Boss King and the Blade

Thursday, October 2046

Guard van, Port August

Melody-Six

“Trixie, where are we going in the Port?” she asked the clone woman. “Those Hive Agents will follow us, won’t they? We can’t put innocent lives in danger if they start shooting”

The lights of Port August were sparkling in the darkness ahead, the whole city laid out like a glowing map as the highway descended towards the sea. There weren’t many tall buildings to block the view, so Melody could see all the way to the harbour as ships and dockside cranes glimmered with distant lights.

“We don’t have a lot of choices” Trixie answered her. “I’m heading for a contact that Zeke arranged, a local Salvager that can take us to meet a ship up near Skyport at the moment”

“Is that the one Zeke arranged through Hammer?” Sunset asked from the back of the van. Melody turned to regard her, seeing the redness in her eyes as the small cabin light played over her face. They had all seen the far off flashes of gunfire and explosions, meaning at least some of their allies had been fighting and possibly dying.

“Yeah” Trixie replied. “It’s Captain Su-Chan at the Fisherman’s Wharf. She has agreed to sail up the coast and meet the ship from the Home Islands. We’ll transfer Melody across at sea then come back home”

“But we need to stop the Hive first!” Melody insisted. “If they chase us all the way to the ship, won’t they attack the crew?”

Trixie’s face was grim in the dashboard lights, her human eye as hard and unrelenting as her Enhanced one.

“They have been warned we are coming in hot” Trixie told her. “The crew will be armed and waiting for us. It’s not like they’ll be caught unprepared”

Melody realised that Trixie was trying to do the best she could with what she had. Her mission was to get Melody to a ship and that was all she was focussed on. If people had to fight and maybe die to achieve that, then Trixie was ready to make it happen.

“Stop the van please Trixie” she asked. Trixie shot her a confused look so she repeated her request. “Please Trixie, stop the van. I need to face the Hive by myself. I can’t let this insanity go on any longer”

“I thought we had decided that surrender was not an option?” Boss King piped up from the back seat. “Why have you changed your mind, Melody?”

“Because too many people have been hurt” she answered. “I appreciate everything that has been done for me, but the cost has gotten too high” She was crying now, hot tears flowing down her cheeks as she folded over herself, arms clasping her sides.

“You won’t be able to reason with them” Trixie reminded her. “Those Agents still believe everything the Hive Father told them. They’ll cut you down as soon as they see you”

“I have to surrender” Melody insisted. “It’s the only way to stop more fighting”

“Not quite” Sunset spoke from the rear of the van. “There can’t be that many of them left able to fight and they lost all their drones. There are four of us here and we aren’t something to be sneezed at. I’m not saying it won’t be risky, but we might just pull off a win without having to kill them”

“How?” Trixie demanded from the Freelancer.

“I was reminded of a song my father wrote and I am beginning to understand the meaning of its title”

“What song, Sunset?” Melody asked her hopefully, wiping her tears away.

“Let’s give them a Violent Surrender!”

=====

Hive van, Port August

Harmony-Three

The girl stood in the middle of the highway, her hands loosely at her waist. Her troublesome friend, the kid known as Boss King, was at her side with his arms crossed defiantly over his chest.

Harmony-Three spotted them as their van hummed steadily into the outskirts of Port August, the van’s headlights picking them out long after her helmet visor had identified the targets.

“Stop the van please Simon” she commanded. “Agents, stand ready for deployment. This is probably another ambush”

Simon-Three did as she asked, bringing the battered van to a standstill a scant ten meters from the waiting boy and girl. The targets watched them with hooded eyes, blinking against the glare of the van’s headlights.

“Any sign of the Clone?” Harmony demanded, receiving a chorus of negatives from the Agents peering out of side windows and gun ports. It was highly suspect, but against her better judgement Harmony wanted to speak with the Heretic girl named Melody-Six.

“I’m going out” she informed her team. “Simon, stay at the wheel in case you need to get my people away from here. Agents, make sure your weapons are ready and linked to your helmets!”

“Copy that” echoed from the rear cabin and Harmony couldn’t help but smile sadly at their youthful enthusiasm. They had been battered and bruised in the pursuit of this infected girl, yet faith in the Hive Father had remained strong. She only wished her own faith was as firm right now.

Harmony stepped from the van, closing the side door and readying her snub-nosed Machine Pistol. Targeting data flowed across her visor, showing the pair clearly in its electronic sights. They hadn’t moved at all other than to turn their heads to regard her exiting of the vehicle.

“Don’t move” Harmony ordered, her gun raised into her shoulder as she stepped lightly towards Melody and the boy. “Why are you here, Melody-Six? My orders are to kill you on sight you stupid girl!”

“Yet here we are, talking like civilised people” Melody answered her. “You should have shot me as soon as you saw me”

“I still might” Harmony snapped. “The Hive Father has declared you are Infected. You must be purged to keep the Nests pure!”

Melody-Six laughed bitterly at her words and lifted her left hand. A single black spike of darkness rose from her index finger, pointed at the night sky.

“It was only after I left the Hive that I was able to Manifest my gift” she said. “Being forced out into the world above, it was living in the light that let me summon my Shadows”

Harmony regarded the girl with mixed feelings surging through her body. There was no doubt the ex-Blade had Manifested, but she was of a strength that Harmony had never heard of before. To even summon the Shadows from her left hand made her a step above the few Shadow Blades she had encountered. She lowered her weapon and lifted the helmet visor, seeing the girl with her own naked eyes.

“Come back with me, Melody” she asked the girl. “The Hive Father will surely forgive your transgressions if you swear loyalty once more!”

“I can’t” she answered. “The Nests are a lie. The Hive Father is not our protector, he is using us for his pointless war. Come with me instead, I can save all of you. We don’t have to fight anymore!”

“Liar!” screamed a new voice and Harmony saw Simon-Three had left the van. His own Machine Pistol was aimed at Melody-Six, his face in his open helmet showing raw hatred. “Heretic! Filthy Infected Scum!” he bellowed, spittle flying from his lips as he spat and cursed her.

He was about to fire, his finger on the trigger, when everything happened at once.

“NO!” many voices yelled in nearly perfect timing.

Harmony lunged to her side, her outstretched hand knocking Simon’s gun upwards. Bullets spat like flaming darts from the barrel, shooting harmlessly into the dark sky.

The boy called Boss King had thrown himself in front of Melody-Six, shielding her with his own body. Melody had grabbed him as he came with superhuman speed, taking them both to the rough tarmac of the highway.

Gunfire erupted from the bushes along the road edge, heavy rubber-tipped Suppression rounds slamming into Harmony and Simon. The jarring impacts left them stunned and reeling, collapsing to their knees as the inhumanly accurate fire followed them down.

The rear van doors were flung open, the young Agents readying themselves to rush into battle. Agent Vivian-Five was in the lead when she faltered on the edge of the doorway. A young dark- complexioned woman had appeared on the highway, a Chameleon Cloak falling from her head and shoulders as she opened her mouth wide.

“Huh?” wondered Vivian-Five before the woman screamed in a voice louder than a thunderclap, or at least that was how it felt. Like a bomb going off in their midst, a shockwave of noise and compressed air hammered at their ears and bodies. In the confined space of the van’s cabin the Agents were left stunned and incapacitated, falling over each in a tangle of legs and arms.

Harmony-Three’s last conscious memory was of Melody-Six coming to crouch at her side, fingers stroking her face with a gentle touch.

“I’m sorry, Sister” the girl said then everything went dark.

=====

Melody-Six

“You kids Okay?” Trixie asked her as Melody checked on the young male and female Agents. Melody glanced at the clone, still mostly obscured in the Chameleon Cloak with only the heavy Police-issue Assault Rifle visible as she approached.

“Yeah, we’re fine” Melody answered. Boss King was taking the weapons from the fallen Agents, securing their hands and feet with plastic zip-ties that Trixie had found. “There sure was a lot of handy equipment in those storage lockers” she added.

“It was nice of Detective Kamori to loan us a van with a full set of gear onboard” Trixie grinned smugly. “I may have to ask my Boss to reimburse the Police Auxiliary for all this equipment when we get back”

The clone went and checked on Sunset at the back of the Hive van, helping her strip weapons from the Agents while they were still knocked out. Melody made sure the two Agents were comfortable but secure then turned to Boss King.

“You didn’t have to jump in front of me” she said in a light tone. “I could have dodged the bullets using my Shadows, but they would have killed you”

“I didn’t stop to consider that” Boss King admitted, finishing tying up the male Agent. With their helmets off, Melody could see both were barely a few years older than herself. She touched the woman’s neck, feeling the pulse of her heart as it beat steadily. There was a tingle too, the trace of Shadows flowing in the blood.

“Thanks anyway” she responded, her attention still fixed on the neck beneath her fingers. She could sense the minute traces of the Shadow in her sibling responding to her presence. With infinite care she extended her reach, calling the darkness from within the unconscious girl. She moaned suddenly, eyelids fluttering and Melody pulled her hand away.

Faint spots of darkness glimmered like oil for a moment on the pale neck, then sank into the bloodstream once more. Melody looked at her fingertips, seeing specks of Shadows that had not come from her own body. They slowly merged into her, filling her with a flash of insight.

“Her name is Harmony-Three” she announced and Boss King looked at her in shock.

“How the hell did you find that out?” he asked. “Was she from your Nest?”

“No, she’s from another Nest” Melody said as more knowledge flooded her. “Simon-Three, the Agent just there, was from her home Nest too. They went to train as Agents together when they turned fourteen”

Boss King looked at the pair of Agents, considering their faces by the van’s headlights.

“They can’t be much older than that now” he decided. “In their armour and helmets, with their height, they looked heaps older. But now that I look closely, they are just kids like you and me!”

“They’re all kids” Melody realised with horror. “All of these Agents, they are kids who failed to Manifest. When I think about, all the siblings at my home Nest were sent to other places once they reached fourteen”

“So the Hive turns everyone into an Agent if they don’t become a Shadow Blade?” Boss King asked her. “Aren’t there any adult Agents? I’m sure the ones at the Central Markets didn’t look like your brothers and sisters”

Melody shrugged her shoulders sadly, understanding filling her at last.

“When the Hive began, I think they recruited people to be Agents the same way they got men and women to be Guardfathers and Nursemothers. Now that I look back, there hadn’t been any new faces at my Nest for a few years”

“Maybe Archimedes had blocked them from recruiting somehow” Boss King suggested. “Instead of getting new outsiders into the Hive, they just used the people that they already had”

“Except for the Agents” Melody continued. “The Blades were perfectly trained to become Agents, once they had failed to Manifest their Shadows”

Trixie reappeared, her rifle held ready as she looked at the two Agents lying on the road.

“We need to get these people off the highway” she explained. “Let’s get these two in the back and Sunset will drive the van over to where ours is”

“And then what?” Melody insisted. “We aren’t going to harm them are we?”

“No” Trixie said flatly. “But we can’t leave them to come after us again. I suppose if we leave them tied up for now, their own people will find them eventually”

“Can we take them with us?” Melody asked hopefully. “I might be able to convince some that the Hive Father has lied to all of us”

“I don’t think that is going to be an option” Trixie replied.

=====

It was Sunset who heard them first, shouting and pointing to the dark skies in the west.

“We’ve got two VTOLs coming in fast!” the woman yelled. Melody looked in the direction she indicated, reaching out with her newly discovered senses.

“I can’t sense any Hive Agents aboard” Melody called in reply. Boss King and Trixie joined her, eyes scanning the black night. The roar of the ducted fan engines was clear to them all now, a few blinking lights revealing the aircraft’s bulky squat shapes as they approached.

“Put any weapons on the ground and get your hands in the air” Trixie rumbled, her voice filled with suppressed anger. “This is not someone we can fight” She laid her own rifle down, stripping her pistol and stun baton too and lying them beside it.

“Who is that?” Sunset demanded, standing alongside the clone. She glanced at the grim set to Trixie’s mouth and reluctantly dropped her own pistol on the ground. With her hands in the air, Trixie gave an answer that sent a shiver down all of their spines.

“It’s Archimedes” she said. “I wondered how long we had until he intervened”

=====

The VTOLs were big machines, as long as a bus and only barely streamlined. Four huge cylinders were fitted at each corner of the aircraft, containing powerful ducted fans that could be rotated to fly like a helicopter or airplane.

Searchlights snapped on, one from each machine as they slowed to a hover over the two vans and four people, lighting up everything for a hundred meter radius. Obviously satisfied that they would not run or shoot, the two VTOLs landed nearby in clouds of dust and thrown debris.

Even before the engines powered down in a high pitched whine, side doors and rear ramps lowered to disgorge a dozen silvery mechanicals. The human shaped robots were similar to the Sentinels used by the Police Auxiliary, but these were more nimble and refined, moving with animal grace to surround them.

Melody couldn’t see any obvious weapons being carried, yet the mechanicals all had forearms thicker than their upper arms, bulges that could conceal weapons of unknown types. After the machines had circled them, a woman strode down the steps of the nearest aircraft.

To Melody’s eye she was incredibly beautiful, like a heroine from a game rendered into real life. Her skin was as pale as milk, with hair of pure white cut in a short bob that brushed her narrow shoulders. She walked towards them with the same innate grace as the silver mechanicals, her arms moving in languid arcs that any catwalk supermodel would kill to achieve.

She was dressed all in white, from her elegant skirt and jacket to the high boots encasing her slender legs. The only variation was a broad black belt that girdled her waist and brilliant ruby red lipstick adorning her mouth. Eyes of pale grey surveyed them equally then flicked to the Hive van with a faint frown.

“I expected you to kill them, Unit B-Zero-Three” the woman said in a perfect and clear tone.

“I was respecting the wishes of my little sister” Trixie answered, the anger still audible in her voice. Melody knew that Trixie was close to unleashing a rage she had kept captive for over two years, no matter the consequences.

“Are you Archimedes?” Melody asked calmly, hoping to defuse the tense moment. “You look different to what I expected”

The woman trilled in laughter, grey eyes examining her anew.

“I am his Avatar, one of many” she answered. “He has sent me to deal with this problem on his behalf, so you may speak to me as if to Great Archimedes himself”

Melody executed a small bow from the waist, offering what respect she could to the enemy she had been raised to fear and hate for all of her life.

“Please spare them” she begged. “They have been lied to for so long, they don’t know what is true!”

“You believe Archimedes will offer them truth?” the woman in white asked her in reply.

“No, I don’t” Melody countered honestly. “But I hope he can offer them mercy”

The Avatar seemed to consider this request, her head cocked to one side as if listening to an inner voice. As an Avatar of Archimedes, she probably was Melody decided. Those pale grey eyes focussed on Melody again, the internal discussion at an end.

“It is agreed” the woman announced. “All the children of the Hive will be taken into the custody of Archimedes. They shall not be harmed, but they cannot be allowed to roam where they wish”

The eyes fixed Melody like a pin piercing a paper to a notice board.

“All the children of the Hive” she repeated.

“No” came a solitary voice in denial, deep and rich with the promise of violence.

Trixie moved and stood between Melody and the Avatar, uncaring of the silver mechanicals whose arms followed her every move. Her green eye blazed like a beacon in the night, transfixing the pale woman with her intensity.

“You know me, you know what I was made to do” Trixie hissed. “Do not make an enemy of me this night or you shall regret it. Give me Melody-Six, Archimedes”

“Is that what you want, Unit B-Zero-Three?” the Avatar asked in a voice like oil on water. “You’ll forgive me for the two lives in exchange for this one?”

“I never said I will forgive you” Trixie spat. “I am offering to spare you, in return for letting Melody go” Melody could see the clone woman’s big hands clenched into fists, held low and tight to her thighs like a spring waiting to be released.

The Avatar’s beautiful face was frozen for an instant, as if no-one had every spoken like that before in her presence. Melody suspected that no-one would have dared, but Trixie wasn’t no-one. Then the woman smiled broadly, showing her perfect white teeth as her eyes sparkled in surprise.

“I accept your gracious terms, Trixie” the Avatar acknowledged at last. “Melody-Six is free to go wherever she wishes”

Melody stepped around her protector and bowed once again to the Avatar woman.

“Thank you, Great Archimedes” she said.