They Call the Data Maiden
Sat on the floor, Miles lovingly brushed the woman’s blue hair from the tip of his shivering fingers.
“Bring the subject back on the mattress,” the phony officer suddenly ordered with a hoarse voice.
Helped by another cyborg, the assassin with the P-90 grabbed the Forlorn pilot’s shoulder and threw him on the bed with a few new bruises. Roughed up again, he quickly found himself on his back, naked, with two n firmly handling his ankles and wrists.
“Clear,” one of them said.
Unruffled, the leader silently clamped a couple of black wires to Miles’ artificial heart and clipped the other tips on an outlet behind his left Kevlar-coated ear. A bluish spark welcod the second jack plug.
“Who sent you?” Miles asked, glancing at his humming chest-box.
A painful electric shock imdiately nipped his limbs and tongue without disturbing the cyborgs holding him. The surge went crescendo. It felt like being repeatedly punched in the stomach by a very angry Frank Bruno.
“Hell!” he uttered, his mouth as dry as a Jovian satellite. The next second, the mattress was soaked with fluid and his chest-box’s screen cracked.
As the cyborg leader approached the recovering pilot’s pearly face, he calmly asked: “Where is the woman?”
A fresh juice burst didn’t give Miles the ti to answer. The bead of sweat running on his forehead turned to salt and steam.
“Where is the woman?” the torturer insisted in the exact sa tone.
Struggling to keep it together, Miles tried to spit in the man’s face. But because of his numb tongue and lips, the pitiful gob of split only drooled on his chin. “Dead. Dead at the foot of the bed.”
A new burst of juice threatened to bend him in half despite being restrained by the two n. His left knee buckled and almost broke. He wanted to scream while one of the n stuffed Jessica’s panties down his throat, but only managed to tear off his larynx.
Professionally emotionless, the master of pain didn’t take his mirror eyes off his agonizing victim. Probing the latter from his opaque optics, he added a new red clamp on the life support. This ti, he linked the deadly wire to a different outlet behind his other shed ear.
He asked once more: “Where is the woman?”
“The rabbit?” Miles laughed, spitting blood through the soaked fabric. His eyes have beco nothing more than burst out vessels. “Good luck with that. She’s tougher than she looks.”
The man holding his arms crushed his wrists, losing patience. When the senior torturer glanced at him, he imdiately let go.
Once again, the sa question woke him up: “Where is the woman?”
The next jolt pierced his chest. Following his ribs, chunks of derm turned black. The half-lted box creaked and died. This last round finally knocked the pilot unconscious.
“Stay put. Sothing’s wrong,” the executioner said.
“He’s probably wired to the bone,” a henchwoman said. “Soaking your surges.”
“You’re probably right. I’m bringing him back.”
Quickly removing the alligator clip, which he left hanging from his earlobes’ outlets, the man pointed his finger in the direction of Miles’ jugular. A small dart took off from beneath the chro-painted nail and stuck the pilot’s neck. This one was drawn back from the near-death thanks to a noxious injection of combat drugs mixing thamphetamine and hoo-adrenaline.
“You’re tough, Red Swan…” the executioner went on. “But this is your last chance.”
Miles coughed until he entirely spat his gag. “Wha—what?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Canyon Creek,” Miles babbled incoherently.
One of the thugs grabbed his throat. He was no longer held by the limbs as the previous shock had paralyzed most of his muscles and respiratory functions. “We lost him,” he said.
“Change of plan,” the leader heaved.
Stubborn, the resourceful leader took a strange collar from beneath his cape. He carefully tightened the device against the base of Miles’ neck. Right after, a saw slipped from his sleeve, and he spoke again: “You’re not a data-carrier, but your overcooked Cronian synapses will tell us more than we need to learn, Mr. Villanueva. Alas, your highly polluted body remains far too cumberso for the suitcase we brought.”
“Last curve. Easy run, easy money.”
“He’s losing it, sir,” the sa cyborg from before reported. Lifting his cape, he then pulled out a cable with a rhombus-shaped outlet he clipped on a wall socket for the landline.
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“I can see that,” the leader answered.
The wired man said: “We’re running out of ti. A night patrol is closing in. Jackson Square. Sup-Drone. ETA 5 minutes.”
“Close the window,” ordered the leader to the sentry cocking the P-90. “We’ll be fine.” Crunching the pilot’s jaw between his fingers, he pursued while one of Miles’s teeth broke: “Mr. Villanueva, I prefer to warn you that you will feel everything. Your jugular being sliced. Every blow of the blade against your vertebrae. Every stridulent back and forth on your spinal cord. This won’t be pleasant but, the funny thing is that you might even be alive when you reach our ship. But, trust , the experience isn’t worth the trendous pain. So, if you want to talk about sothing other than your past issues… Now is the ti.”
“Make it snappy, sir…” the P-90 man went on, glancing through the gaps of the closed shutters. “Got a visual on the drone. Pushed by the wind.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Miles cut them off as the arm-blade started spinning. The last cold breath coming from the window brought him back from Canyon Creek.
“The woman, Mr. Villanueva. Where is the woman you helped on Enceladus?”
“Y’all with the suit I torpedoed in New Savannah?”
Behind, the wire-man intervened: “ETA 3 minutes, sir.”
The leader straightened before looking up at the ceiling. He ran a gloved hand over the Kevlar coating on his jawline before ordering his partner to tighten the strap around Miles’ neck. For the first ti, he seed annoyed. “I’m really sorry Mr. Villanueva,” he replied. “You were lucky enough to be given another shot with life. But once again, you’re a poor decision maker.” The saw buzzed. The blow slowly started to whirl, getting closer and closer to Miles’ neck.
The resentnt in his artificial heart managed to give him enough strength to spit a last spray of blood and mucus in the face of his persecutor. The latter’s curses were lost in the dented laughter of the forr SASCAR champion who knew his final hour was coming. At last.
The sharp blade sliced through his skin, but stopped before reaching any arteries. Curiously, the tal appendage remained motionless, as did its master.
“Sir!” the wired man intervened, unplugging his chro-sh umbilical cord which rolled back in his belly. “The network’s compromised!”
The leader grunted. “Felt it.”
“Soone’s local! We’re exposed!” the cabled spy yelled. His last words crackled as he unplugged his chro-sh umbilical cord which rolled back in his belly.
“Don’t pull out, fool! Burn him!”
“Ugh! Can’t!” his goon panicked. “Code White!”
The leader swore. Static imdiately covered his n’s agonizing screams. Then everything turned dark and silent for only the wind to whisper in the hot damp night.
Gradually regaining control of his body, Miles raised his head. His vision blurred by the effort, he tried to blink several tis but his eyelids were stuck by dry sweat.
He cleaned them with a trembling hand, and sat up the best he could. His sore legs slid over the puddles of urine, blood and perspiration. When he turned towards each of his assailants, he saw that all remained still and silent—as if ti was suspended.
“What is happenin’ here?” he gurgled.
Outside, the street projectors lit up, slowly starting the daily cycle. The artificial dawn’s orange light went through the large gaps of the shutters, and cast horizontal lines running from bottom to the top of the facing wall. On the floral tapestry surrounding the knocked off door, six shadows appeared.
One more than the number of people supposedly in the room.
“Who—who the hell are you?” Miles stuttered. A shiver ran up his spine.
The sunlight slowly turned yellow, while the head of the additional shadow moved. Two sorts of ivory floating orbs opened in the half-light. As the eyes glimred in red, the whole group of soldiers fell to the ground.
Miles jumped, scared. He caught a new sll on top of the blood and his own feces. A less natural sll. The stench of white-hot tal. Then another one, this ti natural, that of burned flesh. When he observed the bodies, most of their implants had partially lted, covering their face with silverish drips.
The ghost moved to the door fra. A halo of light slowly drew its flickering outline in front of the soiled bed. “Have I gone mad?”
“After all you’ve been through, my friend, you’re not far off…”
Still sitting, Miles coughed and reached for the bedside table. In the drawer lay the latest painkiller Jessica had deigned to leave him. His gaze fell on the dead woman at the foot of the bed.
“If you want to kill , tickets are on sale…” Miles spluttered, injecting a quadruple dose into around the gaping wound on his neck, then near his twisted knee turning mustard. “At least have the decency to show your face. Or to throw my pants.”
The illusion turned into a veil of static snow then dissipated, and a girl with white-silvery hair appeared. Her tallic skin was darker than the void.
Smiling briefly, she handed him a red stick. A fresh Slim Jim beef jerky. Steam escaped her joints.
“Nice trick,” Miles said. Ignoring the snack, he slid off the edge of the bed to cover Jessica with a sheet.
“Holosuit. Integrally integrated into my skin.”
“Henceforth more expensive than a Falcon Interceptor…”
“My patrons are wealthy enough to grant perfect invisibility.”
“Perfect? These guys spotted you.”
“Not in the physical world.”
“I can hear your circuit fryin’ from here.”
“I’ll cool off in the Herschel Sea.”
“It’s full of oil. You’ll set the entire ring ablaze.”
“Nothing of value will be lost.”
Sitting on the edge, Miles turned around. Holding his lted plastic heart, he looked up to the newcor. “I know who you are. I saw your wanted poster popping at the top of the register after this weird story on a cruise ship. Twas you on Ceres too, right? The auction job.”
His cyber-savior eyeballed him. “My na is Zéphyr. They call the Data Maiden.”
“The one and only.”
“And I’m looking for the Japanese woman titling herself ‘Fate’.”
Miles grinned as he stuck the fresh beef jerky between his lips. “Who don’t these days?”
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