Page 2 of Scion

The flesh becomes mush, squelches and oozes between my fingers. The Argos gives one more desperate heave. Twitches. Lies still.

I lie there too for at least a few heartbeats past the Argos’s last, before groaning and extracting myself from its torso. My whole arm is warm and sticky and very, very red. Little bits of meat cling to my fingers. I wipe them reluctantly on the one section of my shirt that’s actually bloodless enough to do so, then locate the stitch spray in my pocket and hose the hole in my leg thoroughly. The gel dulls the pain even as it seals the wound. No arteries hit, but I wouldn’t be able to walk without my revs.

“Well that was awful,” I mutter to myself, perching on the dead Argos while the gel sets and gazing out over the half-wrecked garden. No need to rush. Anyone with an Argos won’t be employing humans as well: guards occupying the same space as biosecurity need recog training or at least stand-down access, and that’s such an easy point of failure that owning one of these things would be all but futile. There won’t be more Argos—Argoses—Argi?—roaming the grounds, either. They’re insanely expensive, and tend to see one another as intruders.

Even the man I’m here to kill doesn’t have that many tokens to throw away.

Eventually I climb down from the headless, bloodied monstrosity’s back, toeing it cautiously with my boot before limping onward. It’s a five-minute walk through the rest of the EMP garden to the main house; it takes me almost ten, cursing under my breath for most of the way. Why does this guy even have this much lawn?

I crouch low as my target’s dwelling finally comes into sight, using shadows and sculpted shrubbery to mask the remainder of my approach. The building up ahead is pretty typical of the people I tend to kill. Large, of course. Very large. All stylishly sharp geometric angles, water features, and tastefully lit glass. No atmoshields needed on a clear night like tonight; the upper-floor windows are tuned to opaque, but I can see him downstairs slouched on the couch, watching the holo. There won’t be anyone else to worry about. He’s a lifer, according to his file. They never allow other people to sleep in the same house they do.

I fish the thankfully still-intact Faraday pouch from my pocket and open it. There’s tech everywhere again now I’m out of the EMP ring, but there’s a reason anyone serious about their safety relies on biosecurity: anything electronic is just far easier to meddle with. Not my area, to be honest. All I know is that as I plug the q-com into my ear, the drones I can see high above buzz cheerfully to the opposite side of the house, and none of the environmental sensors that surely litter this place indicate to the man inside that I’m here.

“You there?”

“No. All the alarms just turned themselves off as you arrived.” The disgruntled feminine voice on the other end is more than a touch sardonic. That’s pretty normal. “You took your time.”

“Biosecurity.” I shuffle toward the house. Keeping an eye on the man inside in case he turns around, but not bothering to hide myself otherwise. Atti would have already given me a heads-up if she hadn’t taken care of all the tech.

“I warned you. Those Bats aren’t as easy to kill as you seem to think.”

“I took care of the Bats before they saw me.” Bats are a far simpler, cheaper, and more passive form of biosecurity: when they detect an intrusion inside the EMP ring, they simply fly out of it and trigger an alarm. “The Argos was the surprise.”

There’s a long enough silence that I gently tap the q-com, checking it’s still working.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” I agree.

“You alright?”

“I’m a little injured.”

“Define ‘a little.’ ”

I consider lying. “My left leg needs work. Stitch spray and revs are doing the job for now.”

“So at least a week.” I don’t say anything. “Two weeks?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“Ah.” A small exhalation of breath. “Well… that works out, anyway. Your next job came through a few minutes ago.”

There’s a note of reluctance in Atti’s voice. Not like her at all. “Why does it ‘work out’?”

“It’s… more defensive than usual.”

I keep creeping toward the house. “No.”

“They already know you won’t like it, and they’ve assigned you anyway.”

“No.”

“It’s been four years.”

“No.”

An exasperated silence, then, “The tokens on this one are too big to pass up, Azure. And even if that wasn’t true, you can’t afford two weeks in the air. You know that as well as I do.”