Axiom Hand by Jonathan Moeller

Author:Jonathan Moeller [Moeller, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-08T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6: Calculated

March was fast, but Axiom was faster.

Her arms moved in a blur, both hands wrapped around the handle of her pistol. The weapon barked three times, and the drone’s head exploded backward in a flash of red blood and gray brains. The drone shuddered, its limbs of flesh jerking, and the metal legs jutting from its side hammered at the table, digging chips from the expensive wood.

“Jesus Christ!” said Casimir, his eyes wide in his ruddy face. “What the hell is that?”

“A ghost drone,” said Axiom. “The implants exist in a quantum state, and the host is unaware of them until they are activated, and the transformation begins…”

“The hive implant!” said March, jumping upon the table. “Get the hive implant!”

He had barely reached the corpse when the ghost drone came back to life, just as Reimer had.

The brain was dead, destroyed by Axiom’s bullets. But the hive implant at the base of the skull was still intact, as were the cybernetic augmentations along the spine. The implants took control of the body, and two metal legs whipped towards March’s face with enough force to crack bone. His left arm snapped up, blocking the legs, and he felt the shock of their impact down his entire body. It forced him back a step, and he lost his balance and fell, landing hard on two of the chairs.

Dredger, Casimir, and both of Casimir’s bodyguards opened up with their pistols, the bullets hammering into the gaunt torso of the ghost drone. The cyborg rocked from the impacts, though any bullets that struck the metal legs ricocheted off and buried themselves in the walls. None of it did any good. The drone would keep fighting until its hive implant was disabled or removed.

“Stop shooting!” said Axiom as March heaved himself to his feet. “Stop shooting!”

“Are you insane?” said Casimir, slapping another magazine into his smoking pistol.

“Do as she says!” snapped Helen, looking at March. “Do as she says or we’re all dead!”

March jumped back on the table. The ghost drone reacted at once, two of the metal legs lashing at him like deadly whips. But this time he had anticipated the attack, and he dodged, the metal legs carving gouges from the table.

He leaped on the ghost drone’s back, his metal fingers grasping the dark metal of the hive implant, and he ripped with every bit of strength that his cybernetic arm could manage. The hive implant tore free of the dead man’s head with a wet tearing noise, translucent slime and thick black fluid dripping from it. March fell backward as the ghost drone went into a final jerking dance and then went still, the metal legs locked and holding the dead man in macabre suspension.

“What the hell was that thing?” said Casimir.

“Were you not listening?” said Axiom. “I explained it to you.”

“Ghost drone,” said March, staring at the dead thing as the pieces came together into his mind. It was a good name for this type of drone. “That’s what Lorre and Deveraux are doing.

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