In Makr's Shadow - Book One: Symbiosis Read online



  In Makr’s Shadow

  Book One: Symbiosis

  By

  Jack Shaw

  Copyright 2013 Jack Shaw

  E-book formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Dedication: to those who can read between the lines.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In what used to be a city, lurking in the darkness of an alley, Captain Carlos Montoya stood facing the ambush point, an ancient asphalt pavement with deep potholes that looked more like crevasses, craters that looked like canyons, with eroded, saw-like jagged edges that could shred a man before he could fall to the bottom to die. Of course, there was also the possibility of simply falling through the existing turf.

  Carlos fidgeted as much as any Shadow could and remain invisible to the outside world. Waiting days shrouded in darkness for the Cyber to move from point A to B was nothing. Still, he was always unnerved to come out of hiding. Carlos and his people remained hidden in the shadows all their lives; they were his soldiers, warriors, or guerillas. His soldiers fought and died, his warriors were heroic and his guerillas were stealthy. It all depended on Carlos’ state of mind. Today they were warriors.

  His warriors waited anxiously in the shadows of a building cluster; they were cocked like a weapon system, ready to explode and destroy.

  Like the rest of his people, Carlos dressed head-to-toe with a Stealth cloak that made him virtually invisible, a shadow blending in the darkness and gloomy fog. His telltale heat signature vanished as his body's radiated warmth dissipated evenly through the rough-hewed fabric.

  It was the same for the group of fifteen smoky apparitions behind him that also merged easily into the nightshade. Focusing his attention on the immediate darkest areas that lay between the buildings up ahead, he stood poised, ready for this encounter with Makr's Cyber Protectors. With luck, he would see his enemy before it detected him.

  Carlos touched his wrist guard. "Check shields," he whispered to the inside of his right collar. In their Stealth cloaks, even their voices became a part of the invisible Outside. Only other Shadows could hear his words; other Outsiders, including cyberts with sound detectors, would hear only the wind.

  Behind him, his attack force awaited his signal. They all knew the importance of the crossing. Each week, between ten and twenty factory cyberts traveled through this intersection to the Cyber factory that specialized in re-fitting cyberts with improved sensors, intelligence pods, armor and weapons.

  Eyeing the rugged asphalt, Carlos was satisfied its hidden craters were wide, deep and random enough to restrict passage and slow down the cybert formation. He'd have to commend the pothole team. Across the street, Lieutenant Greg Jackson motioned to Carlos that his five-member group was in position.

  Carlos signaled to Sergeant Kieran O'Shea who was crouching closest to him.

  She nodded and reached behind her to signal the Runners.

  Two Shadows removed their Stealth garments, revealing darkly painted bodies and faces, and positioned themselves a little closer to Carlos. Their decorated bodies were for show—war paint—and their natural body heat was the means intended to distract the lead cybert for that crucial fraction of a second they would need to accomplish the mission.

  One of the Runners, a boy about twenty, flashed perfect white teeth as he grinned widely at Carlos and winked. He had a strong, fit body with well-defined muscle tone and a naturally bronzed complexion from being out of the shadows too often. Carlos' Stealth-disguised shadowy form wavered a bit since he couldn't help shaking his head and smiling proudly at his younger brother.

  From his ready position, Ramón looked up at Carlos with hero-worshiping eyes that said he promised not to disappoint his big brother.

  Carlos rested his hand on his brother's shoulder for a moment to communicate words he couldn't say aloud. Ramón understood.

  The determined Shadow warriors purposely lost some of their humanity as their faces took on an eerie, diabolical presence while they flowed a few yards back into the comforting real shadows until they disappeared. Jackson, across the street from his commander, moved his hand, just a slight flicker of his shadowed self, to signal Carlos, who in turn, nodded to the Runners. It was time.

  The two Shadow Runners appeared from the alley and darted in front of the formation, distracting the cybert leader for the tiniest fraction of a second. Time enough, though, for it to communicate a freeze order to the ranks of lesser cyberts.

  The Blue Leader's head spun 360 degrees, probing the perimeter with its heat image sensors, which successfully tracked the runners. Its torso turret spun like a top, whirling with blurring speed. Simultaneously the metal warrior extended two tendril-like arms to the front and fired from a point between the pincers of each appendage, catching both runners in mid-flight as they began their leap into their random potholes to the trampolines below.

  The rest of the guerillas shielded their eyes from the blinding flash, uncovering them in time to witness a red mist composed of their comrades' flesh, blood and bones floating to the ground in seemingly slow motion until nothing was left in the shadows but a memory.

  Captain Montoya froze, jarred by the startling blast that had ripped his little brother and the other Runner into millions of unrecognizable pieces, their flesh, blood and bones lost forever. Although drugged with enough adrenaline to return fire at Makr himself, his body was powerless while his mind raced. They have always had more time!

  With his eyes welling full of tears and his throat choked tight by emotion, he vowed revenge, promising to destroy every damned cybert, every damned machine he found on the planet!

  Damn you, Makr! Carlos screamed inside himself because he couldn't come out of his Shadow. Dam
n you!

  His body twitched, his state of mind causing a tell-tale flicker of the image left by his Stealth disguise. Hopefully, no one was looking.

  He had to regain his bearing. Breathe. Breathe, he ordered himself. Still, his body language gave him away, revealing that something was wrong. He felt the shock; his stomach churned. In the clichéd fleeting calm before the storm, he accepted the responsibility for a fatal error of judgment as a sole tear dropped from his left eye.

  Meanwhile, the cyberprotector's head whirled round 360 degrees, making an eerie high-pitched whining sound as it assessed the scene fully. As its sensors located additional Bio targets, two more arms plunged forward from mid-torso and fired waves of pure energy into the darkened alleyways. The force of the astonishing wavefire missed its intended target, destroying instead part of a building. Huge chunks of concrete and steel littered the alleyway and the main street along with interior debris and minute unidentifiable remains of the tenants who occupied that part of the building.

  Aware that it had missed its target, the Blue Leader sent an error message that made its functions pause a microsecond as it searched for a repair module in its program. The Bio resistance fighters were not where they were predicted to be. The cybert tweaked and adjusted its response to the data, and fired again. Missed again.

  Enough! It was time to use the heavy artillery. With it, the cybert could easily destroy entire buildings and insignificant residents just to get at the Bios who attacked its formation.

  If Shadow timing was off, it would be over for those inside the nearest buildings.

  It was now or never. Carlos gave the sign.

  Shields! His command was silent but the meaning of the gesture was clear. With the flick of his wrist, the four-inch long leather-like bracelet covering his forearm expanded and completely enveloped his fragile biological body with a nearly impenetrable shell. The shield covered his Stealth cloak totally, creating a two-dimensional, irregular oblong-shaped Shadow, as if tar melted or oil spilled on the pavement.

  The other Shadows lifted their wrist guards in a close-fisted salute and glided to a prone position on the ground. The leather-like armor plate expanded, at first becoming a coffin-shaped basin with rounded edges, and then seamlessly melted into the background texture of the street and alleyway, giving the barely perceptible appearance of a shadow falling on black pavement. With the shield's heat disbursement feature like the Stealth cloak, the Shadows become virtually invisible to Cyber receptors.

  Composite material made from cybert scrap armor make the shields tougher, more resilient, and a hundred times lighter than steel. Used properly, the shields can deflect the explosive force of a wave grenade, or a laser blast, or, in their strongest position—lying flat on the ground—the lightening-like energy bolt from a disintegrator. Unfortunately, human individual differences affect this situation.

  Marta Rosienska positioned herself and her shield correctly for a lesser blast, protecting her upper body and head; but that was her fatal mistake. The force of the energy bolt was too direct for her shield to withstand—even angled and anchored properly. Her body slammed hard against the shields of others who were already falling back and anchoring as they hit the asphalt; her lifeless body ricocheted upward and back about fifteen yards to where the alley turned. Two rear action Shadow guards saw her body crushed into a bloody mess of bones and flesh as it crashed into the stone building.

  The cybert head whirled to reconnoiter. Its blurring spin jerked to a halt for a millisecond each time it registered points in the dark alleyway—points where Bio targets now stood—and marked them for deletion. The total time it took for all points registered were equal to a Bio blink of an eye.

  "Grenades!"

  Jackson didn't have to repeat the command to his people.

  Shadows wrinkled and folded as members of each team launched grenades. This time, the cybert-fired laser wave blasts came in rapid succession from all four arms —two aimed at Carlos' group and two at Jackson's group. In the next instant a dozen hyperwave grenades all trained on the cybert did the job they were designed to do—rendering the massive cyberprotector utterly helpless, and its artificial brain inoperative. It came crashing to the pavement, inertia and gravity responsible for its fall. On the pavement now, the Blue Leader, seemingly undamaged, still cast a giant shadow over the rubble of lesser cyberts, which were now mostly rubble. Scrap metal and parts.

  With the shockwave over, the shields lifted simultaneously and the Shadows could see the results of their grenades. There were a few barely audible Shadow cheers and nervous laughter of relief.

  "Quiet! It's not over yet!" Carlos whispered loudly to his team. It is a typical human reaction, the whisper, but it was of no practical purpose here. If a cybert is in range, it will pick up any human sounds—even a whisper—bringing other warlike cyberts swarming like locusts.

  While it was obvious some cyberts could detect a heartbeat, most operated by heat signatures—an efficient means to find hiding Bios. These cyberts didn't need to hear them. That would give them a little time.

  "Carlos is right!" Greg Jackson's Shadow created a slight shimmering of reflected light and darkness that communicated to his people: Stay in your places. Check each other. Make sure your Stealth cloaks have no holes. There may still be some Cyber activity.

  All Shadows checked their Stealth garments for holes and other openings. In the murky world their forms take on a gruesome and grotesque ghostlike quality with barely a resemblance of human symmetry. Those same specters meld completely with the unnatural darkness of the alleyways. The Shadows merged with the shadows shed when the moonlight and streetlights shed light on larger objects. As the Shadows flowed against a dilapidated building, settle in the corner where buildings meet, or fall on the potholed street itself, the only sound anyone could hear is that of the wind meandering through the cityscape ventilating the passages between buildings.

  Keep moving constantly is the Shadow rule. Embrace the shadows. Become one with the darkness. The captain and his lieutenant moved quickly and cautiously into the street, zigzagging unpredictably to find cover in the Shadows offered by concrete and steel buildings. Carefully avoiding the glass buildings that could reflect light and potentially downgrade their Stealth clothing's effectiveness, they weaved through cybert debris until each could see the cross street.

  Shadows could communicate visually—if they had eyes on each other. Otherwise, they passed visual clues and a minimum of whispered words to communicate to those guarding the point, the rear and the flanks.

  Carlos heard a single click in his earpiece from the fringe lookouts. "Clear," he announced in hardly a whisper.

  "Damage report," Carlos mouthed the words to his squad leaders inside his Stealth face net.

  "Three dead, no wounded," said the raspy voice in his ear.

  "Who? Besides the Runners?"

  "Marta."

  He felt bile beginning to rise in his throat and had trouble catching his breath.

  "What! How?"

  "Not sure. It wasn't a direct hit, but I think she caught the full force of the blast. The wall..."

  Carlos turned to look, seeing a crimson arrow smeared on the wall pointing to a lifeless, bloody mass of flesh and crushed bone at the bottom. He could smell the coppery smell of the blood now overwhelming the other smells of battle. No matter what the weapon used to kill, the smell of death remained the same. His heart crowded his throat and his stomach rose to meet it; there were tears this time, but no sobs. He hoped she didn't suffer.

  "We were lucky," he reassured them, "but cybert reinforcements will be here in less than a minute." Carlos choked as he spoke softly into his collar communicator. Still, the sound he produced was more like the wind that naturally traverses the city through alleyways and streets.

  Lieutenant Jackson ordered his group quietly. "Okay, on that cheerful note, let's not make it easy for the reinforcements to find us and kill us." He sensed in the Shadows a murmur of pessimism a
nd loss of spirit, and now there was an out-of-place, unintentional chuckle.

  "I mean it!" he barked at them, a gust of wind slapping the side of buildings. "We can't afford to be careless. Set the mines, collect our booty, and let's move!" He didn't want to give them time to think about their increasingly desperate situation either.

  Carlos motioned to his group to move out. Jackson did the same. Each group had a job to do. Carlos' group, using laser axes, removed and bagged the cybert heads to include the artificial intelligence or AI globular package and the inner stem that extends further into the protective body. They performed these operations on all of the cyberts equipped with an intelligence center. All except for the cybert protector, the Blue Leader; this was left for Carlos. A few in the group looked for other cybert components, useful as salvageable technology or weapons.

  Meanwhile, Jackson's group set about placing plastic explosive charges in the cybert scrap bodies that lay headless on the street; others were engaged placing motion detectors to trigger the booby traps that they set around the perimeter. Armed with small neural wave scramblers, the traps when triggered could fry the brains of any cybert within a two-mile radius without damaging the city's ancient buildings. The remnants of the pre-Makr world were going to crumble on their own—without the weapon chief's personal help.

  The threat of further damage and danger came from the cyberts who would come to investigate from more than two miles out and the shadow soldiers set about removing the metal scrap and decomposing biological flesh and bone. If everything worked according to plan, the cyberts coming to remove these obstacles to machine-efficient travel would fall victim to the neural wave scramblers. Setting the booby traps is simple harassment—though a Bio can't truly harass a machine; however, one could, at least, disrupt production.

  The question on every Shadow's mind: Was it possible reinforcement cyberts already know better than to touch scrap cybert? The obvious answer: It was only a matter of time. The traps were only a cover for the salvage operation, destroying potential Cyber eyewitnesses until the Shadow teams had got away cleanly.

  Jackson knew the only way to keep up with Makr's cybert army was to use its own tools against it so he made it a point on any mission to gather any new weapons he discovered in the cybert arsenal. Once back in his Shadow group's home, the Nest, he would analyze the scavenged weapons for potential Shadow application. Half the cooled arsenal and armor would be of some value, while the rest of the parts would be too heavy and thus impractical for Shadows to carry. His soldiers respected his ingenuity as he went about the scene indicating which of the weapon systems and body parts they were to carry back with them.

  "Hurry up, people. Let's get out of here."

  Carlos knelt to examine The Blue Leader. This one was different from the others he'd seen. It had barely a scratch on it, meaning improved armor, while the other cyberprotectors he had come up against were scorched, dented and mangled pieces of metal.

  Kieran signed rather than use her public communicator, Well-armed? She had finished her job and was awaiting further orders.

  Yeah, with four of them, Carlos pointed and motioned a reply.

  Sergeant Kieran O'Shea stared at the four arms, each with built-in disintegrators and wave lasers. The fear that crept up and lodged in her throat made her ill. She turned away, as if to deny anyone the chance to x-ray her Stealth and see the misery on her face.

  While she ignored the pungent smell of bonded metal and plastic along with the scorched tar from the pavement, the sickening sweet aroma of burnt flesh and the coppery smell of blood was making her nauseous. But she had to be there. She had to be there for Carlos.

  Sorry about Marta and Ramón, Carlos. I know you were close to both of them, her body language said.

  Thanks.

  Will you be all right? she asked.

  He shrugged and paused for a moment, studying her for an instant and changed the subject. What about you? You look tired, Kieran.

  Carlos studied her briefly. Not even her Stealth covering could hide the image of a cowed Shadow from him. She was trying to hide her mental fatigue, but he saw right through her.

  She was one of his best Shadows, but she’d had enough of seeing her fellow soldiers and innocent civilians die in collateral damage. He knew he'd have to lose her anyway. There was too much at stake to have a Shadow combatant and tactician who thought cause was for naught.

  He turned his attention to Marta was killed and turned away quickly, unnerved by death’s frozen agony depicted on her face. She had been very special to him once, but that hadn't worked out. This godforsaken world!

  To deal with his pain he denied that it was her blood that was splattered and smeared on the wall. The pain! Hers. His. When they were one... Aren't those memories painful enough? Now this... Not quite the same.

  The shock of her sudden death made him remember all of their tender moments. Her kindness. Their laughter. He could almost hear that laughter now. Then, the fights because he couldn't relax. He couldn't stop being who he is. That was at the heart of it, wasn't it?

  He often wondered why couldn't he just live, co-exist with Makr like some of the noncombatants that survived Outside? Or, maybe even go Inside and accept Makr? Maybe the Shadow People were wrong—we're wrong--had been all along. Maybe Life is better with Makr. Easier, maybe. If we can just go along... Surrender?

  He rejected that thought almost as quickly as he thought it! He felt a single tear roll down his face. Carlos commanded himself to "get over it." Sometimes you have to be like a machine—cold and methodical. Today he had lost a lover and a brother, and he couldn't stop to mourn.

  He held out his hand to Kieran. Hand me an axe. She handed him one.

  He turned away from her and went back to work. She stepped away trancelike in her misery—seeing, but not seeing—and just stood to the side out of the way. Angling the laser ax on the neck of Blue Leader, Carlos gripped the trigger to create the paper-thin laser blade capable of slicing through the strong metal casing. But the casing held. The laser had no effect! The spillover laser beam was cutting through the pavement, creating rivulets of molten rock and tar but not affecting the cybert metal. Damn!

  As he concentrated the laser blade on the same location, the shielded grip was getting warm to the touch, too warm, and then hot. He released the trigger, but it was stuck in the on position. While the laser ax continued functioning with no apparent effect on the cybert, Carlos found himself engaged in trying to prevent another horrific disaster. He gripped the ax and shook it ferociously to jar the trigger loose.

  He'd been only marginally successful at keeping the laser's active blade slicing just the pavement where it could do the least amount of damage to people. He heard the sizzle before he smelled burning flesh, and dropped the tool, ripping away dead layers of flesh from his hand; the Stealth covering his hand was seemingly unharmed, yet the intense heat had managed penetrate it to burn his skin. He felt the most excruciating pain for a moment that disappeared when as he realized the laser ax had not finished its destructive path.

  Striking the pavement and lying on its side, the force of inertia kept the laser ax turning roughly 180 degrees. The paper-thin laser beam intensified and sliced through the building in its path across the street at several different angles before stabilizing and blinking out; that deadly beam, narrowly missed the Shadows nearby before it blinked out. Quickly, Carlos turned his attention toward the building that now had knife-like perforations clean through the ground floors. Severed from its foundation and at various structural locations, the building was sitting precariously on the imperfect cuts with only friction to keep it from sliding down in pieces and crashing into the surrounding buildings.

  He heard no screams coming from within. That could mean many Insider inhabitants were alive for now but oblivious to the sudden death brewing outside their walls. There was always possible collateral damage to those Inside when the Shadows battled the Cyber, but the result of this was unbelieva
bly sad. They succeeded with the ambush, while possibly killing hundreds or even thousands of their own kind. Still the mission had to continue.

  The air filled with audible gasps as he witnessed the detached part of the building scrape a few inches along the laser line, then stop. All Shadows froze in place, aware now that the connection between building and foundation had been totally severed. In the eerie silence, both Carlos and Jackson were feeling the same fear of their charges, knowing most would want to flee to save themselves, while not admitting it—at least not now. Truth was, if the building came down, they couldn't move fast enough anyway.

  The building's stability was shaky, although so far it was holding together. Any major vibration would bring the whole thing tumbling down.

  Carlos looked upward and realized this building with its thirty or forty stories was a small one in comparison to its skyscraper neighbors reaching up some two hundred or more stories. Damage to any one of those in the right places and the others could crash to the earth like dominoes.

  When the building's friction finally gave in to gravity and sheared off its foundation, collapsing, it would probably take some of the surrounding buildings to the ground as well.

  The numbers of deaths became unfathomable.

  Even so, Carlos tried to admit to himself the results of the accident was minor collateral damage in the scheme of things—the end-result justifying the means. That is, if you didn't count the dead residents. The building's recent movement had aggravated and accelerated the situation. The slight shift of concrete and steel loosened a number of ancient bricks that fell to the pavement. Shadows around the buildings swept like the wind through the alleys and streets.

  Most of the Shadows' except for the leaders and those in the immediate vicinity had scattered and pulled back away from the precarious building. The building's collapse may have been the least of Carlos' worries. The laser ax, no longer emitting an active beam, continued to build energy internally as it begun glowing red-orange—then turns white.

  "It's going to blow! Get down! Shields!" Kieran yelled as she yanked a loose portion of her Stealth covering from her own body to use as an extra protective barrier, grasped the laser ax by its handle and flung it upward high in the air far away from the others.

  The ax exploded in mid-air disintegrating her piece of Stealth along with it. Her comrades lay face down protected by their shields; however, she wasn't. There was a blinding white light, then nothing but darkness.

  As the others lowered their shields and recovered, they found her sitting against the wall of a building. The energy of the blast had catapulted her against the building's outer shell, the wind knocked out of her. Her Stealth gone, her dark undergarments shredded and net face guard pitted with dust by the blast.

  Carlos was up quickly and glanced toward the building that could still come down in any second. Amazingly, there was no movement. As he turned back toward the others, he saw her.

  "Kieran!" Carlos rushed to her side. She turned to him, her eyes glazed, empty of life. "Are you all right?"

  She was frozen—catatonic. He grabbed hold of her so she knew he was there. Finally, she shook her head as if something had snapped inside it.

  "No time for shield...no time for shield..." she murmured.

  Carlos acknowledged, "Everyone's okay. How are you?"

  "Why are you shouting?"

  A silent pause, then, "Sorry, I guess, I am. Hearing is okay, then."

  But he sensed something else was wrong.

  He lifted the Stealth net that covered her face and neck. Gray dust from the blast pasted and slightly larger debris pitted her reddened and blistered skin. Dark rivulets of blood from the corners of her eyes streaked down her gray face. She had tried covering her eyes but not soon enough.

  "Can't see. I'm blind."

  While her words were direct, emotionless, her tears flowed, trying to cool the once beautiful blue-gray eyes. The once penetrating, intelligent eyes could no longer see. She felt no pain now; the excruciating pain would come later. She tried to embrace the darkness as a Shadow for comfort, but she knew this shadow was false; the darkness was of her own doing. With Kieran’s eyes covered in a gray haze behind fused lids, the blast had rendered them useless.

  "Don't worry, Kieran," he said as he added another Stealth garment to cover her. "We can fix those eyes, can't we, Jackson?"

  Jackson nodded to himself, knowing that she couldn't see him standing three feet from her.

  "Beyond that," Carlos continued, "are you okay?"

  She felt his hand on her shoulder and his tender touch.

  "Yeah…sure. Just let me catch my breath."

  The voice was reassuring, but not very honest. The voice said that everything would be all right, but it was a lie. Her eyes burned so much she wanted to rip the unusable orbs out of their sockets. The Stealth covering her face would help her hide her pain from the others. She had to be strong. She was a soldier after all. A leader of Shadow warriors, it wouldn’t do for her comrades to see her cry.

  Carlos' voice was back.

  "That was a foolish thing to do. Courageous but foolish," he scolded quietly. He knew they could have all died in the blast.

  "Yeah, well, somebody had to do it."

  He pulled off his Stealth glove, which left his seemingly disembodied white hand glowing against the backdrop. With his naked hand he reached inside a faux leather bag from inside his Stealth cloak, opened it, pulled out some goo-like material with his fingers and applied it to her eyes.

  "This won't fix them but it should ease the pain." He pulled off his scorched other glove and applied some of the gel to his burnt palm.

  Carlos smiled tenderly at her from beneath his Stealth garments and then realized he had another bigger problem at hand. The exploding tool and the damaged building would alert more security as well as construction and repair cyberts to the area.

  Although the momentary exposure of his hands might not reach Cyber alarm thresholds, Kieran's loss of significant stealth put everyone else at risk. Makr knew the loss of His cyberts immediately as the Bios would know the loss of a limb.

  We are the Bios who disrupted the Cyber operation! Makr could care zilch if they were responsible for deaths of thousands of their own kind. Replacement cyberts and Cyber protectors would come--as they always did, and trigger the random traps--as they always did. By the time they arrived, the Shadows would once again be safe in the city shadows. Or, so Carlos hoped.

  If they weren’t quick enough in abandoning the area and dissipating the heat signatures, the cyberts could track them back to the Nest. Hundreds of his people would be in danger of annihilation. As for the thousands in the buildings about to collapse, there was no time to mourn their anticipated deaths.

  It was unfortunate collateral damage.

  A fellow Shadow had found some extra Stealth fabric to cover Kieran's face and chest. But, again, it wasn't quite enough, or quick enough. Her heat signature was sure to have been detected. It was only a matter of seconds before Makr’s cyberts could lock in on their location. And, when that happened, the entire Nest would be in jeopardy.

  "Leave me," she choked as she recognized the danger, too. "You need to leave now—before more cyberts come! Why are you still looking after me? Leave me, leave now," she cried.

  She sobbed helplessly, but silently with an intensity that rocked her whole body. She had never been so dependent on others and she hated it as kind hands pulled her quickly but tenderly, deeper into the comforting darkness of the night's shadows. These hands pulled, lifted and carried her away at least a mile from the area.

  Carlos knew the accident may have sent Kieran over the edge. He'd been near burn-out himself, but when his father was killed by cyberts he had found enough strength in his hate to continue. Now that his guerrilla commandos were safe in secure shadows, away from the recent ambush, he was more concerned about her burn-out than the temporary loss of her eyes that were easily replaced with parts cloned from her own g
enes. He also knew that you couldn't clone spirit, so he comforted her as best he could by holding her for a few moments, and then handed her over to one of his sergeants.

  "Sergeant Leach, take her back to the Nest with you. We have more work to do in this sector. We'll follow you home in a couple days." He hoped to sound calm enough to let Kieran know he wasn't worried about the Cyber alarm that just went off.

  "Don't do anything noble, Carlos," she said, barely audible as she lashed out. "I mean, don't go killing more machines to avenge us casualties of war."

  Carlos and the others tried to ignore the bitter sarcasm in her voice. All of them had seen the futility of this war, taking its toll on fellow Shadows. Carlos knew what she really meant: Don't kill any other Shadows. Or, Insiders…

  "What are you waiting for, Sergeant?" she snapped at Leach. "Get me outta here!"

  Even as the sergeant led her away, she turned her head toward her fearless leader and friend, and looked, through a black pitch darker than any Shadow, blaming him for failing her.

  "Now, my mice, we play with big cats in the shadows," Carlos said aloud. No point in keeping quiet now; our location is blown. Piss off, Makr. What he had given his Shadows was a coded message: We'll meet at Rendezvous Charlie in four. Do as much damage as we can along the way.

  Maybe by then we'll know the fate of these Inside Bio. Poor souls.