Slumrat Rising

The needle was quite long compared to a standard sidearm. Truth knew from experience it could smash through people without slowing down. That’s what it was built for- smashing through problems and problematic people. Driven at brutal speeds by the enchantments on the talisman, it could turn even a Level Zero nobody into a legitimate threat… to someone completely not paying attention or with really shoddy personal protections. Assuming someone with a higher level nudged things along a bit.

Truth watched intently as the needle whipped down the road toward the Suit and the invisible watcher thing standing at his side. If he timed it just right, and if his subtle help aiming had worked, it should… Truth felt a tiny thrill of horror- in the bare second between the trigger being pulled and the needle reaching its target, the watcher had started to turn. Truth could see its head whipping toward the incoming needle. Not dodging, yet, just… seeing. If it had a second move, it didn’t make it in time.

Incisive had caught the perfect moment. It let a Level Zero nobody kill one of Starbrite’s secret weapons. The needle caught the watcher just above the eyebrows, a tiny hole going in, a shower of pink and gray gore spraying over the Suit a fraction of a second after the Suit caught the needle with his temple. It hadn’t lost a whole lot of speed even by the time it came out the other side, spraying the F-Tier gray hat security drone with “superior” gray matter. Not that the guard had much time to worry about his uniform- he caught the needle just below his neck before it finally smashed into a silvery disk on the pavement.

“Oh! Triple kill on your first shot! You may have a future in this, Junior!” The boy was still trying to process what was going on, trying to comprehend what happened. His Level Zero body and mind simply couldn’t keep up with what the Level Four Truth was seeing. Once he had, he gagged, turned to the side, and threw up.

“Don’t worry, kid, that’s totally normal. Traditional, even. From what I hear, anyway, I never threw up.” Truth’s eyes narrowed. Incisive was starting to make a real racket in his head. He summoned the Tongue to his hand and cut.

The curse fizzled out, but Truth had a sneaking suspicion that was the… noob filter, for lack of a better term. The really nasty stuff wouldn’t be so easy to shake. The boy was about to have a really exciting life.

“So, Junior, do you have your scooter license?”

“Wha?”

“No time like the present. Let’s learn by doing.” Security was boiling out of the bank. He could practically hear one of those damn golden birds flapping their wings and getting airborne. He snatched up the needler, case, and backpack. Loaded the needler and case into his own duffle, stuck the backpack on the teenager, scooped up the teenager, and started running.

It was damn awkward, carrying everything and trying to run. The teen was still processing when he made the first jump between buildings, but by the time Truth made the jump to the second building, which had much more of an upward, vertical element, he had decided it was appropriate to start screaming. This, in Truth’s opinion, proved that today’s Juniors were simply too soft and coddled. Well, he knew just the thing to toughen this kid up. Make a real man out of him. It was his duty as a Senior, after all.

He got a good way down the street and, with a little care, was able to get to the sidewalk by bouncing between two buildings. It was good fun, only slightly ruined by the noise. Although he was pleased to note the lad didn’t piss himself. Not a complete no-hoper. Truth beat it as fast as he could manage towards a parking garage, following the street signs. While he ran, he examined the schoolboy.

Truth wasn’t an expert on divination. Only knew the basics, really. Still, he could make some reasonable guesses. It seemed that the whatever-it-was was built for detection and detection only. Quite fast reflexes, but apparently, it couldn’t do anything with them. Because that wasn’t its job. It was a component in a system. When its head got popped, its death triggered a curse on the person who killed it. Not much of one, but probably lethal if you were a scrub. Or, more nasty still, maybe some kind of hard-to-shake marker, letting the PMC trace you back to all your friends and family.

Still, that was the superficial. And as he had painfully learned, Starbrite never left anything it really cared about unprotected. He couldn’t detect any active spells on the kid. But passively? He’d bet cash the kid was marked, and they were being tracked even now.

He looked around. There was a sweet little Koro-Bon 178 painted up in lime green and white. Supposed to run fast and corner sharp. A little bland, to his taste. A little lacking in color and character compared to his beloved iron horse. But it would do.

“Alright, here’s your ride.”

“That’s… not my two-wheeler.”

“It is now. Look-” Truth jammed a finger into the casing and severed a notoriously fragile control node. “It’s not even locked or anything. See, it was meant for you. Better start running, they will be locking down the city any second now.”

“But… what… why?”

“Kid, you just sniped a high-end banker on a junket from Harban AND picked off two Starbrite security guards. One of which you didn’t see because they were that high-end. You have been most assuredly marked for arrest, followed by torture and a particularly degrading death.”

It was hard for the student to turn whiter, but the kid wasn’t a quitter. He found a way.

“Now, I’m not heartless. I will dispose of the needler for you- that’s way too hot for you to handle. You have a fast two-wheeler, and here- some walking around money. Welcome to the world of the Revolution, Junior. You are going to fit in just fine.”

“Revolution? I’m not a revolutionary! I just wanted-”

“To be a lone wolf terrorist. I know. Believe me, I know. But the revolution finds its way to all of us. Don’t worry, you can still be a lone wolf terrorist. But if you want to live to be an old lone wolf terrorist, RUN NOW!”

He pushed on Incisive and let a wisp of his killing intent seep through. The schoolboy bolted, nearly plowing into the wall at the first corner. He managed to break in time, then muscled the two-wheeler around the corner. Truth kept an ear out. Sounds like he made it out of the garage. Good for him. And they were right next to the freeway onramp, too- headed west.

Truth watched him go, slowly letting the persona fade away. It was a curious moral position, he supposed. Better that this kid (and when did a seventeen-year-old become a kid to him?) become an anti-Starbrite rebel than shoot up his local PTO. In either case, the police would have hunted him down in short order. He would already have been recorded by innumerable surveillance talismans- the dots would be pathetically easy to connect. This wasn’t some crummy little town. The cops were active and interested in Buran.

Well, interested if someone shot up a room full of Citizen parents. This was the kind of blood-soaked atrocity that could actually move the people who liked to complain to the police. The news programs would love it, too. Assuming they weren’t “advised” to the contrary.

But there would be no news reports about a Starbrite suit getting sniped by a seventeen-year-old lone-wolf rebel. A rebel who, when caught, would reveal that he only committed that crime because a Senior strong-armed him into it. A senior rebel. A real rebel, not one of the shadows they had been chasing about.

He reckoned he had, at best, half an hour before the kid got picked up. Call it… fifteen minutes conservatively. Maybe an hour, absolute maximum, to get him in an interrogation cell and crack him. Realistically, he might crack while he was still pinned down on the pavement before they even dragged him into the wagon.

Ah, no, wait. If they took him alive, they’d slap coma cuffs on him, make sure he couldn’t suicide before interrogation. Yeah, absolute maximum, one hour from now, this part of the city would be 50% Internal Security by volume, if not weight. Time to run like Hell. He looked around the garage. There were more iron horses, but his weird loyalty stopped him from grabbing one.

Truth opted for a “sweet” Rixowip Cevis only slightly younger than he was. Sure, it smelled, but at least the cooling charms didn’t work. The brakes sort of worked, but only if you got the pedal in the exact right spot. Push too far, and they didn’t engage at all.

Why not use the bound demon to drive the wagon? Because, despite everything, despite the profound cruelty and mad sadism of the world, Truth chose life. That demon couldn't be trusted to tell which way was up, let alone north.

The highway traffic was slowing down. Truth made certain he was heading north, not west. All practicable speed and all that. He very quickly concluded that “all practicable speed” in a frigging twenty plus year old Cevis with shot brakes and a beyond dodgy demon was slower than he could run, by a fair bit. He grimly pressed on. It wasn’t about speed. It was about not burning through his limited supply of cosmic energy. It was a long way from being fully refilled after a busy day.

He would drive this smelly, greasy, revoltingly stained Cevis. He would drive it to the nearest small town, then set it on fire. He would stick a big metal drum on top first, fill it with good, clean water and loads of soap. He would boil up the water on the burning Cevis, so he could scrub the sense of filth off himself. It was like a fungal growth, the unclean writhing and spreading from the horrible seat over his skin, reaching for his face. Trying to sink its vile pseudopods into his tear ducts and throat and nose.

He had felt cleaner in the Ghūl nest. What the Hell had possessed him to take this carriage? Truth watched a police cruiser whip past on the highway. Right. Stealth. Just another little imp in the system, trudging back to his little box for drug induced sleep. Definitely not off to murder one of the leading minds of the era with a heavy needler he stole off a highschooler.

Truth missed his iron horse. He missed Etenesh madly, and Jember a great deal, and he even missed Merkovah, grumpy old bastard that he was. But he really missed his iron horse. You had the sense that you could run off anywhere and be ok. No matter what happened, it would carry you there and take you away again. Not this thing. In the Cevis, you lived your moral depravity. If depression was a heavily used entry-price sedan, it would be the Cevis. There was a bit of fermented cabbage, desiccated now, stuck to the side of the passenger door. Horrible.

He tried to get his head in the game. There was a service station up ahead. They were just outside the Buran ring road. There would be a wagon headed up north. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but he could sneak in the back and sleep for a bit. Maybe do a bit of on-the-road cultivation. And in a few hours, he would hop out and do it again. Yeah. That worked. Keep security guessing. After all, if he didn’t have a plan, how could Internal Security guess his plan?

There was probably a flaw in that logic. If only the piercing, layered smells of the Cevis would let him concentrate on it. No, he wouldn’t dwell on minor issues. He was off to assassinate a scholar. A mage and a gentleman. Someone who would be heavily guarded and capable of immense personal violence in their own right.

Easy.

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