A Fistful of Credits: Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 5) Read online

  “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

  “How long has TVG been paying your mortgage, Captain?”

  “Fuck you,” the man growled.

  Zeke laughed. “I watched your men pay the punks who attacked me. I recorded it on my pinplants. I’ve been documenting your men as they helped the punks take extortion, operate whore houses, run drugs—both domestic and alien—and generally be anything except police. You use minor gangs for wetwork like you tried on me in the diner, and you take coin from the TVG boss directly to facilitate his robbing, stealing, and general asshattery all over the region.”

  “You’re one dead motherfucker,” Chief Forrest yelled into his phone.

  Zeke laughed again as he heard the policeman snarling impotently on the other end. “Tell you what; I’m going to oblige you. I’m coming through your front door in ten minutes, and I’m going to personally shoot your fat ass dead. How’s that?” he cut the connection and burned the account he’d used. The scrambler program said he’d had less than a minute. His heart was racing; that was exciting! He pulled the shade back and waited, checking his watch. The first police cars came screaming down Market Street two minutes later, and in another minute, they were racing in from all directions. As the ten minutes was almost up, Zeke nodded and turned to the array of slate computers he’d set up in the passenger seat. He checked a connection and activated the link. In the police building, a PA began to blare Zeke’s voice.

  “Attention Chattanooga Police Department. Your chief has been taking thieves’ and murderers’ money for years. Many of you know this and endorse it. You are no better than he, and many of you are worse. You have one minute to leave if you don’t want to suffer the same fate as Chief Forrest.” He severed the connection and burned that Aethernet account too.

  There followed a minute while several dozen officers either ran or walked quickly from the building. A small number of civilians working late ran as well. Zeke could see more than a few react to insults hurled at them as they went by officers standing in the doorways with armor and assault rifles. Then that minute passed.

  “Time’s up, Chief,” Zeke said, and turned to another slate with two buttons on it. One said “ARM;” he touched it. 20 little red indicators turned to green, and the next button went from amber to red: “FIRE.” He pressed it.

  The box he’d delivered contained 20 Zuul-manufactured demo drones. They were designed to spread out, head down in a building, locate structural points, and hide. He’d loaded each one with a five-pound block of K2. The blast was substantial, but tamped by the drones. He’d done that to reduce the risk of injury to any civilians nearby. The result was a near-perfect controlled demolition. After a series of shudders, the Chief looked up in confusion a second before the 12-story police headquarters came down in a continuous column of death and destruction.

  Zeke started the truck and pulled into the street. As he turned he could see the former 12-story building was now less than two. There would be precious few survivors. He nodded as he watched the cloud spreading in the rearview mirror.

  * * *

  During the drive back across town, he smoked a cigar with the window down. He didn’t worry about the police. Zeke estimated that out of a department of 200, fewer than 20 remained. But they were the 20 worth saving. A small part of him felt remorse for the good ones who’d died in the building, either too afraid to run or just too stupid.

  He reached his destination and slowed the truck as he approached what had been an exclusive neighborhood when he grew up. Lookout Mountain overlooked the city and was once where the most expensive houses stood. If you looked up from the city center, the neighborhood atop Lookout Mountain dominated the skyline. In the mid-21st century it had been dominated by cheap, high-rise apartment buildings. Little more than a slum now, there was still one huge mansion on Scenic Highway, surrounded by 20 acres, which he was going to visit.

  The truck wheezed its way up the Ochs Highway, approaching the tabletop-type mountain. Once a scenic country drive, it had been lined with mini malls and convenience stores before the economy collapsed after first contact. As the climb became steep, the road switched back and split. One way went to the top of the mountain, the other became Red Riding Hood Trail and sloped down into nearby Georgia. It was that corner that dealt him his first setback.

  A couple of junk cars were across the road that hadn’t been there earlier in the afternoon. Zeke brought the old pickup to a jerky stop and eyed the cars suspiciously. Sure enough, a half dozen men came from either side, having hidden behind several dumpsters and a half-melted bus stop shelter.

  “Whatcha want up here, old man?” the first to arrive asked.

  “Wanna score some sparkle,” Zeke answered, adding just a touch of twitchiness to his manner. A working streetlight was only a dozen feet up the road, and he shied away from its glow to add to his performance. “You got you some sparkle?”

  “I look like a fuckin’ sparkler?” the punk asked and took a halfhearted swipe at Zeke, who ducked without making it look like an overly hard effort.

  “S-sorry,” Zeke pleaded. “C-can I go up the mountain and get some?” The others were all holding back, not seeing anything strange. They’d obviously set the roadblock when Zeke blew up the police station. This was a delay he couldn’t afford. When the leader of the TVG realized their protector, Chief Forrest was no longer drawing breath, they’d pull back into their rabbit holes and fortify. One of the others suddenly spoke up.

  “Hey!” he barked, “That’s him!” Zeke spat when he recognized the kid from the diner. He’d only shaved off a few pieces of skin and left the kid alive. Now he regretted that decision.

  “Sorry,” he said to the one who’d walked up to his door as Zeke pulled the trigger. The .54 caliber Bulldog revolver’s roar was muffled because he’d fired it up against the door from the inside. The round passed through the inside panel, the window, the outside wall, and still had enough energy to blow a dinner plate-sized chunk out of the punk’s chest cavity. He looked surprised as he fell.

  Zeke raised the gun and blew the head off the one he’d spared weeks ago in the diner. He didn’t want him explaining anything to the other scumbags before Zeke’s job was done. He hit the gas. The old truck shuddered and roared forward with a squelch of tires on damp asphalt. There was a disorganized roar of various pistols, rifles, and shotguns that tore into the body, cab, and fenders of the truck.

  He counted on their incompetence to get him through it, and it was just that sort of gamble that usually bit him in the ass. A .32 caliber full metal jacket round fired from a 150-year-old pistol aimed at the truck’s rear tire passed through the rear window and took off most of Zeke’s right ear.

  “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. He aimed at the trunk of the smaller of the two junk cars blocking the road, and just before impact snatched up a grenade from the passenger seat and pitched it out the shattered left window, back toward the now-running gang members.

  The truck tore through the more modern and lighter junk car, and the grenade exploded, killing several gang members and giving his now dangerously-sputtering truck a little kick in the ass. A few more rounds bounced off the truck, but he’d taken the fight out of the group.

  With the last of the truck’s life, he reached the top of the mountain road, turned into an alley between two decaying low-rent high rises, and let it die. He was done with it, anyway. He scooped up his shoulder bag, fished a sterile wound dressing out, and pressed it to his face. That stung. Then he grabbed a grenade off the seat, pulled the pin, and dropped it back in. He was a block away before the truck went up in a ball of fire.

  * * *

  The mansion was the only well-lit building in the area. Bad move, Zeke thought as he stomped in that direction. Might as well advertise! As he moved through the trees, he could already see light armored cars and hundreds of gang members. They buzzed around like angry hornets. Between the demolition of the police station, the attack on their sentries, and the explos
ion of Zeke’s truck, their leader rightly realized trouble was coming. They just didn’t know how big.

  The first gang member who heard something took a long time yelling to get the others’ attention. By the time he had it, they didn’t need his help to see it. Eight feet of carbon/metal alloy war machine strode out of the woods and stopped just outside the eight-foot reinforced chain link fence. They all fell into a stunned silence.

  “Holy shit,” someone said.

  Zeke brought the CASPer’s PA speakers to life, and his voice boomed. “I’m here to talk to your leader,” he said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” He saw the parapets of the four-story mansion begin to fill with gang members armed with all kinds of weapons imaginable. The interior Tri-V on his combat suit strained as it classified levels of threat from zero for nothing, to ten for deadly. It marked a half dozen as five, the highest present. All were on the armored personnel carriers. “What’s it going to be?”

  Fifty feet away an older gang banger, a rare thing for that profession, laughed and raised his ancient AK-47. A string of ‘pings’ sounded as the 7.62 rounds bounced harmlessly off the chassis. A half-second later, 100 guns were roaring, and Zeke thought it sounded like the inside of a tin shed during a downpour.

  “Guess it’s the easy way,” he said, and flicked off the loud speakers.

  More than 100 targets were identified, most firing or trying to fire weapons at him. The scene looked like an old WWII epic he’d seen as a kid. He leaned forward, the haptic suit he wore translating the actions into movements, and the huge suit walked into, and through the reinforced fence.

  The Mk 8 CASPer his old friend in the Golden Horde had broken a dozen laws to send him didn’t have any of the weapons he’d used in the merc company; that would have been far more difficult to send. So Zeke had dug into the container of purloined weapons he’d smuggled back from off world and improvised.

  On his right arm was a miniature chain gun. Zeke triggered it and played the weapon around the house’s perimeter, mowing down dozens and sending even more running for their lives. A .50 caliber Browning in one of the armored cars opened up, one of the threat level five weapons, and the rounds walked in toward him. Zeke hefted the Oogar-manufactured recoilless rifle and felt the shudder through his suit; the armored car was nearly torn in half.

  He sidestepped more .50 caliber fire, reloaded the recoilless, and fired again, then three more times. The armored cars were done. A Molotov cocktail soared over his head. That wouldn’t do, the suit could be overloaded or shorted out from burning gasoline. He cleaned out the entire area where the throw came from, its flight trajectory analyzed and given to him by the suit’s computer.

  Heavy fire came from the roof. He marked the roofline with his eyes, dropped the now empty recoilless, and raised his left arm. The medium crew-served chemical laser whined as it fired, and he worked the pulse across the top of the house. Architectural features were sliced off, wood caught fire, and several heads rolled down the roof. He reloaded the laser with the only other charge he had for it and noted he was going to run out of ammo.

  “I don’t have time for this shit.” He used the suit’s scanners on the house. Only one room, top floor towards the city, had people not moving around. “That’ll be him,” he said. Zeke triggered the CASPer’s jumpjets. The half-ton steel war machine roared into the air and angled toward the house. He dropped a half a dozen K bombs, smallish grenades, into the courtyard below, to keep them busy.

  Zeke cut the jets, and the suit hit the house like a wrecking ball, smashing through roofing, metal reinforcement, and beams. He kissed the jumpjet controls slightly, just to be sure he didn’t over penetrate, bent his legs slightly, and came down with a thunderous crash in the boss’s office. He might have gone through that floor too if he hadn’t first roasted, then crushed a poorly-placed guard.

  The room held a dozen of the boss’ most elite people, armed predominantly with pistols and rifles, but a couple had the first lasers he’d seen. With reflexes born from years of combat in the CASPers, he scanned the room. The man behind the desk was huge, muscled, scarred, and looked scared to death. The rest were a motley collection of rogues and thugs, until he came to one who looked surprised, but not freaked out. Bingo, he said.

  The temporary shock caused by the arrival of a thousand-pound suit of combat armor was broken, and a dozen guns started to come up.

  “Not so fast, kids,” Zeke said and aimed the laser at the man he’d picked out of the crowd. “Twitch and he’s toast. Literally.”

  “Who gives a fuck about him?” The man behind the desk stammered.

  “You do, because that’s your boss.”

  “B-bullshit!”

  “Fine, I’ll just waste him then.” Zeke leveled the laser at the man’s Adam’s apple.

  “Stop,” the man ordered. “Okay,” he said and slowly raised his hands. “If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”

  “Boss,” the thug behind the desk said.

  “No, Hoss, it’s cool.”

  “Yeah, Hoss,” Zeke said, “get the others and leave.” The big guy looked half-panicked and glanced imploringly at his leader.

  “Do as he says,” the boss said. He looked scared, but not terrified. Good, Zeke thought. He slowly walked around behind the desk, the CASPer’s laser emitter tracking him with deadly precision, and put a hand on Hoss’ shoulder. The leader was about 30, naturally thin, and had intelligent eyes. He considered the visage of a merc combat suit in his inner sanctum, and laughed. “Go on,” he said again to Hoss, who slowly rose.

  “Smart man,” Zeke said. “Go. I’m not going to kill him, yet. We need to talk.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Hoss said. Despite his obvious fear of the huge combat suit, he glared daggers at Zeke as he left.

  With reluctance, the surviving guards moved out the door. Zeke watched in the suit’s displays, and he could see the hall was already jammed with dozens of gang members. The doors slowly closed. They were alone. With a pop and a hiss, the cockpit of the CASPer released and rose in two pieces to reveal Zeke inside, a bloody bandage on the side of his face. The boss looked curious and surprised.

  “They told me you was an old man.”

  Zeke nodded. “Yes, I’m old,” he said, “and disappointed.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Zeke said. “I’d expect better from my kin.”

  “What? Who are you?” the boss demanded.

  “Ezekiel Avander,” Zeke said; “Dr. Ezekiel Avander.” The boss’s jaw fell open, and he openly gawked. “Yeah,” Zeke said, lowering his head and looking at the man from under bushy eyebrows. He pointed with the suit’s arm at a portrait on the wall. It was Zeke, his wife Molly, and their daughter Jennifer.

  “Ezekiel died in those first contracts, 90 years ago!” the boss complained.

  “I went on the alpha contracts,” Zeke corrected, “and almost didn’t come back. I was a slave for 70 years, then a merc for 20. I was going to come back and retire, but you changed my mind.” The boss looked at him in a swirling mixture of amazement, anger, and confusion. “I honestly expected better of my grandson, Zebedia Avander. Official report was you died. Took me a while to put the pieces together.”

  “They call me Zeb now,” the boss said. Zeke shrugged. He’d been a little flattered when he found out his daughter carried on the family tradition of Z-named boys. Zeb looked at the portrait and back at Zeke. There was little doubt. The man in the CASPer was older, but still obviously the same man. “How?”

  “The HecSha who held me were really good at nanites and nanobiology.” He shrugged again. “I was already a physician and a biologist. Between making tailored nanovirus for them, I tinkered. I guess you can say I found the fountain of youth.”

  “So now what?” Zeb asked spreading his arms wide in surrender. “Grandpa?”

  “Zeke is fine,” he said; “it’s best if most don’t know who I am.” Zeb looked surprised when Zeke disco
nnected his haptic leads and crawled out of the suit. “I think it best that TVG come under new management.”

  Zeb looked gob-smacked. In minutes he’d gone from leader of a huge gang to displaced by a long gone dead ancestor? “What?”

  “You haven’t been thinking like an Avander,” Zeke said. “This small-time shit is foolish. You got the organization and some manpower, but you’re going about it all wrong. So, I’m taking over.”

  “What makes you think I’ll just step aside?”

  “I don’t want to kill my own blood,” Zeke said, stepping up to within inches of his grandson, “but don’t think I won’t.” He picked up a small marble statue of a naked woman from the desk and crushed it in his cybernetic hand like it was an empty pop can. “Do I make myself clear, sonny?” He blew the dust from his hand and looked at the man.

  “Perfectly,” Zeb said, looking away.

  “Good.” Zeke pushed past his grandson and took a seat in the ornate office chair. It was the same chair he’d last sat in almost 90 years ago. It felt good. He drew out a cigar, his last one on hand, fished the trusty plasma lighter from a pocket, and brought the stogie to life. Zeb looked askance at the growing cloud of smoke. He appeared despondent and resigned. You don’t run even a small criminal empire without being able to read the writing on the wall.

  “So now what Gran-, I mean Zeke? You gonna just toss me aside?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Zeke chuckled and blew a smoke ring. “You’re a great organizer. You turned that bunch of scum into a group who’d fight and die for you.” Blood dripped from his ruined ear onto his shoulder, and he sighed. “No, Zeb, I’m going to run the show, but I have big plans for you. Never been in jail, right?” Zeb looked confused, but shook his head. “Excellent. Besides, I’m 132 years old. I don’t want to do this forever, but my talent is obviously needed. You help me run my plan, get things going, and you take over in 10, 20 years, tops.”