The Final Evolution by Jeff Somers

Author:Jeff Somers [Somers, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, FIC028010, Dystopian, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316175135
Google: i2h-V9csAAkC
Amazon: B0047Y0EZ6
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2011-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

I KILL EVERYBODY

I experienced one of those rare moments of total, paralyzing shock—I couldn’t make it fit in and make sense. The woman wasn’t my age but wasn’t young, her reddish hair dry and bristly and mixed with gray, her complexion stained red with gin blossoms—she’d lived hard. She was smiling at me in a relaxed, confident way, but I’d never seen her before in my life. This was a fact. There was no wiggle room in it.

“What?”

She cocked her head the other way and smiled. The smile was vacant and terrifying—there was nothing in her eyes. They had rolled up, showing just the whites, and vibrated slightly. Behind her, her friends stared in puzzled agitation.

“Keep up, boyo. That’s always been yer problem, Avery. Yer good at dealin’ the cards, sure, sure, but you bet like a drunk sailor on shore leave, heavy and blind.”

A thrill shot through me. This was Orel. I thought of the old Italian man in Fiesole, and a second later I surged up, tearing the Roon from its holster and swinging my arm around, intending to shoot her in the face and find out how much pain you could cause a Psionic when they’d Traveled into another body. As I put the gun on her, though, I hesitated. She wasn’t Orel. She was just a vessel he’d forced himself into, and for a split second I hovered there, thinking I couldn’t just shoot some poor bitch who’d been drinking herself to sleep because of her shitty life a few seconds before, fucking unaware of what a really shitty evening was.

As I stood there, the woman, eyes still twitching in their sockets, leaned back suddenly and smashed her glass into my head. A bloom of cold and hot spun me around and I shot wild, then let my momentum carry me into a spin out from behind the table. She’d been fast, and as I spun back and brought the gun up, orienting myself, she had somehow leaped up onto her table and launched herself directly at me.

All I saw as she sailed through the air, my augments working to speed up synapse response, making everything seem slower, were her wonky eyes, all white, little hints of pupil skimming the very tops. She had that same crazy smile on her face as I fired twice, hardwired habit, her stomach exploding into a spray of blood just before she crashed down onto me.

“What the fuck!” I heard Gall shout.

I shoved the squirting, twitching body off me and surged up onto my feet, blood dripping from my face where a flap of skin had been carved open.shoved Grisha, and even Mehrak had guns in their hands, tables and chairs rocking gently where they’d been flipped over to clear some space.

“Well, shit,” I started to say breathlessly, and then the man who’d been sitting with the redhead stood up.

“Yer gonna have to be faster than that,” he said as his eyes rolled up into his head just like hers had, “if yer goin’ to come after me when I don’t have this kind of fucking lag to deal with.

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