PDF gave up. I catch it on the radio first thing in the morning; governor's calling off the search, Olenk's been put on a leash.
That's not a good thing. Watching cockroaches and rats scurrying around my ankles somehow gives me that piece of insight. I don't stop walking, my mind's not changed because it's never been set on anything. Not in my entire life and even less now that I'm going up against my home planet.
I always knew I'd end up in the military, fantasized about the guard or the Astartes, watched every recruitment vids and got rejected by every recruiter.
Who's top dog on Baria? PDF? Autoguns and mesh armour, mercenaries and criminals get better gear...
Voices, deeper down the tunnel, scare off my skittering companions. There are ladders every twenty meters down here, so I keep cool and climb the next one.
Matadaeus Square. Give me your whores, your tramps, your cog-junkies and your mutants, I will give them all random, often occupied residences in a segment of town so sick the building have begun to melt. I will give you Matadaeus Square.
Lodged in the heart of the residential district, as you can tell by the smell, my guess is there's no better place to disappear, whether you want to or not. Most of the planet is like this, but this square is a little worse. I get glares from everyone. Muggers checking for valuable, whores doing the same. All decide I'm not worth the hassle and let me walk by, hands in my pockets, hood tucked up as rain, unable to filter in between the massive high-rises and intricate overpasses, torrents down along neon signs in muddy cascades of liquefied smog.
Back on track. PDF is at the bottom of the food chain, I went through them like schola boys going up against a wolverine high on PCP. Not remarkable in the least, I'm certainly not on the blacklist of anyone off-world, but Baria's armed forces will be sending their top tier men after me now.
It's just logical, and Sergeant Petrov agrees, you don't use a linear curve when increasing the pressure on an unknown element. Doing so would only give the enemy a chance at doing the same, matching you every step.
Who's the best armed force on Baria? Royal Guard? They're the best PDF troopers on this planet and are certainly well equipped, but with zero combat experience and insignificant numbers, they hardly deserve a mention here.
No, the title of Most Brutally Efficient Association of Psychopaths easily goes to the Adeptus Arbites' Reaction Force. From counter-piracy to riot control, the ARF does not intimidate nor negotiate, their entire training and organisation is focused on assuming tactical supremacy and crushing any resistance before the situation escalates.
People are still staring at me from balconies and store fronts. Unlike the PDF, the ARF has eyes and ears everywhere, informants, drones and cameras. The longer I stay in the open, the more likely they are to find me.
Back alleys are out of the question here, muggers don't scare me, but they would attract too much attention, even if I had the money to pay them off. There are no stores other than pawn shops and alcohol vendors, both of which are bound to have cameras inside.
So I keep walking east, following the neon-lit path and avoiding darker streets. It's not even night right now, but all the smoke and dust from the industrial district gets blown this way. Matadaeus square hasn't seen sunlight in a century. Most of its residents will live their entire life within a hundred meters of where they were born.
I used to be like them. Chuckling to myself is not the best way to keep a low profile, but this thought is so funny, I can't help it.
Nothing's changed. I'm harder to kill now, but the universe is also trying harder to kill me. I'm as free now as I ever was. Used to be marriage was my only way upwards, but new options are opening up.
I was never like those people, I never cowered in the dark waiting for an easy way out.
A sound like a very upset kettle shakes my eardrums, then ends with a wet splotch against my chest. Green goo covers my shirt; paintball?
No sign of the shooter anywhere, just pipes, catwalks and a single delivery van. Probably a kid with… No.
It's like ants are burrowing into my chest, eating away the fabric and flesh in a frenzy. I can't regenerate, as the writhing goo chews biomass faster than my body can produce it.
I'm out in the open. That's bad…
Sure enough, just as I think that, another round hits me in the skull, just over my left ear. The hood melts away in instants and that ear goes deaf soon after.
I feel the ants crawling into my ear canals, down my throat, in my nose and mouth. Some are making their way through my guts, hungrily devouring organs and bones.
Now on all four, I scream as loud as I can, but my jaw's now held only by the right mandible. Soon, I can't even find my tongue anymore.
With my good ear, I hear boots beating against pavement. Twelve men in armour, four from the front, four behind and the last four coming in from the rear.
They quickly get within four meters and I pounce into the group dead ahead. Three of them hold shields and one, in the back, has a massive pump action rifle in hand.
His eyes show behind the thick helmet; blue, cold and unfazed by my gruesome injuries. "Fire." Someone says. This is followed by that whistle and my right knee gets hit by that green goo, slowing my charge slightly, too late to save their comrades.
I ram shoulder-first into the central shield-bearer… And get thrown back a good two meters, convulsing as every nerve in my body seems to spontaneously combust.
Electricity crackles from the aquila signs built into their shields. They are not impressed.
Clattering on the left has me glance that way. The ARF troops there have parted their shields and, like the squad ahead, one of them holds a large rifle aimed at my face. I raise a hand sluggishly, shielding my eyes and get to see my arm melt away in three shots.
"Two, reload. Three fire." Someone calls. Behind the chunks of flesh that used to be my left hand, shields snap back into place and the gunman takes a knee to shove thumb sized capsules into his weapons.
I get enough time to look at the goo on my hand drip to the ground, where it remains inert, then the back of my head gets hit, followed by my neck, and I learn something new; the head is not where I am located. It rolls off, I can't move, see nor hear anymore, but I remain conscious.
Instinct takes over, but I get to watch as it sucks in all untainted biomass it's got left, concentrating all that's left of me into a grotesque approximation of a human foetus, even as the discarded shape around us is rattled with more of that green poison. Four shots per reload, their only weapons are useless against inorganic matter and I cannot touch their shields…
Let's go.
Twenty years of growth in a tenth of a second is not only disorienting, it's very hot. My new body emerges in an explosion of steam and partly dissolved body parts. The ARF duck behind their shields and quickly exchange reports, confirming the same thing, "Target just exploded, lost visual, standby."
I hear them switch position, probably to guard their rears. Smart.
The moment they catch a glimpse of me, the men on the left part their shield wall and open fire. I dive feet first into them, grinding along the ground just a bit faster than the gunman can follow.
The moment my foot is under the gun's barrel, I throw myself into a backwards roll, kicking the gun up, but not quite out of its owner's hands.
The two shield bearers close the formation again, but it just saves me from a getting a facefull of fekk you. I drop to a crouch, green splotches blooming harmlessly on the electrified shields just before I perform a clumsy but efficient leg sweep.
Both men crumble on their asses and I pounce over them to go after the retreating gunman. Now behind his remaining shielded buddy, my target quickly works his weapon's pump and fires another round at me. I side-step it, just barely, and jump onto the nearest wall. Old brick crumbles as I kick off it and onto the opposite wall, five meters away. There, I run a few steps and leap with all my strength towards the two arbites. I hit the electrified shield, but retain enough momentum to audibly shatter most of its holder's bones.
The gunman is thrown against a dumpster, three meters back, and recovers a little slower than I do. He shoots, but misses by inches as, rather than get up and run, I clamber on all four up to him. First priority is to rip that gun out of his hand, breaking a few fingers in the process.
Eight meters back, the two ARF troopers I knocked down are up and a third is bringing his weapon to bear, so I throw my new friend at them like a softball then immediately kick the dumpster their way.
They pick themselves off the ground and even drag their unconscious comrade out of the way, just in time to let the tumbling steel box smash its way past and into that same delivery van, but when they duck back into the alley, I am long gone.
Make no mistake, they won this fight.
