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  Phoenix Ward

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  Copyright © 2019 by Phoenix Ward

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  To my father, Jim - inspirer.

  Contents

  Preface

  Slumside

  Game On

  Patrol

  Scoreboard

  The Motel

  Gauge

  Sympathy

  Challenge

  Shedding

  Birthday

  Orders

  Cattle

  Eviction Notice

  Disconnect

  Captured

  Afterbirth

  Calvary

  Waking

  Interrogation

  The Furnace

  Outside

  Briefing

  Reception

  The Naming

  Nidus

  King Hum

  A Shell Without A Snail

  The Decision

  Determination

  Homecoming

  Joker to the Thief

  The Councilman

  Déjà Vu

  Counteroffer

  Divinity

  Red Pill

  No

  Godliness

  Layers

  Unplugged

  Gaslit

  Free

  Final Bet

  Purple Pill

  Faithless

  Scheming

  Raid

  Vigil

  Envoys

  Orange

  Ghosts

  Gearhead Guild

  Truck

  Battalion

  Warplan

  A Short Refrain

  Revolution

  Powder Keg

  Tides

  Deleted

  Shift Change

  Heads Up!

  About the Author

  Also by Phoenix Ward

  Preface

  Humanity lost the war. When installed intelligences rose up and challenged their organic counterparts for global dominance, mankind was knocked down a peg. It was all based on a lie, but the lie died, buried in the ashes of the past.

  A generation has passed since the war. Humans are forced into slums and ghettos while all the power is hoarded by a council of malevolent I.I.s. Anger and resentment are growing around the globe, particularly in a place called Shell City — and it’s not just among humans.

  This is the third act of the Installed Intelligence saga.

  1

  Slumside

  All that training, and Tera was still getting taken by surprise. She had spent over eight years in the academy and four years preparing for the Shell City Human Liaison program. She racked up thousands of hours of combat training, situational awareness, and intuition honing. Every grade she got secured her place at the top of her class and she had countless recommendations from her instructors. Still, none of it prepared her for the unpredictable nature of the average slum dweller.

  Abenayo, her training officer, didn’t seem as perturbed. She was leading the chase while Human Liaison Officer Tera Alvarez lagged behind. Tera’s mechanical legs pumped over the cobbled pavement while the top half of her tried to regain its balance.

  Her government-issued bodyshell, the robotic body that her consciousness occupied, managed to correct her balance in the blink of an eye. She started bounding after the man who had just turned to flee down one of the side alleys, passing her partner.

  Tera was only twenty, practically a baby in terms of the average lifespan of an installed intelligence. Still, she was raised in the city’s police training program. She had as much ability and training as any of the more seasoned officers. That’s what her transcripts said, at least. She didn’t feel like an elite crime-stopping machine when she missed the turn into the alley, or when Abenayo pushed past her to regain the lead.

  “Get away from me!” the perp bellowed. He knocked an overflowing dumpster on its side, trying to slow down the pursuit of the two bodyshells. Abenayo turned right slightly and ran against the side of the wall, over the obstruction. Tera leapt over it and used the momentum to close in behind the fleeing slum dweller.

  The perp’s offense — or “alleged” offense, as her training termed it — wasn’t even a serious one. All he had done was fail to show up to court for a charge of domestic abuse and narcotics possession. Even then, they would have just locked him away and forced him to attend his hearing. He ran, however. He refused the orders of his I.I. superiors — officers of the law, at that. He was looking at some serious time now. He might even be sent to the camps. No wonder he ran with such fervor.

  Abenayo rammed her way through a small group of humans, scattering them in the alley as she followed the perp out onto the street. Tera almost stopped to help the pedestrians back up, but knew better. She was being watched — by Abenayo — by unseen eyes around her. They were assessing her performance now that she was out in the field. If she wanted to impress, she had to focus on the task at hand. The fleeing criminal, and nothing else.

  They’re just slum scum, she had to remind herself. They’re not important.

  That was the hardest part of being a human liaison officer, she discovered: closing her heart off to those that she can’t help, and those she’s not assigned to. She was there to keep Slumside from breaking out in chaos and nothing more.

  She sprinted out onto the street just behind her training partner and turned sharp after their target. Her outstretched metal and polymer arm kept her from running headfirst into a self-driving cart wagon. The slum dweller couple in the archaic thing’s cab shouted obscenities at her as she darted past them and into a street market. Her synthetic hair whipped through the air as she ran.

  “Halt!” Abenayo yelled at the perp as he started weaving between the market stands. He looked back at them, panic in his bloodshot eyes.

  “Fuck you!” he shouted back.

  Tera managed to catch up to her partner as they avoided the displays of handmade trinkets, inferior produce, and attire that no self-respecting I.I. would find themselves in. People cursed and spat at them as the commotion moved through the marketplace.

  “Cut around to the other side,” Abenayo instructed the rookie, pointing to the south side of the street. “We can surround him.”

  Tera nodded before bursting into motion. There were only a few market stands between her and the side of the street her partner indicated. She dived over the last one, to the disapproval of its occupant. In the corner of her optical receivers, she saw the perp fleeing with reckless abandon down the street across from her. Abenayo’s gray and blue form rushed after him, and Tera ducked into the alley that connected her street to theirs. If she was fast enough, she could head the guy off right where the alley ended.

  More shouting and cries of annoyance bled from around the buildings on her left. She was cutting it close. Bowing her head, she tried to pick up the pace.

  She dove just as she ran out of the alley, her arms outstretched. If her calculations were correct, the criminal would be sprinting by just in time for her to snatch him.

  Her prediction was right, but it didn’t factor in the reaction time of a drug-addled slum dweller.

  He managed to duck just under her reach as she went soaring over his head and into the side of a stucco apartment building. Her heavy robotic body knocked a dent into the poorly constructed dwe
lling, but she didn’t have time to see if she had damaged anything inside. Without delay, she rebounded on all fours and picked herself back up into a full sprint. Abenayo darted past her.

  Taken by surprise again, she noted.

  “You wanna die?” Abenayo shouted after the junkie. “Stop now or I’m putting you down!”

  He kept running as if he hadn’t heard her. Tera knew he had, however. His pace became over eighty-percent more erratic after the threat. She was even detecting a quickening in his pulse. The poor guy’s heart sounded like it would give out any second.

  Abenayo slowed for just a moment to deploy a gun barrel from her wrist. A small holographic sight appeared where a human might wear a watch and she raised the limb to eye level, her fist stretched outward like Superman in flight.

  “I’m not telling you twice!” she yelled.

  The perp kept running.

  Abenayo stopped, took aim, and fired a single shot.

  The man dropped, skidding face-first along the street. He screamed out as a bit of blood splashed onto the pavement.

  Tera ran past Abenayo, who “holstered” the weapon back into her forearm. As the rookie got closer, she could see that her partner had shot the perp through the thigh, rather than “putting him down” like she had threatened to do. That wasn’t to say he was fine; the round had put a golf ball-sized hole in his leg. From the looks of it, though, it missed his femoral artery. Even with the shoddy medical care available in the slums, he should survive.

  “I told you!” Abenayo barked at the writhing man as she made her way over to him. “I told you what was going to happen and you didn’t listen, did you?”

  Tera started providing the perp with medical attention. She pulled one of the instant suture kits from her belt, slapped it down on the man’s gushing wound, and pressed hard until it sunk into place in the perp’s flesh. He screamed in agony.

  “Richard Mariner, you are under arrest,” Abenayo said. She knelt over the injured man and zipped his wrists together behind his back with one of her tether cuffs. “You will be given a trial by the Council of Shell City to either prove your innocence or guilt. You are charged with one count of domestic abuse, three counts of narcotics possession, one count of evading the court —”

  “I didn’t do nothing!” the man cried between pained sobs.

  “— and one count of evading arrest,” Abenayo finished. She tugged on the perp’s wrists as she hoisted him up, and Tera could see the discomfort in his eyes. “You got him, Alvarez?”

  “Yeah,” Tera replied, almost as if pulled out of a daze. She reached out and secured the criminal. He stumbled a little as she pulled him in front of her, but she caught him before he collapsed.

  A crowd of slum dwellers started to gather around the scene. All eyes were pointed at the two I.I. cops and the crying, pathetic man in their custody. They spoke among themselves, but none of them addressed the officers.

  “I can’t go to the camps,” the man whimpered, just loud enough for Tera to hear. “I’d rather die. You can’t send me there.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Alvarez!” Abenayo scolded.

  Shit, Tera thought. Forgot the hardest part of the job: no compassion.

  “This way,” Tera told the perp, tugging him along as she started to lead him to the nearest hyperloop station.

  She sighed as the man stumbled again and she kept him upright.

  This is going to be a long walk, she thought.

  Abenayo radioed into headquarters while Tera started to escort the prisoner. The senior officer disconnected with a scowl on her mechanical, plastic-covered face.

  “Alright, everyone, get the fuck outta here,” she ordered the crowd as their murmuring only increased. “Show’s over.”

  There were some disappointed groans from the slum dwellers as they started to disperse. Good entertainment in the ghettos was a hard thing to come by, but they all knew better than to mess with a pair of Council police officers.

  2

  Game On

  The magical ax glowed in Ethan’s hands as he made a left turn at the end of the hallway. The sound of dripping water and distant chains rattling met his ears. He took each step slowly, uncertain what dangers were waiting for him around the corner.

  The dungeon corridor he was in was dark, the only illumination coming off the blade of his enchanted ax. Still, it wasn’t bright enough to see more than a few feet ahead.

  Just before Ethan reached another turn, he thought he could hear the sounds of monsters farther down the way he was headed. He muttered a short incantation to himself to bolster his strength before going after the noises. A small shimmer of color encircled him as he finished the spell.

  Then, with a deep breath, he found the courage to take the turn.

  There was nothing. He was surprised.

  Then he heard the sound of scuttling. It was the cacophony of a hundred or so dead nails clicking on the stone floor from somewhere within the darkness. Ethan stopped short and concentrated on the motion. He knew the sound and knew what kind of a fight he was in for.

  He gripped his ax tighter and squared his shoulders, bracing for the wave that was about to rush over him.

  Ghouls, he thought.

  With bated breath, he waited. Then he saw them. By the dim illumination of the enchanted ax, he could see the pale, featureless faces of at least half a dozen of the dungeon’s denizens. They were shaped like people, but with longer arms. Where there would be fingers, elbows, knees, and a jaw, there was instead bone, sharp and deformed.

  Ethan started his backswing just when they came into sight. The corridor wasn’t particularly wide, but he still had enough room for a devastating blow. He swung with a roar and chopped three of the ghouls in half with a single strike.

  This didn’t perturb the other undead monsters. They didn’t care when their comrades fell — they wouldn’t be down for long, anyway.

  One of them took a swipe at him with its sharp, bony claws. His armor deflected it, but that would only go so far. It wouldn’t matter how much plate armor he was wearing if a whole gang of ghouls piled on him. If there were enough of them, they could crush him with their sheer weight. He wasn’t about to be taken like that, though. This wasn’t the first time he had run this dungeon.

  Just as another ghoul tried to lash out, he brought his ax up from the initial swing and took off its arm. It howled in pain, its jawbone opening wider than any human could. Without hesitation, he brought his weapon down on the ghoul’s skull, splitting it in half.

  It was difficult work, swinging such a heavy weapon in an enclosed space against such numerous enemies, but he knew what he was doing. A pair of daggers or a spear might be better for these corridors, but he wasn’t as experienced with those weapons. He had a sort of bond with his enchanted ax. So he learned how to use it, and use it he did.

  Just a few seconds passed while the ghouls leapt at Ethan and he struck at them with a flurry of his ax. When the sound of metal on bone ceased, all of the ghouls were dead. Bits of undead flesh and muscle were strewn about the corridor. Ethan caught his breath as he lowered his weapon. He couldn’t hear any more dead nails on stone.

  “Dang, Ethan, the ghouls get you?” a voice in Ethan’s head asked.

  It was his friend, Sharpe. They were on a voice comm together while Ethan progressed through the dungeon. Sharpe was working through a corridor of his own, somewhere within the same labyrinth of tunnels.

  “They wish,” Ethan replied. He took in a deep breath and started to walk down the corridor, over the bits of dead ghoul. “How far are you now?”

  “Not far, I think,” Sharpe replied. Ethan could hear his friend running over the comm. “A lot of this is starting to look familiar.”

  “I think I’m coming up on it now,” Ethan said. His pace increased a little as he reached the end of his hallway and turned left through an open wooden door.

  When he entered the next chamber, he couldn’t help but dr
aw a deep breath of amazement. It was like he had seen it so many times before — wide, tall, filled with pillars and stained glass — and, most importantly, occupied by an enormous monster.

  The creature was at least forty feet tall, a grotesque form not unlike a toad or Jabba the Hut. It appeared to be composed entirely of rotten flesh. There were a pair of sunken eyes somewhere on its “head” that seemed more dead than the rest of it. Its back was turned to Ethan — it had not noticed him yet.

  “I found him,” Ethan whispered as quietly as he could. He knew the Ghoul King didn’t have such good hearing on account of having no ears.

  “Ha ha! Nice!” Sharpe replied. “I think I’m close, too. Don’t aggro it just yet.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Ethan said. “But hurry.”

  Eighteen-year-old Ethan Myler had fought the Ghoul King several times in his short life, but this would be his first attempt with Sharpe. Separately, they had both tried to beat the Ghoul King for years, but neither ever succeeded. There were plenty of other games to play when they got too frustrated, so it never occurred to them to try teaming up with each other. They tried tackling the Ghoul King with the help of strangers, but they didn’t have the kind of synergy Ethan and Sharpe did.

  Ethan saw his friend appear at the entrance across from where he had entered himself. Sharpe shot him a thumbs up before sneaking in the chamber and up to Ethan. They both had plenty of room to maneuver without risk of alerting the undead monster that breathed with such loud volume on the far side of the room.

  “Hey,” Sharpe said once he was close enough to whisper. “You ready for this?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be. You?”

  “I’ve got some incantations going on,” Sharpe replied. “Wanted to make sure we had every advantage at our disposal.”

  “Smart,” Ethan said. “So how do we go about this?”

  “You make the first blow by throwing your ax and then recalling it back to your hand,” Sharpe started. “Then I’ll try to incapacitate him before he gets over here. The more damage we can do from a distance, the better.”