Date Published: April 16, 2021
Welcome to DevTown.
In this city, holo ads lumber like neon giants seeking advertising targets. Men and women pop Oracle tabs in search of relief or enlightenment or both. Creatures of unknown origin stalk the darkest alleys. In the center of it all, NexDev Tower looms over the city, home to hundreds of floors of top-secret research.
And in its shadow, Shan Hayes kills people for money.
Rejecting the mechanical enhancements so popular in DevTown, Shan needs only two things: The resynth serum that can reshape her body's entire cellular structure, and her hand-cannon containing a sentient parasite capable of converting her blood into weaponized wasps.
As a hired gun for various crime syndicates, there's little of the city's underbelly Shan hasn't encountered. But when a longtime business associate hires her to track down an underling who's vanished into the neon night, Shan finds DevTown still holds secrets more deadly and terrifying than anything she could imagine.
Excerpt
The target pauses, turns to look at Shan. Here
in the alley, shadow swallows his face. Emerald neon reflects off his
mirrorshades, but it’s not the only surface catching the soft glow. As he
turns, light flashes around his knees and continues to his feet.
Mech legs.
As he stares her down through green-glinting
shades, a hissing whine fills the alley. He turns just as the sound reaches a
crescendo, and as it releases in a blast, he bounds away. The single leap
carries him thirty feet, and the instant he lands, there’s another blast,
carrying him another thirty feet.
The mech legs must have some sort of repulsor
technology. Shan has heard of newer models which concentrate electromagnetic
fields and use them to propel users at high velocities, but it doesn’t matter
how his models work. Shan won’t catch him without enhancements of her own.
There isn’t a single mech installed on her body, but she doesn’t need mechs.
Not when she has resynth.
All these thoughts pass through her head in an
instant. Before the target lands, Shan swallows a handful of CalPills. The
large yellow capsules land in her stomach like a ton of bricks, but she needs
the calories for what comes next. She slides a syringe from the clip on her
belt and plunges the needle into her thigh.
She runs.
Resynth serum, that cocktail of proteins and
viruses, floods her bloodstream, issuing commands to each cell it touches. The
cells comply, transforming to accommodate the design coded into the serum. Heat
ignites in her belly as the CalPills fuel the change. Shan’s joints rearrange,
her muscles grow, her tendons expand and contract, reforming her body until she
isn’t running, but galloping, using the force of four limbs to chase her
target. She is more than human now. She is a predator, and her target is prey,
no matter how much organic tissue he’s traded for metal.
Thanks to those mech legs, her target is fast,
but she’s faster still. The pavement is cool and rough on her palms. The scents
of DevTown sharpen as air rushes past her face. Her lips twist in a bitter
smile. No hunt is complete without a chase.
--
A news report on the old flatscreen details
another attack in another alley. In a dry voice with a matter-of-fact tone, the
anchor narrates grainy footage of bone-thin men and women overwhelming a victim,
mentions the growing trend of corpses covered in bite wounds. She relays the
authorities’ promise to investigate the violence and provides a phone number
for anyone with information to share.
“Literal zombies is what they are,” says the
bartender, wiping a pint glass with a rag. “People comin’ back from the dead
and bitin’ chunks outta folks.”
Shan grunts, but offers no comment. She doesn’t
care what he thinks. Theories won’t improve the streets of DevTown, but that’s
never stopped conversation at Infusion.
“Aw, not this again,” shouts a voice behind
Shan. “We got no proof the shamblers ever died to begin with.”
Shamblers. It’s the term used by anyone unbound
by journalistic integrity, referencing the clumsy way the attackers move.
“Every single one of ’em looks like a walkin’
corpse. Add the bite marks, and how they don’t seem to feel nothin’ when folks
fight back, it makes perfect sense.” The bartender sets down the pint glass and
leans into the bar. Slender mech fingers drum a staccato on old wood. “I bet
it’s Oracle tabs makin’ people do it. Ever notice how many of those victims
turn up in Tabber Alley?”
“Shut up,” says another voice. “Oracle can’t
raise the dead.”
“You sure?” says the bartender. “Oracle’s the
newest drug on the street. No one’s studyin’ it. Tabbers know what happens
after they swallow, but what about after they die?”
The door to Infusion slams open. Shan glances
over her shoulder, half-expecting to find a bone-white, withered corpse of a
person. It would shamble in, fall upon one of Infusion’s patrons and bite into
his neck, sucking everything out until the patron is twitching on the stained
floor and the newcomer’s body bloats with fluid.
But that’s not what she sees. Instead, it’s
three men. They’re pale, but not bleached white, and they certainly aren’t
wasting away. Their arms are thick, their chests wide. As one, they stride up
to the bar. There’s no sizing up the patrons, no scanning for dangerous
characters. Each man’s gate is purposeful, fearless. One settles into a stool
next to Shan, and the others wait behind him, snapping at the bartender for
attention. After they order a round of drinks, an uneasy silence falls over
Infusion. Nobody offers another opinion on Oracle tabs, nobody theorizes on the
shamblers’ origin. Everyone stares at their glasses, but the bar’s collective
focus centers on the newcomers.
“You Shan Hayes?” says one man. His voice is a
dagger, piercing the silence and leaving a gaping wound in its wake.
“Who’s asking?”
The man’s lips quirk in a smile. “Heard we might
find her here.”
Shan holds his stare, tracking his companions in
the corner of her eye. One has shifted a hand inside his black trench coat; the
other drifts sideways, flanking her. She doesn’t know who sent them, but they
aren’t here for a friendly chat.
So Shan acts before they do. She throws an elbow
back, sinking it into the gut of the man shifting behind her. As he grunts,
more from surprise than pain, she keeps turning, spinning off her seat and
using her other hand to snatch his glass of whiskey and hurl it at his
companion in the stool beside her. He dodges the projectile, and it shatters in
a spray of gold and glitter. That split second of hesitation is all she needs.
She shuffles away until they’re in front of her, the bar at their backs. At least
she’s not surrounded anymore.
The guy reaching into his jacket withdraws his
hand to reveal a weapon. It’s not a gun or even a knife, though. This is a long
black baton with ice blue spirals running up and down its length. He lunges at
her, lifting the weapon over his head. Reckless.
With ease, she sidesteps the attack and throws
herself into a counterstrike. Her knuckles crash into his jaw, but a jarring
vibration runs from her wrist to her shoulder. He barely reacts to the
perfectly placed blow, now whirling toward her. He even has the audacity to
smile.
Of course. He’d used mechs to reinforce his
bones. Not a terrible investment for someone on his career path.
The guy with the baton lurches toward her, and
Shan reacts instantly. She grabs a syringe from her belt, plunges it into her
thigh, and throws the empty canister at her attacker. He dodges, and she backs
away, waiting for the serum to do its work.
The cells in her arms split, change, and die,
burning calories at a rapid rate. Her stomach feels empty, and the emptiness
spreads to her entire body as the serum demands more fuel.
Kim would not approve of this.
Shan forces herself to focus through the sudden
hunger, the lightheadedness, the feverish disorientation. Her right arm has
grown razor-sharp spines along the edge of the forearm, and her left has
changed into a massive claw as hard as a diamond.
This time, when the guy swings at her, Shan
plants her feet and blocks with her spiny forearm. His elbow catches on the
fresh blades, and when she jerks her arm aside, it shreds his mech. The club
rattles to the floor, but he stays upright. Synthetic skin hangs in ribbons
around the ruined chrome. He sneers.
Shan sways where she stands, her body burning
through calories at an unsustainable rate. She has to finish this. Without
CalPills, she can’t hold this form long.
She launches herself at the man with the
shredded arm, bringing the full weight of her claw into the crook of his neck.
Now he falls, legs buckling under the force of her blow. The claw sinks into
his shoulder. It isn’t heavy enough to sever an entire mech, but its serrations
still cut partway through. Shan rips the claw free, and he collapses, twitching
in the chaos of shorted and severed connections.
The clock is ticking. Shan’s growing weaker by
the second.
She kicks a loose barstool at one attacker and
lunges at the other. It’s a reckless move, but she doesn’t have the time to
maneuver so there’s nobody behind her. She must rely on her own speed, hoping
to finish one guy before the other recovers.
In the blink of an eye, she’s on top of her
target. The spines on her forearm pierce flesh and tendons on his chest with
ease, and when she tears the arm free, he gives a low, gurgling moan. Blood
sprays a nearby table. Her stomach roars with hunger, and her head vibrates,
but she can’t stop yet.
She whirls to face the last of them, but he’s
ready for her. The barstool she kicked is his weapon now. He’s already
mid-swing, and the seat catches her under the ear.
Darkness swallows her.
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