me and the news reports. Now, he silenced those reports by waving a hand at the wall-screen, then turned his head to face me.
“The order came from Aphrodite’s office. When I asked them what kind of trouble the Primogen Legate was in, Aphrodite’s proxy told me not to worry about it.”
I grimaced weakly. “They said that?”
Fiori gave me a nod. “They did, and so I reached out to Laplace, hoping she might now.”
Hearing that name, I grew rigid on the sofa.
Marinette Laplace was one of a few dozen Triple-A Ranked Aventis in the continental United States. There was a rumor that she was centuries old, though Zenovia – the oldest Aventis I was friends with – could only confirm that Laplace was already serving Pantheon when Zen started her long career. Back then, Laplace was already a legend amongst the Aventis, but she gained notoriety running Black Ops for Pantheon, hunting down Bloodliner Prides in Mexico and Central America who were involved in the narcotics trade.
Today, Laplace led strategic operations up and down the west coast, and no Aventis carried out an op – whether officially sanctioned or not – without her knowing about it. However, while she controlled the Aventis along the western seaboard, she didn’t have a say when it came to Lanfears like me who received our orders from the top, and by that I meant the offices of the gods and goddesses of Pantheon.
One such goddess was Aphrodite – the one who made me into the girl I was today.
I relaxed my body with a deep, slow breath, then dipped my head at Fiori. “What did Laplace say?”
Fiori crossed his legs. “She wanted to know why I was asking.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That unfortunately I couldn’t tell her why.”
“And then what happened?”
“She told me to get bent.”
I chortled and quickly covered my mouth.
In the meantime, Fiori drank down what remained in his mug, and then handed it over to a service bot idling nearby like a dutiful servant. “I thought you’d find that amusing.”
Lowering my hand, I sipped more of the hot chocolate milk in my mug, and after swallowing it down, I softly mused, “So then we don’t know what the Juicer did to earn somebody’s wrath….”
“Not from official reports. However, I do have other sources.”
“If you did that, why bother asking officially?”
He gave me another disappointed look. “Because it’s protocol.”
“Can’t you just do things the easy way?”
“This was the easy way,” he countered.
I sighed. “Then what did you find out—unofficially?”
After folding his arms and resting them across a knee, Fiori then leaned toward me. “Word on the street is that Primogen Legate Carlos Riviera nox Erebus is in a blood feud with a Primogen Consul of the Umbra Bloodline.”
I gave him a twisted, puzzled look. “A blood feud? In this day and age? Seriously?”
“There’s nothing surprising about that. Gangs and criminal groups actively engage in blood feuds.”
“I just thought the Bloodlines would know better.”
Fiori shrugged a shoulder. “This one has been ongoing for a long while. Decades, actually. It hasn’t escalated because Pantheon threatened to wipe out both Primogens and their immediate families. However, this time around, Pantheon has chosen a side. I don’t know why, and that does bother me.”
A chill ran down my back.
Wiping out a family branch wasn’t something I’d participated in, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Whoever was responsible for those cullings must have had ice water for blood. Either that or their hearts were as black as coal. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine what kind of Aventis could strike down women and children and simply treat it as part of the job.
Feeling an unpleasant knot in my chest, I swallowed a few times, then cautiously asked, “Do you think that Juicer paid for Pantheon’s protection?”
Fiori glanced away, looking troubled. “I’ve been wondering what he could have offered Pantheon for their services.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged again. “And maybe it’s something I shouldn’t dig into.”
I sunk back into my sofa. “So what do I do?”
“Your job which is to provide backup to the Aventis assigned to protective Riviera.”
I tipped my head at him. “Define backup.”
He waved at the service bot waiting nearby. “Another long black.”
I watched the machine that was shaped like an ashtray can race away toward the kitchen, then I shook my head at Fiori. “You’re drinking too much of that stuff. I’m surprised you can sleep at night.”
“Who says I need sleep?”
I waved my mug around. “It’s your choice. But you haven’t answered my question. Define backup.”
“You’re to support the Aventis.”
“You said that already.”
“The Aventis are your priority, not the Primogen and his family.”
I blinked slowly, thinking he was pulling my leg. “Say that again?”
“The Aventis protect the Primogen and his family. You protect the Aventis.”
Again, I blinked slowly. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“It’s not something I’d joke about.”
“Why?”
Fiori arched his eyebrows at me. “Why what?”
“Why am I protecting them?”
“That I don’t know, and not for want of trying to find out.”
Fiori accepted a cup of long black coffee from the cylindrical servant bot recently returned from the kitchen. He blew gently across the top of the steaming cup, before tentatively sipping the coffee.
I waited for a while, giving him the opportunity to taste the freshly brewed blend before bluntly asked, “Don’t you have any guesses?”
“None that I can speak of.”
His equally blunt reply both surprised and concerned me. He wasn’t saying he didn’t have any guesses, only that he couldn’t tell me about them.
“Why the Hell not?” I complained.
“Because I don’t deal in guesses. When I have something concrete, I will let you know.”
“Tristen—”
“I don’t have anything for you.”
I swallowed, bit down an angry retort, then moderated my reply. “Tristen, I need to know what I’m up against.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly. “Nikola, it’s late. You should get some rest.”
Turning off the large wall-screen, Fiori rose from his seat, then padded barefoot out of the living room.
Watching him leave, I felt bitter and resented him for treating me like a nagging, clingy girlfriend.
But I was also uneasy, unsettled.
Fiori wasn’t one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, so I habitually resorted to using his lifeforce aura as a window into his feelings. The roiling, murky patches I saw smearing his aura painted a grim picture for me – that of a man facing a significant internal struggle – and I worried over what could be forcing him into such a corner.
Yet I also questioned why I cared.
Looking down at the cooling chocolate milk in my cup, I sighed softly, unwilling to face my own heavy, twisted feelings that swirled around within my chest.
A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.
Author's Note: Started a Twitter account (@HartSimkin) to post notifications on how the various novels are progressing, along with other bits and pieces.
It has become increasingly clear that the Bloodlines and the Clans are actively probing the inherent weaknesses of the Aventis-Fury system.
Hence, I write to you as a matter of urgency as this development can no longer be ignored.
My chief concern is the loss of our field personnel to either the Bloodlines or the Wolvren Clans. A secondary concern is the undermining of the morale and self-confidence of our people on the streets as we can no longer claim to hold absolute superiority over our adversaries. The progressive development of modern weaponry and the lack of advances on our part, has diminished the performance gap between our Furies and the Bloodlines private armies.
In response, I seek the support of the Lanfears and their Divas.
I am aware of Pantheon’s reticence to employ them in our overarching field operations.
However, I fear that unless the Bloodlines and Wolvren are sent a clear message that we will not tolerate their actions, they will continue to test our weaknesses and develop effective counter strategies against the Furies, eventuating in the loss of our Aventis out in the field.
Zen told me that in the old days it was easy to move about.
By that, she meant moving about the city with her Fury.
Even though Big Brother had been using cameras to surveil the populace since the late 20th century, it wasn’t as widespread as it was now with eyes and ears at every street corner, and in between. However, what made things difficult for me wasn’t the surveillance web Big Brother had a street level. It was the rooftop web that presented the most difficulties for the Aventis, because it was near impossible to travel across the skyline unnoticed. Even using our bots to disrupt photronic equipment around us wasn’t a foolproof means of ensuring our travails across the city wouldn’t be recorded.
That said, it wasn’t for lack of trying.
To that end, Speedy was customized with all the latest gear that could blanket the eyes and ears of Big Brother’s web within a few dozen meters. However, I’d recently been informed that a certain upgrade for Speedy had hit the market, and I was eager to get my hands on it.
Ergo, the reason for the sudden call that woke me up in the morning while I was dreaming of a different life that I’d once led. Snug under the blankets, I listened to a gruff yet familiar man’s voice on the phone line tell me about the new Canceller that had just landed in his hands.
I warned him, “Don’t you dare sell it to anyone else.”
“I’ll give you an hour to get here. Then I call my next best customer.”
I sprung upright on the bed as though my back was spring loaded. “An hour? Are you serious?”
“The clock is ticking.”
“An hour to get to your shop?”
“Business is business. Do you want it or not?”
I waved a fist at the mental image of the other party. “Pops, I swear, if you sell that to anyone else, I’ll do something I’ll regret!”
“You’ll regret? Or I’ll regret?”
“You don’t want to see me at my worst.”
There was a hefty pause on the line, before he replied, “Fine. I’ll give you ninety minutes. The clock starts…now.”
I quickly glanced at the time on my phone’s screen and memorized it. “Okay. Ninety minutes I can do.”
With that, I ended the call, then quickly started a countdown running on my phone from eighty-nine minutes, rather than ninety.
Kicking back the covers, I jumped out of bed but then spent the next few seconds wondering where I was. Taking a good look at my surroundings, I observed the spacious bedroom, the big bed, a built-in closet occupying most of one wall, recessed lighting on the ceiling, and a stylish bedside table and vanity.
Frowning, I soon remembered this was the guest room of Fiori’s apartment.
“Right….” I nodded. “No wonder I slept so well.”
The room had an en-suite bathroom with a shower that I chose to make use of. Once I’d freshened up and changed into clean clothes that I took out of my luggage stored in the Cradle, I headed for the door, but abruptly stopped and then walked over to the built-in closet.
Opening its doors, I regarded the extensive wardrobe hanging neatly inside that included dresses, pants, blouses, tops, coats, and shoes. All of it was women’s clothing from expensive brands, and they happened to fit me rather well. I knew this because on occasion I would pick a handful of outfits and try them on for size. Last night was no exception, and in fact, the pajamas I’d slept in came from a closet drawer.
I couldn’t describe wearing the different collections as a guilty pleasure.
Rather, it was closer to a morbid curiosity, and though Nikola looked good in everything I’d chosen out of the closet, I wore the outfits with a sensation of weak disgust in the pit of my stomach, perhaps because in my mind I felt as if I was crossdressing, though to the observer that couldn’t be farther from the truth. However, what truly puzzled me was that whenever I stayed over at Fiori’s apartment and slept in the guest room, I’d look in the closet to discover either more or different clothes hanging in there.
“What is he thinking?” I whispered aloud while gazing at the vast collection before me. Then shaking my head, I closed the doors with a softly spoken, “I don’t have time for this.”
Exiting the guest room, I hurried through the living area on my way to the apartment’s front door.
However, I didn’t get very far.
The smell of food in the air turned me about, and I saw Fiori in the kitchen making breakfast.
He glanced at me over a shoulder. “You’re heading out?”
I blinked at him, uncertain of what to think or say. Eventually, I muttered, “Yeah….”
“You have time for breakfast?”
I glanced at my phone and read the countdown on display. I had 72 minutes left before I lost the Canceller to someone else. “I’m not sure. I got a call from Pops Hunter. He’s got an upgrade for Speedy, but I’ve got a deadline.”
“Meaning what?”
“If I don’t arrive in 72 minutes, he offers the upgrade to someone else.”
“Just tell me the part you want, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Huh?”
Fiori jerked his chin at the kitchen bench that doubled as a table. “Take a seat. It’ll be ready in a moment.”
I peeked around his body to see him making French toast, then looked at my phone’s screen again.
Seventy-one minutes and counting.
Fiori glanced at me again. “Call him and tell him you have a better offer.”
I twisted my lips in a troubled pout. “You’re not bluffing, are you.”
“No, I’m not. Call him and tell him you have a better offer. If he doesn’t give you more time, then he doesn’t value you as a customer.”
I weighed the value of breakfast against Speedy’s Canceller.
Then I sent a message to Pop Hunter, telling him about the so-called better offer.
Afterwards, I pulled out a stool from underneath, then sat down to wait for breakfast.
This feels weird, I thought to myself.
“Can you really get me a Canceller for Speedy?” I asked Fiori.
“I can certainly look into them. I’ve got a few sources I can tap into.”
“Is that define Yes or definite No?”
“It’s a Yes.”
I wasn’t convinced. “I really need a better Canceller for Speedy.”
“And you’ll get one.”
I exhaled heavily, hoping he would hurry up with the breakfast he was making. However, Fiori wasn’t making conversation, and the silence between us felt uncomfortable, so I ended up asking, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No, I do not.”
“Oh…then what’s with all the clothing in the guest room?”
He glanced at me over a shoulder. “What about it?”
“Does it belong to somebody?”
“It’s there for emergencies.”
“Whose emergencies?”
“Yours.”
I bit my lower lip for a second before stating, “But I have clothes.”
Fiori turned off the oven plate he was using, then walked over to the bench carrying a tray with several slices of French toast on a plate, and what appeared to be a mug of very warm chocolate milk. “Yes, I’ve seen the clothes you wear.”
I started eating the breakfast he’d prepared. “Are you implying there’s something wrong with my clothes?”
“Are you implying you don’t like the selection in the guest room?”
I didn’t like being answered with a question and scowled at him before cautiously drinking some of the chocolate milk in the mug, mindful that it was actually piping hot.
“I didn’t say that,” I told him.
“Then you don’t disapprove.”
“I’m not saying that either.” After drinking more of the milk, I resumed feasting on a toast. “But it’s clothes I can’t wear.”
“Why is that?”
I sighed at Fiori. “I can’t wear quality clothing in the lower levels. I get caught wearing upmarket brands like those, I’ll be stripped naked faster than a swarm of piranha can eat me.”
“A school of piranha.”
I scowled, annoyed. “You know what I mean.”
He stared at me in silence for a few seconds, then nodded. “You can take what you like from there.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Didn’t you just hear me?”
“What about Anthea?”
I frowned. “What about her?”
“Have you considered changing her outfit?”
I eased my frown into a questioning look. “I thought that wasn’t possible?”
Fiori lightly shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps. But remember that Divas like Anthea are not like the Furies your friend Zenovia operates. They can do more.”
I went back to frowning. “I guess I could give it a try….”
I couldn’t deny being intrigued by the possibility of changing Anthea’s attire to something other than her stylish purple and black outfit.
What could I make her wear?
Anthea was taller than Nikola, with long, toned legs, a narrow waist, and a hefty, yet firm bosom. In short, she was fit for both a fashion runway and the pages of a swimsuit spread, so there was a lot she could wear.
However, the question was how to go about it. Would I need a strong mental image of how I wanted Anthea to look in order to change her appearance after summoning her? Perhaps I should subscribe to a fashion garb to pick up ideas on how to dress up my Diva.
Idiot, I admonished myself, she’s not a doll.
Fiori intruded into my musings. “There’s no telling when you’ll be transferred to another district.”
Puzzled, I stopped eating. “What does that mean?”
“That the clothes maketh the woman.”
“Huh?”
“That there may be occasions when you’ll need an upmarket and elegant appearance.”
I finished off the last piece of French toast on the plate, then helped it down with a generous swig of chocolate milk. After placing the mug down on the tray, I looked at Fiori with suspicion written on my face.
“Are you telling me that I’m going to be transferred?”
He glanced away in thought, before giving me a characteristic light shrug. “Perhaps. You’ve been assigned to the Santa Monica area for almost a year. Your rotation interval is coming up.”
I was confused, not seeing the point he was making. “I don’t get what you’re saying. I spend most of my time as Anthea travelling the city by rooftop. Who cares what she wears?”
“Where do you see most of the action?”
I swallowed quietly. “The alleyways and sublevels.” I cocked my head at him. “Where else would the action be?”
Fiori collected the tray from the bench top. “A wise man once said, the action is where you find it.”
I watched him carry it over to the kitchen’s twin sinks. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me.”
“You’re going to be late. You’d better hurry.”
Scowling at his back, I climbed off the stool. “Fine, I’m going but this conversation isn’t over.”
Returning to the guest room, I brushed my teeth in the en suite bathroom, used the mirrors mounted to the inside of the closet’s doors to check my appearance – faded jeans, hiking boots, a black T-shirt, and a heavy grey bomber jacket – then rushed out of the apartment with a curt wave and hasty goodbye to Fiori who appeared to be making breakfast for himself.
However, I didn’t get far because Fiori called out to me from the kitchen.
“When you’re done, give me a call. We need to chat.”
I stopped and spun around with a puzzled look on my face. “Why?”
He stepped out of the kitchen. “I may have a solution to your problem.”
“Which problem? I have many problems.”
“Your problem with Shifting when you can’t gauge how far you need to jump.”
“Oh…that problem.” I cocked my head at him. “That’s only a problem in thick fog.”
“Meet me up on the rooftop. I may have a way to resolve it for you.”
Genuinely surprised, I straightened my head. “Really?”
“Message me when you’re on your way back.”
Fiori returned to the kitchen, leaving me standing with unfulfilled expectations.
Yet again, I scowled at his back. “What? That’s it? You’re not going to tell me how?”
“If you’re late for Speedy’s part, don’t blame me.”
I growled in frustration, then raced down the hallway and out of the apartment.
I took the lift down to the ground floor, then crossed the lobby at a brisk pace, before exiting the Century Tower through its permaglass doors. Outside the building, I stood at the top of the broad steps leading down to the sidewalk and took the time to retrieve a faded black baseball cap from a jacket pocket. Slipping it on my head, I peered up at the grey sky for a second or two before descending the steps to join the morning crush on the sidewalk as millions of people headed for work or otherwise.
The overnight rain had abated, and the clouds overhead had retreated to a higher altitude so when glancing up, I could see the tops of New Angeles’ towering skyline and the overcast sky between their angular peaks.
However, the ground underfoot was wet and there were numerous puddles to be found.
To me, puddles were an enigma.
No matter how many people stomped on them, they never seemed to run out of water to splash at my ankles.
“Seriously?” I grumbled, while grateful I’d chosen to wear my sturdy hiking books as I was swept along by the crowd streaming down the sidewalk.
Occasionally, I nimbly sidestepped past those pedestrians who were intent on marching into me. I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of knocking me aside.
From Tristen’s building, I made my way southwest along West Olympic Boulevard, past the Century Park megascraper – and arcology type building with indoor recreation grounds – and soon arrived at another massive skyscraper with a fat backside sitting on a city block surrounded by the boulevard and three avenues.
The elevated maglev station was here, and I climbed up the steps to the short concourse, marked the start of my journey by waving my phone over the turnstile scanner, then walked over to the platform standing some fifty feet above street level. From there it was a short wait until a maglev swooped in down the rail line and came to a smooth stop alongside the crowded platform.
Once again, I was pushed into a carriage by a wave of commuters, and it was then a matter of finding myself a spot where I could stand without being crushed by the human bodies surrounding me.
Anyone suffering claustrophobia would have experienced a seizure right there on the spot.
I could hardly breath and when I did, all I smelt was a smorgasbord of aftershave, colon, perfume, rainwater, and sweat. Then someone nearby started to vape – gods, I really hate that smell – and that caused a scuffle when somebody or other tried to stop them.
In the commotion, I got pushed up against a carriage support beam.
I hit my limit and pushed back, using a strength uncommon for a ‘girl’ my age and size, and succeeded in gaining some breathing room.
Cursing my decision to take public transport, I was relieved when I had to change over at station a few blocks down the line. But the second maglev I boarded was as packed to the brim as the first one, and I endured another twenty odd minutes of commuting Hell before scrambling off the carriage and onto a platform that had seen better days.
A glance at my phone told me what I needed to know.
I had twenty-eight minutes before the deadline was up.
At a turnstile gate, I waved my phone over a scanner plate. The transport network server recorded this as the end of my journey by maglev, and the cost of travelling through the city like a sardine in a tin can was deducted from my bank account.
I bit down another curse as I exited the station via its short concourse, then hurried over to a short bridgeway that connected the elevated station to the megascraper beside it, crossing it in seconds before plunging headlong into the throng of people inside the building.
A sequel to the Gun Princess Royale series. Yanked off the streets of New Angeles by the tenebrous Pantheon organisation, and gifted with a deadly avatar known as a Diva, Nikola 'Sola' Raynar is a Lanfear - a huntress of Bloodliners and Wolvren. When she isn't hunting down the denizens of the night, she's busy finding ways to build up her nest egg for the day of her retirement from Pantheon. But when her rampant greed carries her a little too far, she finds herself in a mess that wasn't entirely of her own making. And things only get worse when the one who recruited her, the Goddess Aphrodite, decides to use Nikola to draw an enemy of Pantheon's out of the darkness and into the light.
I’ve seen her cut through a dozen Vamps in as many seconds.
But that’s not what’s scary about her.
Nor is it the fact that she looks just like the Girl Next Door.
To clarify, Anthea has that All-American cheerleader vibe from yesteryear before the country and the world swirled down the gurgling drain. She’s a tall, pretty, hot brunette with a sunny though cynical disposition, and at times she’s a little scatterbrained. Dress her up nicely in casual wear, you’d never think she was an inhuman, merciless monster.
She’s a perfect example of how looks can be deceiving.
But having said that, Anthea is little different from the rest of the Furies that we use to kill for Pantheon. As for her Meister, Nicola, she’s just as broken in the head as most of us Aventis. After all, to be able to kill without mercy or remorse can’t be a healthy mental sign for us.
That brings me to what frightens me the most – that killing doesn’t bother us.
Whatever Pantheon did to us when it turned us into Aventis may have removed any semblance of conscious, regret, or guilt associated with the act of taking a life.
And there’s nothing I can do about it other than to follow my own strict rules of engagement.
But I can’t help feeling hypocritical of my self-righteous code of conduct.
If there was any part of the city that screamed dystopia then this was it.
Rising high and wide, the greyish, megalithic buildings of downtown New Angeles blocked the morning sun and surrounding cityscape, standing like immense tombstones over the graveyard of old downtown L.A. Wider and larger at the base than they were at the top, each of them had a footprint the size of a city block, and they stood several thousand feet high, with tens of thousands of windows lining their exterior at almost every floor.
However, while they were austere and bleak on the outside, their insides were another story which made for a dichotomy of sorts.
For example, I ran through a floor of the building beside the station that was crowded with shoppers, retailers, workers, and outlets. The building happened to occupy most of the old fashion district which probably explained why its lowest floors resembled a factory outlet, and its lively, colorful ambience reminded me of the marketplace I frequented with Zenovia.
However, despite being indoors, the air was cleaner and far less foul.
I didn’t have time to admire the view.
With my awareness on hyperalert and running on a razor’s edge, I dashed between people, sidestepping and side-slipping past them on occasion, while avoiding a crash with every second or third step. At one point, to avoid a throng of shoppers, I took a shortcut through a store, and ran through a hologram of a pretty girl modelling something that I glimpsed as swimwear. I could have sworn she looked at me in terror as I cut a beeline through her body. I almost doubled-back just to see if I was wrong, but I knew better than to waste time I didn’t have.
I had to traverse to the opposite side of the building, then hurry over to the next one in twenty minutes if I was to arrive at Pops Hunter’s techno shop in time to pick up Speedy’s new part.
After dashing across a bridgeway connecting the two buildings, I continued my headlong run through the second megascraper, eventually rushing down several flights of escalators to the building’s lowest levels.
While the previous building was the reborn fashion district, this one was a haven of technology. But, I wasn’t headed upwards to where the reputable companies had their offices. I was headed down to where things were a little less savory.
For a few moments, I questioned whether I’d left the building because it seemed as though I’d plunged into a crowded street shrouded by night, and the only light around me came from a myriad collection of hologram banners, street signs, shop signs, and brightly lit sandwich boards planted outside a plethora of shop entrances. Music wafted out of the shop fronts, overlapping with announcements of special offers blasted out of speakers wirelessly hooked up to hand mikes and headsets worn by resellers plying their wares, competing with trundling advert-bots.
Truth be told, I was indeed outside the megascraper.
To be more accurate, I was under it.
The building didn’t have a solid foundation that rested on the ground like the vast majority high rises that filled in the New Angeles skyline. Instead, it stood over the street and city block on massive legs that formed numerous colonnades. Nestled in between them and beneath the belly of the building were dozens of smaller commercial dwellings, densely packed, two or three stories tall, most of them brightly lit in multicolored neon and holographic signage.
Having paused for a moment to get my bearings, I resumed running.
Weaving between the throng of people out on the street, I was careful not to push through them. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation with an angry pedestrian. I’d already had several near collisions earlier and succeeded in fleeing from them. But now I was close to the finish line, and Pops Hunter’s shop was only a few hundred feet away.
I put the pedal-to-the-metal and floored it.
This was it – the final sprint to the finish line.
Hunter’s shop was located at an alley corner inside a stout, three storey building with cracked cladding and a water-stained façade. The ground floor was a tech shop, while the second floor housed a 24-hour CyWeb café, and the topmost floor had a photography studio.
Quickly changing direction for the entrance, my hiking boots skidded at first, then found purchase on the uneven sidewalk, helping me forward and through the doors that I pushed open with outstretched arms.
I crossed the threshold of Pops’ store just as the alarm on my phone rang out.
Muffled in a back pocket, it announced the countdown had reached zero.
Stumbling from exhaustion, I lost my footing, and landed on my chest on the hard, faded linoleum floor. A loud, pained grunt escaped my lips, and I lay gasping for air for a few seconds, before finding the strength to prop myself up on my elbows.
Peering up, I saw a number of male customers of various ages looking down at me.
Some expressed surprise, but most were not impressed with my dramatic entrance, and that included one dude that I was familiar with.
He was a young man in his mid-twenties, tall and lanky, dressed in black sportswear that included a sleeveless hoodie that exposed the dragoon tattoos blemishing his arms. With closely cropped hair and wearing swept back photochromatic sunglasses that turned clear indoors, he projected the air of a gangster or a low-ranking Triad thug.
Kneeling on the floor, I gave the gangster dude a thumbs up. “Safe.”
Pops Hunter stepped up to me, his white, faded Converse sneakers squeaking on the floor when he stopped sharply.
“Just barely,” he replied in a gruff, gravelly voice, before helping me up to my feet.
Rumor had it someone had poured something unpleasant down his throat a few years back, giving him his old man’s voice. Whether true or not, it hardly mattered to me, I just happened to think about it from time to time when we exchanged words.
“What do you mean, ‘barely’?” I protested. “I had a full minute to spare.”
He gave me a disappointed look, before turning around and striding down an aisle toward the rear of the shop.
“Come on,” he beckoned me with a curt wave.
After straightening my clothes, I followed in his wake, glancing at the aisle shelves brimming with a variety of electronic and photronic goods, before stepping into a back office.
Pops had left the door open, so I closed it behind me to afford us some extra privacy.
Folding my arms, I complained in a low voice. “You have a funny way of treating your VIP customers.”
“It’s because you’re a VIP customer that I gave you the extra thirty minutes.”
“Do you know how hard it is to get here in the morning crush?”
He waved a hand between us. “Come on—I know how fast you girls can move across the city. You’ve done it before.”
I pointed down at Nikola’s body. “Not like this. Nikki has to travel like the other city rats. Besides jumping between buildings during the day is not a good idea. It’s hard enough at night, which is why I need a better Canceller.”
Pops slumped down in a worn-out chair behind a cheap, plastic desk made to resemble mahogany wood. It was chipped and cracked, and quite possibly salvaged from a dumpster like most things in his office like the misshapen shelves and dented filing cabinets. I suspected he’d deliberately cultivated the room’s rundown appearance. By demonstrating a distinct lack of value, perhaps he was hoping to dissuade would-be thieves. There wasn’t anything remotely resembling a safe or even a footlocker to be seen.
In short, it was a dump.
I shook my head. “So it’s true what they say. You can take a man out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of a man.”
“Very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was making a very obvious point about this place.”
Pops pointed in the direction of the store beyond his office. “I keep the good stuff out there.”
I stepped up to his dilapidated desk. “What about the good stuff you have for me?”
“Like what?”
I scowled at him. “My Canceller—remember?”
He nodded, then seemed thoughtful. “Getting that Canceller wasn’t easy.”
“You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“You’re not supposed to ask where I got it.”
I sighed. “You’re my best supplier, that’s why I’m asking.”
“Don’t make me sound like a dealer.”
“I’m just saying, if something happens to you, I lose my best source of high-tech gear.”
“You’re worried about me?”
I shrugged. “Who is else going to replace Speedy for me when I lose it?” I held up four fingers. “I almost lost Speedy the Fourth last night.”
“Almost?”
I rocked my head on my shoulders. “Well…it found its way back to me.” Then I chuckled morbidly. “Actually, it arrived before I did.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Huh?”
“I gave that bot a smart AI. It’s probably smarter than you.”
“That hurts!”
“It should hurt!” He pointed harshly at me. “Replacing a bot of Speedy’s caliber isn’t cheap.”
I raised a fist at him. “I should know! You charged me a fortune for that bot.”
He waved my fist aside. “As long as it knows where you’re going, it’ll meet up with you somehow.”
I folded my arms under Nicola’s breasts. “Well, last night it beat me to the finish line.”
“Maybe I should hang a basket underneath it.”
I started to think of alternatives to a basket, then quickly shook my head. “Can we discuss that later? For now, I just need my Canceller.”
Pops leaned back in his chair. “You have the cash?”
“How much are you charging me?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five bucks?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
I swallowed. “Twenty-five K’s?”
He folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “Do you have it?”
“Is that a VIP price?”
“Nope. No discount this time.”
I frowned at him. “Why not?”
With arms still folded, he tapped his chest. “Because I couldn’t get a discount.”
“And why not?”
“Because this thing was hard to source. Came up the Asia route. It’s replicated tech from the counterfeit fabricators down in Malaysia.”
“Replicated from what?”
“Military tech. Master Grade. This stuff is used by black ops when they need to lurk about the urban jungle. You can’t get the real deal here in the States unless you’re a legit outfit, but you can get the replicated stuff.”
“So it’s illegal here?”
Briefly unfolding his arms, Pops gave me an open-handed gesture. “Depends on who you ask.”
“How about the Attorney General of the USA?”
“Then that would be a Yes.” He leaned toward me. “But you’re not planning on getting caught, right?”
“What about you? Can it be traced back to you?”
He sat back and shrugged. “Everything can be traced back to somebody. Even if I use proxies—so don’t get caught or Speedy goes boom.”
I stared at him aghast. “You put a self-destruct into Speedy the Fourth?”
Pops grinned lopsided up at me. “Obviously.”
“You bastard. That bot was expensive.”
“Then take good care of it. Didn’t you just admit you almost lost it again. Why do you think I made this one smarter than you? So that it couldn’t get lost!”
I flinched guiltily, then inhaled loudly and dramatically. “Fine. My bad. I was having a bad night. It was hard to see out there. And then I kind of forgot about Speedy.”
“You forgot about your expensive bot?”
“I told you—I was having a bad night.”
Pops gave me a reproachful look, but then unexpectedly said, “I don’t get how Pantheon works.”
Wondering where he was going with that remark, I blithely muttered, “Yeah, me neither.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What was that?”
I smiled innocently back at him. “Sorry, what were you going to say?”
“I was going to say that Pantheon has that uber tech that creates those killer chicks out of nothing but smoke. Why can’t they give you an uber bot to go along with her?”
“Well, I’ve wondered that too. But so far, nobody’s stepped up to the plate to volunteer an explanation.” I shrugged lightly. “Maybe this is all the uber tech they have.”
Pops’ expression darkened. “That’s a scary thought.”
I closed my mouth and chose not to say anything while wholeheartedly agreeing with him.
However, Pops had more on his mind. “If that’s all they have, then they’ve been pulling the wool on the Juicers and Pups for a long time.” He wagged a finger between us. “But things have changed out there.”
“You mean how humans aren’t just throwing sticks and stones at each other anymore?”
“Your killer chicks are facing some serious competition out on the streets. The Juicers and Pups are outfitting themselves with some grade-A shit. Military skin-suits and skin-frames. Thermoptic capable. They can run through a brick wall and it won’t slow them down.”
That wasn’t true but I didn’t feel like correcting him.
Instead, I quipped, “Wow, you’re really well informed.”
Pops huffed loudly, the chair creaking under him as he rocked back on it. “It doesn’t bother you?”
I mulled the question over for a short while, then lied. “Anthea isn’t like the other Furies. If I get serious with her, they don’t stand a chance.”
“So you’re not worried?”
I lied again. “Not for now.” Then I leaned toward him. “But I gotta ask, how do you know so much about what’s going on out there?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I hear things.”
I snorted softly. “Good news travels fast, huh?”
“I wouldn’t call it good news.”
I frowned. “Are you worried because you do business with me and the other girls like me?”
He swallowed noisily and his gaze darted about behind his sunglasses. “A little.”
“You know that all you need to do is call and I’ll come running over.”
Pops squirmed a bit in his chair. “That worries me too.”
“What? Why?”
He squirmed again. “I got customers, Sister. Humans, Juicers, Pups. I hear it from them—the trouble in the streets. Me being associated with you means that trouble can affect my business.”
“So you are worried about that.”
Pops sat forward. Leaning over the table, he planted his elbows on it. “My customers aren’t big shots. They’re regular Joes. Just people trying to make it in this city. They keep their heads down. They don’t want trouble and they don’t go looking for it.”
“I get that.”
“But regulars always get caught in the crossfire.”
I planted my hands on my hips, a mite annoyed with him. “We’re not looking to turn the streets into a blood bath. And why do you care so much?”
He sat back in his creaky chair. “I care about my livelihood.”
I purposefully gave him a doubtful look. “Is that really it?”
“I care about my ass, too.”
“Your ass is safe.”
“Is it really?”
I started to retort but then stopped to consider the question that sounded more like an accusation.
Was Pops really safe?
No, he wasn’t. For that matter, none of us were, but it was important to address the question in the right context. In other words, was he safe from getting caught up in the troubles between the Bloodliners, Wolvren, and Pantheon?
“No,” I answered him.
“And there you have it, Sister.”
I closed my mouth with a soft click, then swallowed quietly.
I didn’t know what it was, but I felt that something was up with him, and by that I meant aside from worrying about his business and his skin. Everyone had secrets, and that obviously included Pops, and though our conversations were always a little strange, this time I felt something else was afoot. But I couldn’t put my finger on it, and he wasn’t giving me time to do so.
Rocking back on his chair, Pops asked, “Do you have it?”
The abrupt question confused me. “Do I have what?”
“The twenty-five K’s.”
“Oh….”
I pursed my lips for a short while, debating a choice that was likely to be fruitless, though it might also prove interesting.
Dare I say, illuminating?
So, I told him, “I’ve got something worth a little more.”
Reaching out to my left, I waited for the Cradle to deliver a precious item to my waiting hand. Pops didn’t even bat an eyelid when the air wavered, then rippled as a slender, metallic tentacle emerged from Pocket Space, carrying a package wrapped in a thick blanket that it delivered onto my hand, before quickly retreating out of sight. Despite Nikola’s enhanced strength, I still struggled with the package’s considerable weight, so I was happy to drop it onto the dilapidated desk.
Pops stared at it in suspicion. “What’s this?”
“Payment, obviously.”
“Doesn’t look that obvious to me.” He waved at it. “Unwrap it.”
I held back a heavy sigh, then unwrapped the blanket to reveal a gold bar in all its gleaming glory.
Pops’ eyes bulged in their sockets.
“What the fuck…,” he cursed in a strangled whisper.
“What? Not enough?”
“Are you shitting me?” He was still having trouble breaking out of a whisper. “Where the fuck did you get this?”
“Do you have to be so foul mouthed?”
“Where the fuck did you get this?”
I slipped my hands into my bomber jacket’s pockets. “Does it matter?”
“Of course, it matters.”
I wondered if he really wanted to know or perhaps he was just reflexively asking – a sort of knee jerk reaction to something way out of the left field.
Either way, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “We picked it up a couple of months ago after some girls and I hit a Wolvren den that Pantheon had flagged as a threat.” I slashed the air horizontally with the back of a hand. “We levelled the place. Left no witnesses. Left no working electronic or photronic equipment. Total black out. Then we split up the spoils after we cut open their safe.”
Pops grew ashen, then seconds later he pushed back from the desk, putting distance between him and the gold bullion. “Oh, my God….”
“That’s exactly what we said when we opened the safe.”
“Can’t you take this seriously?”
“I am taking it seriously. Do you know how much that stuff weighs? Our Cradles are loaded with it. For sure we can store a lot of stuff inside them, but there’s still a limit to their capacity.”
“A limit?” He hesitated before asking, “Just how much gold do you have in there?”
“Well, we split it three ways. But after that, we haven’t been able to figure out how to sell it.”
He swallowed audibly. “That’s not surprising.”
“So for now we’re stuck with it.”
Pops pointed a trembling finger at the air to my left. “You haven’t told me how much you have in there.”
“Fifteen bars.”
Now, he turned white. “Fifteen…fifteen bars...?”
“Yeah. So how much is it worth?”
His gaze darted about for a while. “I guess…at today’s market value…probably 18 million dollars….”
That was the same value the other girls and I had calculated.
It was a hefty fortune in gold that we couldn’t move, turning it into dead weight that we were lugging around in our Cradles.
Pops was hyperventilating.
I decided to wait a short while for him to recover, but the seconds kept on ticking by and he didn’t seem to be getting better.
Eventually, I asked, “Well, can I pay with this?”
He stared at me in horror. “Are you shitting me?”
“Of course not. This has to put me in credit, right?”
“I’m not touching that thing.” He waved at the gold bar as though it was emitting toxic fumes. “Get it out of here.”
“What about a small piece? I can slice off a corner. Would that be better?”
“Like Hell it would.”
I was growing frustrated with him. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t touch that. I don’t have the connections to trade in illegal gold. I deal in hardware, Sister. Electronics, Photronics, Quantronics. Not rare minerals.”
He was still shying away from the gold bar on his desk, having retreated in his chair to the back wall of the office.
Truthfully, though it had been worth a shot, I hadn’t harbored any allusions that I could pay for Speedy’s upgrade with gold bullion worth more than a million dollars. But watching Pops react like I’d just dropped the fabled Necronomicon on his desk was growing old and tiresome.
“Fine,” I told him. “I’ll pay you in cash.”
I started wrapping up my gold bar when Pops suddenly cried out, “Wait!”
Startled, I froze, then blurted out, “What? What?”
He scooted forward in his chair, then peered intently at the gold bar. “Let me look at it one more time.”
“But you spent most of the time trying to run away from it.”
He shooed away my remark. “I’ve never seen one before with my own eyes.”
“Then take off your glasses. You’ll see it better.”
He tapped his rims with a fingertip. “Light sensitive, Sister. Light sensitive. These babies let me see better than a cat in the dark. And they have binocular features.”
“What about X-ray vision?”
“No, but they do have thermographics.”
“Really? You mean you’ve got heat vision.” I started to grin madly. “That’s totally awesome. Can you get me a pair?”
He’d been ogling the gold but spared me a peek. “What’s wrong with the pair you bought from me last month?”
“They don’t have heat vision.”
“I’m sure you can live without that.”
I grew quiet for a second while wondering if he knew about my ability to see the lifeforce surrounding people. “What makes you say that?”
He appeared thoughtful for a while before innocently shrugging. “Well, do you really need it?”
I kept a poker face, hiding a faint uneasiness that was creeping along under my skin. “Never mind.” Then I pointed at the gold bar. “Are you done drooling over it?”
He exhaled loudly and then sat back. “Yeah, yeah. Take it away.”
I watched him shake all over in his chair as though trying to rid himself of a bad curse.
After I’d returned the blanketed bundle back to my Cradle, I sent the device a request for my wallet that it soon delivered by tentacle. Fishing inside, I retrieved a cash card that I promptly dropped onto Pops’ desk. “There’s about thirty-five K inside. Don’t take all of it. Just deduct the cost of Speedy’s upgrade.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m not that unscrupulous.” He picked up the cash card, then regarded it pensively for a moment. “Is this clean?”
I grew irritated and snapped, “Of course, it’s clean. I’m not that unscrupulous, either.”
He sounded doubtful. “I’m just saying, that’s a lot of cash you got here.”
“I work hard for the money.”
He sounded even more uncertain. “Do you now…?”
That made me flip my lid. “Take it or leave it. Your choice. What’s it going to be?”
From a desk drawer, he collected a scanner that he used to check the card’s balance. Afterwards, he looked glum. “Fine. I’ll take it.”
“Great. How soon can you have Speedy upgraded?”
Pops sighed. “I can have him ready by tonight.”
My shoulders slumped a little. “Then I’ll pay you when it’s done.”
Pops hurriedly operated the scanner that had swallowed my card. “Pay now.”
“Pops!”
He deducted the amount in a flash, then tossed the card back at me. “Done. A pleasure doing business with you. Now, give me the bot.”
I slipped the card back into my slim wallet, pocketed it, then directed a thought command to the Cradle to send out Speedy. My bot emerged from a sphere of distorted air, circled once inside the small office, then stopped to hover over the desk.
“Land,” I instructed it and Speedy descended smoothly before touching down. Then I faced Pops. “So what now?”
“Now, I go back to work. I’ve got customers to take care of. I need to make a living.”
“What about Speedy?”
Pops glanced up at the ceiling. “Come back for it tonight…say around 10 pm.”
“I have work tonight. I need my bot.”
“10 pm. And not a minute sooner.”
“But I’m a VIP customer.”
“Which is why you get same day service.” He pointed at the door. “Scoot.”
I felt like flipping his desk over and pinning him to a wall, but in the end, all I did was snort loudly like a bull, then stab a menacing finger at hm.
“If Speedy isn’t ready by the time I come back, you’re history.” I then rapped his desk with my knuckles. “And if you’re not here, you’d better relocate to the moon, because I’ll hunt you down and get my pound of flesh.”
“I know you will. And if Speedy isn’t ready by 10 pm, I’ll give you ten percent off your next purchase.”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
“No, twenty,” I demanded.
“Fifteen,” he insisted.
I kicked his desk with the strength of a Lanfear, sending it back a foot while rocking Speedy that was sitting on top. “Fine. Fifteen.”
Pops stared incredulously at me. “If you were going to agree, why’d you kick my desk?”
“Because I felt like it. It’s a perk of being a VIP. I kick things.”
He stood up from his chair. “Break my desk, you pay for it.”
“Better still, I’ll replace it with a new one.”
Turning on my heels, I walked to the front door, and then yanked it open. However, I hesitated by the doorway, quickly closed the door, then strode back to the desk.
Pops looked down at me with a wary face. “What now?”
“If you don’t have the connections, then who does?”
He swallowed hard before shaking his head. “No idea. I don’t get involved in that stuff.”
“Then who does?”
“I don’t know.” He jerked his chin at the office door behind me. “Now scoot. I’ve got a business to run.”
And I had a mouthful to say to him.
For example, I could remind him that he had a business because I’d done away with his creditors. But it didn’t feel like the right time, so I swallowed it down though it tasted acrid and unpleasant.
Clenching my jaw and nearly grinding my teeth together, I turned around and headed for the office door. Yanking it open a second time, I stormed out of the office, not bothering to shut the door behind me. I left the shop moments later, but then found myself outside wondering what the Hell to do next.
Fiori had told me to return to the Century Tower once I was done here, but I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with him.
Belting out a heavy, disgruntled sigh, I shoved my hands into my jacket’s pockets, then looked up at the bright underbelly of the megascraper standing over the city block.
The reason I described it as bright was because of the hundreds of powerful spotlights shining down on the streets and buildings below it.
Whose genius idea was it to construct the building over the block rather than on it?
It made no sense to me, but what did it matter?
At the least, it was something different to look at.
Suddenly overwhelmed by frustration – most of it stemming from my tête-à-tête with Pops – I ran my fingers through Nikola’s long hair, ruffling it up into a wild mess. Then I huffed and puffed for a short while, before striding off into the depths of the district with no destination in mind.
To those of you following this story, thank you.
Author's Note: See my Twitter account (@HartSimkin) for posts on how the various novels are progressing, along with other bits and pieces.