Aika

Dreamtech, she discovered, was located in the recently-completed pyramid in Hyde Park, constructed of glittering obsidian glass and gleaming blue steel. It looked, to Aika, like nothing so much as a spider’s eye. She shivered, and entered the building.

  The agent was waiting for her with one of his slightly bemused smiles. “Welcome.” He led her down the hall from the lobby, all blue-veined black marble and a front desk of smoky black manned by security personnel in matching black uniforms and expressions of quiet, alert respect. He handed her a security card, black with the blue Dreamtech logo on it.

  “This will get you to all the common, free-access rooms. But your Identichip serial number has been upgraded to security level eight so you can get everywhere but the top three floors.” The ruling board had been very specific about that.

  Aika nodded. Last year, all citizens of the U.K. had been fitted with Identichips so that picture IDs and other physical cards were now defunct. Serial numbers were registered into a government network, and entering that number facilitated any number of transactions linked to a government code—banking, health care, use of the Underground, ration control, taxes, payroll and timekeeping for employees—all was now logged, tracked, and analyzed.

  Aika had been among the first to receive hers, for the militia had been the test base and hers had been implanted as part of her physical before she entered basic training. Her chip included all personal information, rank, full medical profile, employment, and personal history, plus every account from her bank accounts to her government ration ledgers. Hard currency no longer existed.

  She had, for example, spared no expense in having her Bonneville transported from a storage unit in Dublin all the way to a military compound garage in London. Once the request had been approved by her captain, monetary transactions and delivery status had the all taken place on the government network, designed and secured by—as it turned out—Dreamtech.

  Her Identichip was also how her superiors tracked her movements whether on the base or in the field. It wouldn’t surprise her know this was how the agent had tracked her down and accessed her military and mission records.

  “What do I call you?” she asked as the agent led her to an elevator of dark mirrored doors.

  “Charles is fine. I’m your handler and S.O.” When it opened, he gestured her to enter first. To her surprise, instead of rising, the elevator sank. “The majority of our work takes place at the basement levels,” he explained. “For security reasons.”

  If Aika hadn’t known she were in the basement, she would never have guessed by its interior. In place of windows, flat monitors of unframed mounted glass provided everything from unbroken, majestic cityscapes to beaches and meadows to virtual fishtanks. It resembled any other pleasant, high end office space to still be found in many parts of the city. Everyone looked busy, but happy.

  Charles smiled at the look on her face. “What were you expecting? Leaky dungeons with flickering torchlight?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, amused. “But not this, either.”

  “Dreamtech is now the largest—and highest rated—employer in many parts of the world. London isn’t the only city in trouble.”

  “So where do I come in?”

  He led her another elevator, this one encased in smoked black glass. “Security, of course.” Inside, he entered his serial number and thumb print and invited her to do the same. Only then did the elevator descend. “We are still new and largely untried. Therefore our own defenses must be in place before we go breeching anyone else’s.”

  Two floors down, the door opened in what appeared to be some sort of testing lab. He continued his lecture as they passed rooms and bunkers of busy—and occasionally explosive—activity. “Weapons, defensive clothing, gadgetry—whatever it takes to win London back from the Blitz.”

  “And you want me to, what…test it?”

  “All of it.” He opened a door at the end of the level and ushered her into what appeared to be an airplane hangar decked out as a gymnasium. “This is our danger room.” He nodded a greeting to a middle-aged man in plain black fatigues with the blue Dreamtech logo on a patch on his sleeve, holding a clip board as he noted the line of weapons on the table before him. “Let’s see the DK-7, Miller.”

  “Yessir.” He chose a .45 caliber pistol not unlike her own military-issue, checked the safety and clip, and handed it grip-first to Charles, who handed it to Aika.

  She weighed weapon in her hands—black handle, that same blue steel framing the Dreamteach building, the conglomerate’s logo on the grip. She raised it in one hand, sighting along the barrel.

  “Go head and try it.” They entered the gun range and chose a handy booth, where they put on goggles and noise-canceling ear buds. A target awaited her at the end of the range.

  Aika steadied the pistol in both hands, right foot back to anchor herself, and breathed. At the end of her exhalation, she fired rapidly.

  Charles brought the target forward, revealing a tight cluster of three shots to the middle of the head, three to the heart. “Wonderful,” he approved. “Let’s try something a bit more challenging, now that you’ve got the feel of it.”

  In the next room he entered an observation chamber, leaving her in the middle the dimly-lit void that reminded her a bit of that other place, where the old man had taken her. She’d pushed the experience out of her mind these last years for the most part.

  “I apologize for the lack of light,” the agent said through a microphone. “But our quarry does not care for it much.”

  “What quarry?” she asked, gun half raised.

  A gurgling snarl answered her. Loping feet galloped across the cold cement floor. Aika wasted a precious moment staring, then ducked a split second after the sound of running feet stopped.

  Her knees bent until her bowed back hovered inches from the floor. Something smelling of rotting graveyards and road kill left in summer heat sailed over her. She sprang upright, turned, and fired.

  Breathing hard, she approached the fallen figure carefully, gun still raised. She stared at what she found, prodding it the steel toe of her boot. “What the hell—?”

  More footsteps, from two different directions. Before she could quite react something thumped her, hard. She flew back, somersaulting and rolling to ease her fall. Her free hand slapped the floor to halt her momentum, sending tingles of impact up her arm. She rolled back onto her curved spine and back onto her feet.

  The roar of an animal, the reek of hot, humid decay. At the sound of running feet she spun out of the way, firing as something darted past her.

  It was a distraction. The other…thing…had circled, stalked her from behind. Next thing she knew, she was back on the floor, its rotting, peeling face suffocating her in its dripping, breath. Hands with the texture of rancid fruit were at her throat, rangy arms pulsing in effort to choke the life from her. Aika couldn’t tell if the creature’s expression were a sneer of triumph or a grimace of hatred.

  Aika grasped one of its wrists, trying not to think about what she might be touching. She pressed her fingers into what was left of the muscle between the wrist and thumb, dug her own thumb into the bones at the back of the hand, and cranked with all her might in the opposite direction.

  It shrieked in pain and thwarted victory as she peeled its grip from her neck, claw-like nails scraping across her skin. She leveraged to her feet, forcing it to roll with her, and shot it twice in the head. It went still.

  She crawled away on shaking hands and knees and, with great relief, promptly threw up.

  Applause greeted her finale. The agent and several military and scientist-types came out onto the floor as the lights went up.

  “Well done, Corporal—rather, Agent—Lareto. I think we all agree?”

  Approving nods all around as Charles helped her to her feet.

  Aika shook him off and took a few steps away, still fighting for breath. “What are those things?”

  “Lesser demons—carrion, to be exact.” He hesita
ted. “You know they exist? Demons?”

  She nodded, straightening her spine as the dizziness passed. “In theory. There have been things I’ve seen on patrol. Things I’ve fought. Never had a call quite that close, however.”

  “We use these for study, and, of course, training and weapons testing. Not much kills them.” He picked up her discarded gun and released the clip. “Appear to be normal bullets, yes? Actually, they’ve been blessed by your chaplain.”

  She started to laugh. “Holy bullets? Really?”

  He grinned. “Indeed. A normal priest wouldn’t have been able to manage the strength we needed, of course. Fortunately, your chaplain also happens to be an angel.”

  She sank to the ground, propping her arms on bent knees. She wished she could laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. But after the old man…after those things…“This all begins to make sense.”

  Behind them, a door opened and several soldiers worked to remove the dead carrion from the room as the military and science types adjourned to confer.

  “It does?” the agent asked, watching her closely.

  She nodded. “Somehow—don’t ask me to explain it—you know I’m not entirely…normal. Did Padre the angel tell you?”

  A quirk of the mouth on the agent’s part. “Bobby does know, yes.”

  She nodded. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m allowed to fight.”

  He crouched next to her. “What is it you want, Aika Lareto?” he asked quietly.

  She thought about it. “Relief,” she answered, finally. “I want relief from this pressure, building inside me. I want the freedom to grieve.”

  “So?” Dreamtech ruling board stared down at him from the wall-turned-monitor in his office. “What is the key to this new project of yours? What does she want?”

  Charles consulted another, smaller monitor on his desk. “The psychological reading I have from her chip indicates she spoke the truth. Relief—and possibly release, as well.”

  “Relief from what, exactly?” one of the other members wanted to know.

  “Her finance died in the initial attack. Interestingly enough, she knows what she is, but isn’t interested in pursuing it. She appears to be…hiding.”

  “How does this effect our objective?”

  “Frankly, this makes things easier. Nothing will stop her evolving, and we will reap the rewards of her growing power. If we can push her to ascension…” He spread his upraised palms. “There will be nothing to stop us.”

  “And her fiance?”

  “She suspects nothing.”

  “Very well. You may proceed. However…”

  “Yes?”

  “Make certain you keep her under control.”

  CHAPTER SIX