Chapter One

They abolished all the prisons, so they threw me in the "Community Justice Center" instead.

LANCE

Plans rarely work out the way you want them to. They never quite survive contact with the enemy.

I thought about that as I sat in a dark room, chained to a chair bolted to the floor, missing my shirt, shoes, three or four teeth, and about half a pint of blood. Most of it was somewhere on the floor around me.

As torture went, this was pretty standard procedure for the Prole Guard. As the old joke goes, the Prole guards are a lot like gynecologists- their job is to make sure you get fucked properly.

About an hour ago I got arrested, taken here, and had my retinas, fingerprints and footprints scanned. Then they threw me into this room where I got whaled on for about fifteen minutes straight. It’s a good thing I’m Verified, or I might’ve cracked under the pressure.

Having body-mods helps too. I have reinforced ribs, micro-shock absorbers in my skull, and an edderlee hormonal injector delivering sweet sweet alien healing juice directly into my veins. Small stuff, but it adds up. And it’s invisible to almost any scanner. The Tailor, our go-to guy for this stuff, is a pro.

And then of course, there’s his masterpiece… but I’ll get to that later.

I couldn’t see a thing, not that there would’ve been anything to see anyhow. The torture devices aren’t kept with the prisoners. The psychological effect of looking at them and thinking about how they’re about to be used on you isn’t worth the risk that you might somehow grab one and use it to escape. Nothing was in here except four walls, the door, and myself.

Presently, the door slid open and several men filed into the room. Two Prole guards, clad in maroon shirts, black pants, bulletproof vests and patrol caps took positions on either side of the door. Behind them came an older gentleman in a business suit that looked like it cost more than both guards’ yearly salaries combined. A picture-perfect representation of Destinarian “equality.” One of them turned on a dim yellow bulb above my head, making the entire situation look rather cliche.

The old guy looked like he meant business. It was a very deliberate look, from the furrowed brow, to the puffed-up posture, to the way he slapped a large manila file folder against his hand as he took a seat across from me.

I wasn’t impressed. I’d been interrogated before, by men far more intimidating than this asshole.

“Well, well, well,” he said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Not because I was afraid of getting beaten for disrespect, but because I wasn’t about to dignify such a played-out line with any kind of response.

“Let’s start with your name,” he said. “Who in Destiny’s name are you?”

“Jacksom,” I replied.

“Jacksom?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Not Jackson?”

“Nope, Jacksom. Jacksom Boners!” I grinned at him.

He scowled, got up and slapped me across the face. I spit out blood, but that was totally worth it.

“You have no idea how much trouble you’re in, you piece of shit,” he growled.

“Actually,” I calmly replied, “I have a pretty good idea.”

“Your illegal body mods condemn you to immediate execution!” he spat. “The fact you’re nowhere in our system proves that you’re wearing false fingerprints and retinas.”

I wasn’t, actually. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I just smiled and cocked my head.

“Looks like you got me, big man. Don’t suppose I can bribe my way out of this?”

He looked me up and down with a sneer. “Even if I was open to the idea, your entire net worth wouldn’t be enough. Instead, if you want a quick death, tell me who you are before we rip out those body mods and scan you again.”

“I’m really nobody,” I said, shrugging as best I could with my hands locked onto the chair behind me. “I’m just a street urchin. That’s probably why I’m not in the system.”

“Then tell me your name.”

“What, Jacksom Boners isn’t good enough for you? How about Macaque? First name, Salk.”

He slapped me again, more out of spite than of anger. It still hurt somewhat.

“You have no idea who you’re talking to, do you? I am Officer Zinneman, People’s Justiciar of Corlencia for Sector 2. What I say goes. If you don’t start cooperating, you are going to die a very painful, very public death.”

I raised an eyebrow. A People’s Justiciar? Just for me? That was flattering… and also a little concerning. Why would such a high-ranking official come down here just for an unknown tagger? True, I was graffitiing anti-Destinarian slogans, but why not send in a detective?

It had to have something to do with the fact I wasn’t in the system. I couldn’t be the only one who didn’t have my biometric data on record since birth, but maybe this was standard procedure.

My real name, in case you were wondering, is not “Jacksom.” It’s Lance, last name Tabor. I’m nine years old, (nine on Ardnora is seventeen on Earth, and twenty eight on Ravmet) and I’m not supposed to exist. However, these fuckwads didn’t know that, and I wasn’t about to let them find out.

“I don’t know what to tell you, sir. This is your fuck-up, not mine.”

I gazed up into his eyes as his mouth curled.

“I’m going to enjoy selecting your punishment, you bigoted reactionary filth. For your crimes against science, reason and progress, you are hereby sentenced to death, this being Stephday, 23rd of Daramoon, 2096. These men are now going to take you away and extract all your body mods, without any anesthetic. You had your chance to talk, so there’s no use begging.”

“Same to you, motherfucker. Do your worst.”

“I will.”

He gestured at me as he left the room, and the two guards went behind me to disconnect the cuffs from the chair. They roughly manhandled me to my feet, and led me out the door into the hallway.

The narrow, cramped hallway wasn’t much brighter than the room we’d just left, with stark fluorescent lights illuminating alternating segments of the hall. To my right and left were more rooms in this torture basement, where I could occasionally hear other people being worked on by Prole guards. They shoved me off towards the left, going the opposite way from the Justiciar. I twisted my head around as I walked to make sure the old man was well out of sight before I acted.

It was time to unveil another piece of mod tech, taking both of them by surprise. The Tailor’s masterpiece: the hover-hops.

As a kid I always wanted to fly, and I was always jealous of those who could afford personal hover-packs to get themselves around. However, even if I could’ve afforded it, they still hadn’t managed to make one efficient enough to get you more than ten feet or so off the ground. To get higher, you need a full-on gravity engine, the kind usually only found in cars and other vehicles. Naturally, I wasn’t interested in turning myself into a car.

The Tailor found a workaround, and when he told me what he was working on, I (quite literally) jumped at the opportunity to be his test dummy. It took about a year of trial and error, but we finally got something close to what I had always wanted- the ability to vault buildings.

Implanted into my calves are twin hover packs, which, instead of emitting a constant magnetic pulse that allows you to float, emit a powerful push that sends me flying off the ground in any direction I choose. An average jump gets me roughly thirty feet in the air, and the max height is over twice that. Best of all, I can use it in mid-air, allowing me to double jump like I’m a fucking videogame character.

Those Prole guards didn’t know what hit ‘em.

I didn’t have enough space above me for even a small jump, so instead I leapt forwards, my arms jerking out of their grip. I shot down the hall and landed about fifteen yards away from them as I hit the ground running.

“Stop!” One of them immediately yelled.

“We’ll fucking shoot you!”

“Figures,” I muttered, as they began to give chase.

I don’t know why they didn’t immediately pull out their guns, but I guess their orders were to take me alive, if possible.

The hover hops also allow me to run pretty fast, but I slowed down on purpose until they got close. Then I suddenly whirled around and did another power jump straight into one of them, tackling him to the ground.

I was up in a moment, just as the other guard drew his gun. I launched myself into him too, slamming him up against the wall. He dropped his gun, the wind knocked right out of him as he slumped to the floor. I dove for it, picking it up in my cuffed hands. The first guy I tackled had drawn his gun too, but I was faster than he was. I put a bullet through his skull just before he got a shot off. Red mist spattered all over the wall behind him. His bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the wall.

The guy I knocked the wind out of got to his feet and tried to tackle me. I sprang out of his way effortlessly and executed him too. Brains and viscera splattered all over the floor, and blood pooled underneath my feet. It was a little tricky aiming the gun behind my back, but it’s something I’ve trained on a lot. I can shoot people directly behind me, if need be.

I bent down to get the mag-key from them as red lights went off, and an alarm started blaring. The moment my hands were free, I grabbed the other guard’s gun too and took off sprinting down the hall, conserving my jumps for later on. Behind me, I could hear other doors in the hall opening. Other guards and torturers shouted for back-up, but I was already gone.

Like I said, plans rarely go the way you want them to, but this one was working out pretty nicely.

At the end of the hall I entered a stairwell, racing upwards one flight at a time with my power jumps. I’d memorized the layout of this place backwards and forwards with the schematics one of our other operatives stole a few weeks ago. Kai was his name; dude was an asshole, but he was probably the best burglar I knew.

I emerged onto the ground floor, at the end of another long hallway. There were a few other branching paths nearby, but I was headed towards the main entrance hall. I moved quickly, knowing they were likely tracking my movements on the security cameras. Before I left, I would need to wipe the servers clean of any video containing my face.

At the other end of the hall I found the room where I’d been booked, though it was now empty of clerks and other arrestees. Instead, eight or nine Prole guards crouching behind the cinderblock half-wall partitions opened fire on me. I started jumping wildly to avoid the shots.

I shot from one end of the room to the other, bouncing like an out of control rubber ball. It looked chaotic (because it was) but it was also perfectly controlled, honed by years of practice. In addition, I was also able to shoot back while doing this, with my guns akimbo. I wasn’t able to keep all of their heads down, but it was enough to keep me protected while I picked them off one by one.

The room soon become a bloody mess. Bodies piled up, with blood running in rivers down the walkways. The walls got a fresh coat of bright red paint, as men ran into them, or slumped down against them.

Gotta put this timetable on nitro, I thought. Too much longer, and they’d send more reinforcements.

All of a sudden I stopped moving, and nailed the last two guys in the head as soon as they peeked out of cover, thinking they were safe. Unfortunately, this time-saving move allowed one of them to land a shot in my left shoulder right before he died.

Blood spurted out of the injury, mixing with the guards’ blood on the floor. I gritted my teeth, willing the edderlee hormones to start flowing. As soon as I did so, I started to feel relief, but I needed some kind of bandage. The hormones gave me a minor healing factor, acting as a coagulant among other things, but even with that, if I started running again I’d likely end up fainting due to blood loss.

With no better options, I ripped some cloth from the shirt of a dead guard, and used a nearby pen from a table as a tourniquet. I tied it as I left the room, taking a right to another flight of stairs, which led me to the property storage room. I wanted my ezandrite sword back, though just getting my shirt and shoes would’ve been nice too. I still had the electronic mag-key I’d taken from the guards, and I hoped the same one would unlock the door too.

Fortunately my wish was granted. The door opened with a whoosh. I was now surrounded by various contraband; everything from weapons, to drugs, to electronic devices, and even a few sex toys. I found the box with my stuff in it easily enough; it was the only one with a sword handle sticking out of it.

I hurriedly threw my shirt and shoes back on, before I stuffed the guns into my waistband and lovingly drew my katana.

Ezandrite steel, found only on Ravmet, is probably the closest thing mankind will ever have to unobtanium. It’s light, durable, strong, malleable and it never rusts. Without it, we never would’ve pushed past the speed of light. Few have ever thought to turn it into a blade, in this age of energy weapons, but that just means almost no one can parry me when I use it. Ezandrite steel can cut through almost anything- even other metal. It is by far my most prized possession. My worst fear starting this mission was that I might lose it.

I slung the sheath over my shoulder, while carrying the sword in hand. Now, I needed to reach the central system command, which, according to the schematics, was close to the top floor in the west wing of the building. To get there, I’d have to fight past hordes of Prole guards, and maybe even State Intel if I were unlucky.

Maybe even a Selfless. The thought made me shudder.

Fortunately, I knew of another way to reach the top floor. The east wing, which I was in, had a helipad on top of it, and there were more than a few hover vehicles parked on it as well. It was simply a matter of finding my way up.

I left secure storage and found my way to an elevator. Of course it had been shut down when the alarm went off, but I managed to pry the doors open using my sword, and leap onto the lift cables. I sheathed my sword (it actually clips onto the sheath magnetically, so I could do it one-handed) and started climbing hand over hand, ascending one floor at a time. Lucky for me, there weren’t any cameras in the actual shafts. Climbing like this wasn’t usually much of a problem for someone as fit as I am, but my shoulder injury made it a hell of a lot harder.

Still, I fought through the pain and eventually made it to a ceiling duct. Of course, traversing a building using the ventilation system is a thing that only works in films, but this one segment happened to be wide enough for my skinny frame to work my way from the shaft to the hallway. The ceiling grate clattered onto the floor, followed by me a second later.

From here I quickly found a short stairwell to the roof and I reached the door just as I heard voices shouting behind me. I threw my body against the door, emerging into the cool night air of Aaronstown, before slamming it shut. With no time to secure it, I raced directly over to the row of squad cars on my left.

Just then I heard a tremendous bang behind me, and everything around me was illuminated in a brilliant flash of light. I was almost deafened by the sound, but fortunately I could still see well enough to dive over the hood of a car and take cover as the guards opened fire, their exit from the stairwell covered by the flashbang. Fortunately, squad cars are bullet proof.

I jumped into the closest one, pulled out the same mag-key, and held it up to the starter, praying it would work again.

It didn’t.

No problem, I thought, as bullets ricocheted against the windshield. One of these assholes shooting at me ought to have one.

Some places use universal mag keys, but I suppose the Justice Center wasn’t one of them. I just had to hope that a single key could start up more than one car. If each one was set to only one car, it wasn’t the end of the world, but it made my plan a bit harder.

Another bullet pinged against the glass. I sighed and stepped out, drawing my sword. My eyes narrowed, as I stayed behind cover, waiting for them to come a bit closer. There were even more of them now; at least twenty, all carrying pistols and wearing body armor. As if that would do them any good.

As soon as they were in range, I jumped.

Now that I was finally outside and free, I was able to get a good thirty feet above their heads, stunning them as I did another jump mid-air to propel myself down towards them.

The thing about mid-air jumps is that you do need something to push off of. The laws of physics state that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and while you can push against air, it’s not as effective as pushing against the ground or other solid object. Most hover engines can only manage it with a powerful steady magnetic pulse, and to get above the atmosphere you still need rockets or jet engines.

However, pushing yourself downwards, boosted by your own gravity, gives you a ton of speed, and allows you to slice into a crowd of men almost before they know what hit them. With one clean slice I decapitated a guard standing in the middle of the group, his blood spraying like a fountain into the air. I felt the little red droplets raining down on my back, before I started jumping all over the place like I did before.

It was a little bit tricky since I was no longer in an enclosed space with plenty of surfaces to push off of, but the increased range of motion meant I was going a lot faster. Not a single one of them could even come close to me, as I used my sword to remove limbs, heads, and cocks. Their numbers actually made it harder on them- since I was moving so fast, they suffered friendly fire at least twice.

The last guard, having run out of ammo, looked so scared I thought he pissed himself. He held up his hands and threw his gun away, seeing it was hopeless.

And it was. I cut him down just like I did the others, letting his head bounce and roll away. It left a trail of little blood splotches, like hopscotch. If I let him live, he would only go on to hurt more innocent people. Not that I was innocent, in any sense of the word.

I bent down over his body to grab a car key, and managed to find it clipped to his belt. It was attached to a fob; clicking the buttons made a car nearby flash its lights at me. With only a few buttons on the fob, my heart sank as I realized that I’d need multiple keys to start up multiple cars… and I didn’t have the time. I’d wanted multiple cars so I could start them and send them off in different directions as decoys, but that was no longer an option.

Before more men could burst out onto the helipad, I ran over to the car I’d unlocked and started it up. The hover engines whirred to life, and I started ascending rapidly.

I looked down, distracted by the glistening lights of the Aaronstown skyline. There was the former Royal Palace, the St. Stephens Cathedral, the Red Plaza. All of it was incredibly beautiful.

I often felt dissonance, or some kind of disconnect, being surrounded by so much beauty while knowing my country was under the boot heel of a Destinarian regime.

Anyhow, I turned my attention to the much-taller west wing of the building, counting the stories until I reached my destination. At the ninth floor, hundreds of feet in the air, I suddenly accelerated the car forwards, bashing my way into a large collection of office cubicles, sending desks, papers, and a couple people flying. Apparently, this was where most of the civilian police force worked.

To me, they were just as guilty as the guards themselves.

I emerged from the car, drawing my guns this time as people started fleeing and going for cover. Unfortunately for them, most of the desks up here were made of wood instead of metal, making their cover useless. They may as well have hid their faces behind their hands, as my bullets tore through cheap plastic and Ardnoran oak, into human flesh. A few people managed to return fire, but a few power jump tricks later, they were all dead.

I stepped over the bodies of men and women, old and young, armed and unarmed, without any hesitation for any of them. I didn’t bother picking around the pools of blood- I walked right through them, leaving behind a trail of dark red footprints. By the time this was over, the investigators would be able to read where I’d been and what I’d done as easily as words on a page.

They were all pawns of the People’s Party. All of them signed off on imprisoning those who denounced the alien invasion of Corlencia, those who believed in the principles of free speech and free press, and those who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They were all good little Destinarians… or rather they were now.

Fuck this tourniquet is killing me! I thought. It had been less than an hour since I applied it, but it was still annoying. You can generally keep tourniquets on for up to four hours before tissue starts dying due to lack of oxygen, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wear this one nearly that long. Body-mod limbs are pretty good, but I was in no hurry to get one that night.

I crossed through the office area into an even nicer private office that seemed almost as large as the one I’d just left. It was lush and richly decorated, with no cubicles to speak of. All of the furniture was incredibly swank, and the view of the skyline out the floor-to-ceiling windows across from me was post-card perfect.

Most of the room was dominated by the main desk, at which stood the master computer with a wide seventy-inch monitor. Before I went over to it, I needed a way to barricade the door.

This was going to take a while.

Using miniscule hover jumps, I managed to lug a large comfy sofa in front of it, before I reinforced it with every chair in the room. It was more than a little haphazard, but it would provide some cover and hopefully delay reinforcements long enough for me to do what I needed.

I had one last body-mod that came in handy, called a flesh sleeve. Flicking my wrist just right opened up a tiny pocket in my right forearm containing a mag-chip that I plugged into the computer. The pocket hides its contents from metal detectors perfectly, though it does have a downside- jerking off flicks it open for some reason. It really gets in the way. I felt this was a reasonable trade-off, as masturbation’s a sin anyways.

A few moments after plugging in the chip, the lights in the room flickered. Nelson, the guy who’d designed the thing, had told me that that would mean it was working.

The program he’d loaded onto it rebooted the system, and stole data from it. He’d asked for a chance to test it out, so I suggested this mission to him. The trick with his program (it was named something really long and complicated that I can’t be bothered to remember) was that it needed top-level admin access to any given database or else it would just be stopped in its tracks.

Hacking doesn’t work like it does in films- you don’t type a bunch of code and say “I’m in.” Rather, hacking usually works through social engineering. You call someone up on the Net and say,

“Hey, I’m Dick from accounting. I’m trying to put together the quarterly report, and need access to this file for something. Could you make that accessible to my account? Thanks.”

Trying to remotely hack a system in the 21st century is almost impossible, and it usually doesn’t allow you to do much. It’s also extremely traceable, and trying it will likely earn you a visit from the Prole Guard, or worse.

Instead, Nelson and I figured simply directly downloading a piece of software onto a computer with admin privileges might net some better results. With his skill in programming languages and my skill in “social engineering,” we devised a plan to deal a massive amount of damage to the Community Justice Center (the Destinarians “abolished prison” by literally just renaming it) as well as cause a bit of chaos.

In fact, as I watched the program do its work on the screen, I could almost hear the sounds of violence raging down below.

Right about then, thanks to the program, automatic cell doors were opening, and electronic restraints in certain areas were unlocking.

The guys who designed the system had always meant for whoever worked in this office (the warden probably) to be able to remotely cancel any cell unlock, but they hadn’t realized that that very function allowed Nelson to reverse-engineer it and force cell doors open. I could just imagine the look on the guards’ faces as they tried to get the situation back under control.

In the meantime, with the program running in the background, I began digging around for where they had the security cam files. While I wasn’t as tech savvy as Nelson, I knew my way around computers well enough, and I soon found the security feed.

To my great displeasure, according to this machine, I hadn’t gotten here in time before all of the files were already backed up to a separate server. Deleting them on this system was only half the problem.

I focused on scrubbing the data on this machine first, just blanket wiping all the security footage from the time I was brought in to now, before deactivating the security cams entirely. Now I had to get to where the backups were kept. Fortunately it was on-site, but this would still require something of a detour.

Just then, the power cut out. I wasn’t surprised; Nelson told me this would probably happen. It was the fastest way to both close any electronic doors that remained open, as well as shut out his program. Hopefully it had gleaned enough data from the computer to be of some use to us. It also had the tactical effect of blinding the prisoners, who likely weren’t equipped with any form of night vision. Not to mention myself.

The lights going out meant the prisoners wouldn’t be rioting much longer. I had to move.

I disconnected the mag-chip, drew my sword, and moved towards the door, listening for the approach of more guards. Now that my distraction was no longer effective, they’d probably be on me any moment now. I got the door unbarricaded before I stepped out. I held my sword at the ready, looking around for enemies.

Surprisingly, there were none. It was then I remembered- there were quite a few aliens in this facility, not all of whom depend on sight the same way human beings do. When I first came in, the vast majority of arrestees were non-human, despite the Destinarians’ policy of “equality.” While they were usually booked, processed and released without bail, the ones currently in holding cells still wouldn’t be very happy, and the darkness wouldn’t be much of a hindrance to them.

My distraction may have been too effective.

I immediately raced back to the hover vehicle I’d stolen, but somehow it too had been remotely powered off. Had they detonated an EMP on the building? I hoped not, or otherwise the chip I was carrying was now useless.

No, if they’d done that, a huge amount of data- including the security footage on the back-up server- would be fried. They probably wouldn’t have done that to stop a simple riot. They must’ve simply hit the off-switch. Still, that left me without a vehicle.

Just then, the entire area was bathed in light as hover-copters circled the window I’d smashed on my way in. I looked down and saw red dots tracing over me, so I immediately power jumped for cover. Moving erratically to dodge the sniper fire, I made my out of the office and into a wide hallway.

This area looked way swankier than the downstairs facilities. In place of linoleum tile and stark fluorescent lighting was rich maroon carpet, elegant and simple light fixtures, and walls decorated with wood paneling. Paintings hung on the walls here and there. It looked more like a bank vault than anything else.

I knew the back-up servers were back in the east wing, close to its top floor. I had a lot of ground to cover, and I knew for a fact reinforcements were now on their way. Biting my lip, I realized I might have to resort to drastic measures.

To forestall the inevitable, I descended several flights of stairs, using my hover jumps to skip over them. I occasionally saw office drones dressed in rich business suits and skirts, talking into phones, trying to get ahold of the situation, or making their way towards what they thought were safer areas.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn’t in a very safe mood. At least their blood would match the maroon carpet on the floor, once it dried.

Eventually I found my way down to the dividing line between the lower floors and the top offices, signified by a large front desk with the massive seal of the Community Justice Center on the wall behind it. Before I entered the room from the stairwell, I could just barely see that there were a ton of guards in the room. I pressed my body against the wall, daring to risk a peek out at them.

A loud bang rang out, and the chunk of wall next to my head evaporated instantly. I immediately realized it was too quiet to be a gunshot- that was a laser blast. If these guys were bringing out the energy weapons, they meant business. Ezandrite swords can actually block bullets (if you’re lucky enough to have it up at just the right time and angle) but lasers will eat through it like cotton candy.

I was more than a little frustrated. I was still too high up. I needed to get lower, to make my shortcut work. But it seemed I was out of options.

I inhaled deeply, and then exhaled. I said a silent prayer, then powered up my jumps as I leapt out of cover.

This time I used both gun and sword, as bullets and energy shots flew all around me. The trouble with lasers (if you’re on the business end) is that the beams are a lot thicker than bullets. Average bullets are typically nine millimeters in diameter; average laser beams are two inches. With no more recoil than a cap gun, they can leave really ugly wounds where your insides used to be. They’re hot enough to melt you like a hot knife through butter, without cauterizing the injury.

There were about five or six men with energy guns shooting at me, alongside at least fifteen others with rifles and pistols. I was beginning to tire out; it had been a long night.

Even more concerningly, my hover hops were beginning to run low on juice. If I couldn’t end this fight quickly, I’d have to go the long way to the server room.

Of course, if I wasn’t careful, this fight would end a lot quicker than I expected.

I focused my assault on the men with energy weapons first. The ferocity of my attack drove them out of cover, and more guards around them moved to try and take up better positions. I made sure to position myself between groups of them, to encourage friendly fire. Even if I didn’t manage to get them to shoot each other, it still heavily discouraged them from firing at me, working as a form of cover.

Several of them screamed into their NetComps for backup, but it was too late. I dropped the empty gun I was holding, drew my other one, and kept on emptying rounds into their heads. Meanwhile, my katana became slick with blood as it ate through their bullet vests like tissue paper.

My hover hops are still full enough to make it, I thought, as I picked up one of their own energy weapons and turned it on them. Still, once I jump down there I’ll need to swap out the batteries.

My hover-hops have another function I haven’t described. Just as the push they emit can propel me great distances, they can also cushion my fall. When the batteries are full they can make a fall of roughly 120 feet feel like jumping on a soft trampoline (minus the bounce) and make a fall of 200 feet… survivable.

With the juice I had left, I’d be able to make a fifty foot drop back down to the helipad, but I’d be left with no more power for jumps. Fortunately, I always had backup power cells stored in my flesh sleeve. I’d just need to swap them in quickly.

The last guard came charging out at me, screaming like a man driven purely by adrenaline. I raised my gun to shoot him, but it was spent. Instead, I leapt towards him with my sword, swinging directly towards his abdomen. I cleaved him in half, before he stopped screaming a couple seconds later.

A couple seconds after that, his legs fell over. It was almost comical. That’s just how sharp ezandrite can be.

I immediately ran out of the room, headed downstairs, and re-entered the world of linoleum and brutalism. Because of this place’s purpose, it didn’t have many windows and the ones they had were barred. Fortunately, I found one at the end of the hall, and one swipe from the mag-key I’d used to free myself unlocked the metal grate over it. Using my sword to smash the glass and clear away all the jagged edges, I swan dove out, feeling the wind whip against my face.

For just a second, I flew. Time seemed to slow down. I sheathed my katana and put my hands behind my head like I was in a hammock.

High above me, I could see faint traces of the stars, most of their light swallowed by the city’s. Much more prominent were the lights of Ardnora’s two moons, Ergaan and Hald. They say that one day Hald will crash into our world, in about fifty million years.

I wondered how the people who lived up there felt about it. They were living their lives, building homes, raising families, knowing that one day all their descendants would die if they didn’t evacuate. Was that right to do? Even if that day was so far away?

I didn’t have time to ponder it, as the ground was rapidly approaching. Still, I thought, as I landed, that Ergaan has the opposite problem- one day it will escape Ardnora’s gravity and float off into space. Once again, anything still living there would die.

The hover-hops absorbed the impact like a champ, slowing me down in the last ten feet and dispersing my inertia through special magnetic vents in my legs. Without the vents, my legs would shatter into splinters from the rapid deceleration.

Without missing a beat, I flicked my wrist, deposited two cylindrical power cells in my left hand, and jammed one in each vent. (They served a double use.) I could feel the gravity generator vibrate back to life, and I took off running towards the stairwell I’d first come out of.

There were other people here now, tending to the bodies of the guards I’d carved up earlier, but they were all unarmed medics. None of them got in my way, so I let them live.

Inside, the alarm was no longer blaring as the power was out, and I could hear shouts and screaming all over the place. I quickly realized that every available guard and soldier they had was now dealing with the riot. I could even see a gang of demyinites slithering over the floor with their tentacles, their orange prison suits all missing the left arm, to show their affiliation. Third Streeters. There wasn’t actually any street called “third street” in Aaronstown, not even colloquially, but their boss thought it sounded cool so it stuck.

Demyinites are disgusting blue tentacle motherfuckers with beaks on their faces, and eight solid black eyes, like spiders. They produce this extremely sweet-smelling acid through their sweat glands that acts as a psychedelic for humans and edderlees. It used to be a controlled substance, but ever since the Destinarians took over, it’s everywhere. Rich folk even use trace amounts as perfume.

I carefully avoided stepping in the acid they’d tracked all over the floor as I moved down the hall, navigating my way closer to the server room. While demyinites were disgusting, they were pretty intelligent. One could reason with them, unlike the zwermcians. I desperately hoped not to run into any before I made it to where I was going.

Fortunately, finding and accessing the backup server room was not as hard as getting to secure storage, and it seemed like the escaped prisoners were ignoring it. They had mostly ignored me in their mad dash for freedom/destruction, and if anyone spared me a second glance, I showed them my sword. As I approached the door, I could see the door lock had already been blasted open by someone (or something) and I knocked aside the flimsy barricade like it was nothing.

I entered the server room, which was almost pitch black. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw a glasses-wearing technician crouching under a desk off to the left. He faced away from me, his head buried in his hands. Directly in front of me, taking up about 90% of the room, were tons of computer towers, with bundles of wires sticking out. Green and blue lights softly flickered as they processed data. They had some form of back-up power, I suppose.

I drew my sword and moved towards the technician, who heard me coming, and yelped in terror. He was a human being, though unlike me, he was Drusivian, with black hair, and brown eyes. He looked about seventeen, maybe nineteen. He recoiled back, holding up his hands.

“Please! Don’t hurt me! I didn’t do anything!”

I crouched down to get on his level and smiled.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said, lying.

Just like the others, this guy was guilty as sin.

“I just need you to wipe all of the security cam data uploaded to the server since about two hours ago. And if it’s in the cloud, delete it from there too.”

He shook his head.

“If it were in the cloud, it would be out of reach. But, uh- not to worry! The cloud backups happen periodically every eight hours, so there’s uh, no need!”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You better not be lying.”

“I’m not!” he said, panicking. “I swear I’m not!”

I examined his face carefully. I’ve put in a huge amount of practice to determine when people are lying to me, and I’m not always right a hundred percent of the time. Still, I was reasonably certain. This was the kind of guy out to save his own skin. He’d say anything if he thought it’d save him, and I hadn’t really threatened him that much. Therefore, it seemed likely he was telling the truth. Deleting everything in this room would be enough.

Hopefully.

I stepped back as he slowly got to his feet and turned to the desk to start typing. The machine, unlike the one upstairs, was basically a brick with a hard plastic screen built into it. Highly functional, whereas the warden’s was designed for elegance and aesthetic. I watched as he went through deleting stuff, then turned my attention to the door.

Outside, the riot was still raging. It was only a matter of time before criminals either barged in on us, or Prole guards came to secure the room. Either way, I needed to be gone before then.

“I’m on a bit of a schedule,” I griped.

“I know! I know!” he said, defensively. “I’m working as fast as I can!”

I watched over his shoulder, double checking to make sure he wasn’t pulling a fast one on me.

“I just have a few more to go,” he muttered. “Just these ones right here,” he indicated on screen with the cursor.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment we were interrupted. Outside the door, we could hear squealing, followed by a guttural buzzing noise.

Zwermcians. Of course.

The two of us immediately ran towards the back of the room, the techie shoving the computer box under his arm. A second later, a whole gang of them burst through the door, squealing and shouting in a frenzy. They look like over-sized mosquitos with clawed hands, proboscises, gossamer wings, and green and yellow bug eyes.

The zwermcians howled.

“Meat! Meat!” one of them squealed. “Smells meat! Smells meat!”

“Meat! Meat! Meat!” the rest of them chanted.

“Oh sweet Destiny,” the techie whispered, paralyzed with fear.

“What?” I asked, mockingly. “You’re afraid of anyone different than you?”

“I’m not!” he insisted, immediately defensive. “I’m not bigoted or anything, but those… guys are gonna kill us.”

I gasped in mock indignation. “You were going to say ‘those things’ weren’t you?”

“I wasn’t!” he swore.

The zwermcians were spreading through the room, looking for us. I could hear one walking up the row of computer towers towards us. I had a funny idea for a plan. I turned to the techie.

“Give me that computer real quick. I’m gonna finish the deletion.”

“Dude, we’re gonna die!”

“I’ll make it quick.”

I grabbed the brick box away from him and crouched down, setting it on my knees. I went back to where he was, and hurriedly started deleting the last of the incriminating files. With any luck, there would no longer be any record of my face or identity in the Party’s system.

By this point, we were practically almost caught. They definitely would’ve seen us if they weren’t preoccupied with smashing up the room, doing a more thorough job than even I could do. Of course, I was the one who let them out, so I still took credit.

“How do we get out of here?” he asked, as I finished with the computer.

“I’ve got a plan. We go out different exits.”

“What different exits?” he said, confused. “There’s only one, and they’re blocking it!”

“That’s the one I’m taking,” I explained, raising up my sword. “Your exit is through those bugs’ stomachs.”

He opened his mouth in shock to protest, and I think he was actually going to admonish me for saying a racial slur before rejecting my plan to feed him to the aliens. But before he could say anything, I shoved him away from me, then drop-kicked him with a power jump that sent him careening into a set of filing cabinets. There was a huge crash, and he lay there disoriented for a second, as the zwermcians all turned their heads towards him.

I took the opportunity to duck away in the opposite direction.

“Meat? Meat! There is! There is meat! Meat! Feed! Meat! Feed!”

The guy tried to get up and run away, but the zwermcians were slowly boxing him in. There was nowhere for him to go. He made eye contact with me from across the room, and I could see the fear in his eyes.

“Please! Sweet Destiny, science, and reason! Have mercy! Please!”

“Fuck Destiny,” one of them laughed, sounding like it was hocking up phlegm. The others took up the chant.

I smiled when the first proboscis pierced his side, injecting paralyzing venom deep into his body. His cries for help cut off abruptly, but he could still see and feel everything that was going on around him. I watched as the others stuck their proboscises into him; one got his leg, one went straight for his dick, another in his neck, another in his face. Slowly, their saliva would liquefy his innards, which they would then slurp up like a protein shake.

I watched his body involuntarily squirm and shudder, visibly writhing in agony. His eyes remained focused on me, but the zwermcians didn’t notice, too focused on their meal to care. I gave him a little salute before sprinting towards the now uncrowded door.

What a way to go, I thought. I mean, getting eaten alive by the very beings he was told all his life were equal to him, and that they just wanted to be his friends? Not only that, he would die listening to them curse his religion, knowing they’d probably get away with it. Anyone else who curses Destiny gets arrested and executed for blasphemy. I almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

My work completed, I left the room and made my way down through the building, using my hover hops to get around roving bands of inmates.

The more of them I saw, the less certain I was that the Prole guards could even get this mess back under control. Before long, they’d need to call in the Selfless, maybe even more than one. That, I could not deal with under any circumstances whatsoever.

Before that though, I soon found out they’d called in soldiers from the Corlencian Liberation Army, who were moving through the halls in chemical masks, using tear gas to disperse the rioters. Anyone who didn’t surrender was summarily cut down.

I found myself outside a cafeteria above the ground floor, watching as they rounded up inmates next to the lunch tables. I decided not to fight my way through them, despite my initial plan of getting to the ground floor. I decided to once again jump out a window. This time, I’d have more than enough juice to boost myself away once I hit the ground.

The trouble was finding a window. I had to loop my way around the cafeteria, sneaking past soldiers and inmates alike to find one on the south side of the building, overlooking the back side of it. Unfortunately, it seemed someone else had already tried to force the metal grille out of place, and busted up the lock enough so that it wouldn’t respond to my mag-key. When I tried to force it the rest of the way, it wouldn’t budge.

Fuck! Had to have been a zwermcian. Had to be.

I continued my search, starting to get desperate. At long last I found a usable one, but it was on the front side with squad cars and police barricades surrounding the exterior. There weren’t any spotlights near where I would land, but the movement would almost certainly draw their attention. I needed some kind of distraction.

Fortunately, by the grace of God, one fell into my lap. From a window far to my left, an explosion rang out and shouts and cries could be heard. The guards went running over, and everyone’s focus shifted towards the other side of the building. I immediately took the opportunity to leap outside, landing as softly as a cat, before sprinting the opposite direction from the barrier.

Plans rarely go the way you want them to. But when God’s on your side, sometimes He throws you a bone.

But even miracles aren’t perfect.

I sprinted towards an open alleyway, but realized there was someone running behind me. I immediately drew my sword, whirling around. Standing there was the same old bastard who’d interrogated me back in the torture cell. Officer Zinneman, People’s Justiciar for Sector 2.

He was holding a gun, pointed directly at my face.

“Lance Tabor,” he growled, his mouth stuck between a disgusted curl and a sneer.

The moment I heard my real name from him, I acted on instinct. I full-power jumped straight past him, swinging my sword into his head so fast, it sliced his skull like a watermelon. His brains dropped to the ground with a loud squelch, blood and gore running into the gutter.

He dropped to the ground immediately, his mouth still stuck in that disgusting expression.

I realized I was practically hyper-ventilating.

How the fuck did he know my name?

I pondered that question, my mind racing as I disappeared into the alleyway, hiding myself in the bowels of Aaronstown. He was a high-ranking Party official. The fact he knew my name was not good. If I was known to the Party, my effectiveness as an operative was gravely compromised. And after all that trouble I went to, to delete myself from their servers!

Still, I’d done a great deal tonight. A lot of regime personnel were dead, a lot of their shit busted up, and plenty of their info stolen, safely tucked into my flesh sleeve. If this turned out to be my last mission, I could live with that.

I soon found a storm drain, and carefully lowered myself inside. Fortunately, it had been uncharacteristically dry in this town for about a week. I made my way into the sewer system and descended into the depths of Ardnora. There were people I needed to see. People I was responsible to.

They’re called the Legion of Black Banners.

But you probably figured that out by now.