NOVEL FROG Chapter 54: Old Iron Hand
Before Sacher could come into my apartment I stepped into the elevator with my duffle and pressed the button to close the door behind me.
“I'm in a hurry. What do you want?” I asked, a bit more rudely than I intended. I pressed the button for the lobby and waited for a reply.
Sacher reached over and swiped his metal right hand down the row of buttons, lighting them up. It would take forever to get to the lobby now. “There.” He said in thickly accented Hund-Katzen “Now we have time to talk. Much better, ja?”
I switched to Döbian, clenching my fist as I spoke. “I’m in a fucking hurry. What do you want?”
Sacher was bigger than me, older than me, and between the metal arm and leg he was a hell of a lot scarier than me. My opinion of the gray haired human had shifted away from reverence as certain facts about his history came to light. Now he was going out of his way to make me late, what an asshole.
“I want you to join my team.” He said. “We humans have to stick together.”
This wasn't the first I had heard about this. Sacher’s people had reached out to me several times over the last few months. But after my recent experiences with law enforcement I was considering going a different route. Possibly as a public defender. Law school would be a breeze with my memory.
“I am taking a year off. Call me in six months.” I said. Then I connected to the elevator with my wetware and entered the code to run a fire department override. All the elevators in the city used the same master code. It was actually mandated by law.
Sacher's smile faded behind his salt and pepper beard as the elevator didn't stop. He pressed the emergency button, nothing happened. “Clever girl.” He said.
“Very much so.” I replied. “Now if you are done being an asshole, treat me with some respect and I might just listen.”
His lips puckered with annoyance. “Fair enough. I have reason to believe that our recent gang war is the result of outside interference. I need some heavy hitters in my corner when it comes time to take them down. It would be one hell of a start to your career.”
“I'm not a soldier. Or a killer.” I replied, feeling my eyes flicker yellow behind my sunglasses. “Besides, you murdered kids. So that's going to be a hard pass from me, Sachertorte.”
The man gave me an angry look that confirmed my suspicions. He wanted to bash my face in for bringing up his past. Sacher was the neighbor that killed Gershwin's children and kicked off this whole mess we were still dealing with today.
It could have been an accident, but Gershwin didn't seem to think so. At the very least he should have known better than to leave chocolate around where young pups might find it.
The doors opened and I went to step out but Sacher grabbed me by the shoulder. I felt his rough metal fingers gripping the reinforced fabric of my jacket. “I'm not done talking.” He said.
I turned around slowly, feeling the familiar rage rising. Both halves of me, Eden and Echo, were in absolute agreement that if Sacher tried that shit again we were going to make him regret it. I wanted to rip him apart and I knew I could do it. I eyed the joint where his left arm met the shoulder. His non-metal arm.
I closed the elevator doors behind me. “If you lay one fucking hand on me ever again, you pup murdering fuck, I will take your remaining limbs.” I said, making sure to enunciate and speak very slowly so there could be no confusion. I did not like being touched without my permission.
“Entschuldigung.” Sacher said as he raised his hands. “That was an accident and not my doing. No doubt your father heard the stories from Gershwin and passed them along. But your grandfather Kerner knew the truth. He trusted me, you should too.”
At the mention of my grandfather I felt myself relax and then tense up again. This was manipulation. I knew the two of them fought the mob in Möhi together. Rook had confirmed as much. But I didn't have any knowledge of how that partnership ended. Grandfather certainly never spoke of him when he was telling me stories of his time as a police officer.
I was done with this conversation. “I'm not interested in joining your team. Even Ragdoll would have had better luck recruiting me. So please, fuck off.” I flipped him the bird then opened the elevator door behind me.
“Ragdoll is dead.” Sacher replied before I could leave. “So are Chowder, Marmalade and about twenty other officers. The gang war is heating up and good cops are being killed. I need your help to stop it.”
I paused. Lingering and listening against my better judgment. I knew things were getting bad but I hadn't realized how bad. No, it wasn't my fight and I couldn't trust Sacher. I had my own problems. No matter how much I wanted to help I couldn't do it if I wasn't able to trust the people around me. That was suicide with extra steps.
A warning triggered as my scarab spotted eight hunds with brown fur and high cut ears enter the lobby behind me. They had old fashioned pistols without smart sights or gyro stabilizers. One leveled a big ugly fat green tube at the elevator as the others spread out to either side behind him.
“Shit.” I said as I recognized the rocket launcher. Then something interesting happened. My new Warmaster subroutines came online. Time did not slow, I just got faster.
Without hesitation I turned around and bolted full speed at the hund with the rocket launcher. Meanwhile my wetware designated Sacher as a friendly and sent him an invite to join my secure network. Then it pinged every electronic device within range and began to take them over.
I wasn't thinking. There was no time to think and no need to. The system told me what to do and I did it. I dodged left, the hund with the rocket launcher succumbed to target fixation and followed me, even though Sacher was the much easier target.
There was a brief shout of surprise from the gangsters behind him as he pulled the trigger. A rocket went shooting out the front of the tube but it was the backblast that claimed first blood. My wetware marked a kill as one unlucky bastard caught a face full of hot rocket exhaust.
The rocket itself was no threat as it passed behind me and utterly destroyed an unoccupied red leather sofa. Widows shattered all across the lobby from the explosion. There were still seven gangsters left and I was unarmed but I didn't need to kill them. All I needed to do was escape the initial ambush.
Seven on one was just too much and they weren't after me anyway. It was Sacher they wanted. I jumped through the now open window and hit the sidewalk at a dead run. My Warmaster subroutines marked eight additional enemies, two of them with H.U.D.s and Döbian carbines.
This was a multi-layered attack. The initial group would go in to make contact, drawing fire from anyone allied with Sacher, then the second wave would roll the defenders up like a carpet.
I was outnumbered but there were a few things in my favor. None of them were expecting me, I had superior wetware, and I had exited the building via the window instead of the expected front door or side exit.
My wetware designated a target close to me. I closed the three meters between us and was on him before he could react. He was wearing a H.U.D. because his wetware couldn't natively interface with the smart carbine. I knocked the big ugly green goggles off his face with a bone breaking sucker punch and ripped the carbine out of his unconscious hands.
I couldn't help but notice that he was wearing a plate carrier underneath his jacket. It was interesting, seeing a gangster wearing rifle rated plates. I wouldn't have expected that. I dodged behind a large concrete planter box as bullets began to ping off the sidewalk and walls.
I overrode the carbine’s digital locks and ran a diagnostic as I synched up with my new weapon. The carbine was surprisingly well maintained. Practically new, in fact. And it wasn't a post war knock off or licensed run either. This was a genuine Döbian buzzsaw.
My Warmaster subroutines recognized the weapon with approval. They had significant and extensive data on how to use this particular piece of hardware. Targeting data flooded into my mind as the cameras I hacked earlier came on line. Seven of the gangsters were approaching my position. I zipped up my jacket, hoping the ballistic weave would offer some protection.
I wasn't scared. In fact I was eerily calm as I set the carbine from spray and pray to marksman mode, shrinking the acceptable margin of error from ten centimeters down to two. How strange, I thought as I designated my targets.
A part of me knew there was no coming back from what I was about to do. But it was only a whisper. I waited for them to close the gap. I needed them closer, away from anything that might provide cover or concealment. Once they were all within thirty meters I lifted the smart carbine over the lip of the cement planter box, and fired.