17. Target acquired
Riddik had taken the emergency access to the level below to avoid the lift, the level where he assumed that the GESTEBO agents were right now handling their prisoner. He opened the door as silently as he could, cursing the maintenance crew for not oiling the hinges when they creaked ever so slightly. He moved out into the corridor, needlegun and thin gun at the ready, moving as silently as the metal grille floor and his heavy pilot's boots allowed. He resisted the temptation to peek around the corner. His opponents were Serco after all, they would spot him immediately and he could not afford that. He heard the clacking of metal in the corridor; the sound of heavy handcuffs and knew that the GESTEBO agents were getting ready to move. He triggered a reflex booster and flooded his system with adrenaline, feeling his heartbeat accelerate and his focus narrow. He took a deep breath and swung himself out into the corridor both weapons up and actively targeting. Riddik counted four; this was going to be interesting. One of the dark clad agents was facing him with a thin gun readied with another moving towards a side corridor for cover.
"Do not interfere, this is.."
The deep boom of the needlegun and the sharp crack of the thin gun interrupted the agent who tried to get his gun onto Riddik even as the accelerated xithricite dust punched a fist sized hole clean through the head of the agent right below his nose. The shot from the needlegun hit the agent that was going for cover in the chest, throwing him to the floor. Riddik dropped the thin gun and pulled the other while firing once more with the needlegun at the same target. This time the Serco agent didn't move making him an easier target and Riddik placed the swarm of lethal darts in the face of the agent, slicing the skin and muscles off before crushing the skull beneath. The two other agents were now going after their guns and Riddik started moving evasively towards them while aiming for another agent. The sharp crack of thin guns rang out, one agent getting hit in the abdomen and bending over from the damages while both agents missed Riddik by inches. The other agent re-aligned and fired once more, this time hitting Riddik on the left shoulder, fracturing his arm and making him drop the thin gun. Riddik charged, shouting a combat roar and ignoring the thin gun in the agent's hand. The gamble almost paid off with the agent taking a single step back while steadying his gun. Riddik looked directly into the barrel and as time slowed to a veritable standstill, he could see the agent curl his finger to fire. "I am dead. Keria, I love you, I tried" went through his head as the thin gun belched forth its deadly load. He did not feel but noticed the charge rip through his cheek and tear his ear off before he impacted upon the smaller man with all of his mass. Riddik hit him elbow first and immediately started punching and kicking the agent with all his force. Suddenly the agent went down, his legs removed under him and Riddik followed impacting on his chest with his knee, feeling the crack of splintered ribs in the chest of the agent reverberate through his legs. The agent flailed at Riddik with his arms inefficiently and Riddik moved blocked the hits with his destroyed left arm while going for the twelve-inch combat knife in his boot. The woman on the floor delivered a massive kick to the side of the agent's head, stunning him enough that Riddik could grab the knife and punch it up through the chin of the agent and sever his nerve connections from his brain to his body. The agent stopped flailing.
"Look out behind you."
Riddik rolled to the left and threw the knife reflexively as he saw the shadow behind him. The wounded agent he had shot before was standing with his thin gun pointing at Riddik and the knife hit him through that hand and equally through the gun rendering it worthless. The agent tried pulling the trigger several times wondering at the lack of effect while Riddik grabbed for his own needlegun and pointed it at the agent's stomach where the thin gun had already made a hole. With no remorse whatsoever he pulled the trigger firing a full burst at less than two metres distance ripping the agent in half. Riddik got up and walked over to the remaining agent alive and shot him in the neck.
"Who are you?"
Riddik considered giving a clever answer but couldn't come up with one with all the combat juices running through his head.
"I am Riddik, former member of SCAR, former member of the Serco Skycommand. Someone named Beria sent me."
The woman got up on her feet and shoved her hands towards him.
"Care to remove these please?"
He nodded and started taking the handcuffs off. They were the new bioprint type and required a live agent to remove. He would have to smash them to get them off. He was just about to grab his combat knife again when he received an incoming signal.
"Riddik, send me a posit. I am on the way."
Riddik smiled at the way Fate seemed to make everything happen at the same time and sent a position to Lebermac.
"I can't get them off painlessly, but someone is on his way that can. You just sit tight miss."
"Cat, I am Cat. Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Hey, thanks for helping out there. I thought I would be dead for sure."
He grinned while remembering the surprise on the agent’s face as he missed from less than a metre and even more when Riddik impacted on him.
"You know you have a hole right through your left side of the skull right?"
"I've had worse. Given time it will heal, it always does."
Riddik sat down; he needed a bit of a rest. The combat drugs were slowly being used up and his body started sending damage status to his brainpal. He smiled broadly, he was most certainly messed up but he would live.
###
"I do not see how that would work Alfred, how can we persuade his brain to ignore his body?"
The engineer looked down at his feet before looking up at the medical staff officer that was sitting leaned back in his chair.
"As I see it there are two ways of doing it. But I may be mistaken; I am merely a neuro-interface specialist. One is to use a Serco specially enhanced cyborg body, the other is to have the mind essentials disconnected from the body. There are pro's and con's to both solutions with the con's to the cyborg body primarily being the lack of available subjects, and the con's to the other being fairly obvious."
"Can't we just install him in another clone when he is finished fighting?"
"And when might that be Sir? A month? A year? As far as I have read from the most up-to-date journals from Miracle Outpost, the mind essential become adjusted to not having a host within a month and even rejects own-gene clones afterwards. Essentially we would then have a mind that would be unable to have a body Sir."
"I see, so two weeks would perhaps be a limit we could work with? How about continued replacements, have they shown any signs of damage?"
The medical staff officer cleared his throat.
"Sir, we have some experience with re-grafting minds in clones, even gene different clones. However it shows that a lot of neural damage is created every time. We estimate that even with the best surgical techniques we lose around 0.2% capacity and that is before any other damage to the brain and brain stem. That is good enough for the brain to rewire and effectively only affects a very few. With the current operator of the Omega we have however neural loss of 2-4% before transplanting and we fear that it will double during the transplant."
"Why is that?"
"Well, from the brain scans it looks like some new growths inside the brain are taking all the spare repair capacity."
"What? Are you telling me he has a tumour?"
"Not quite, we expect it is the Omega that needs the space. Thus the test person is adjusting to the needs of the Omega at the expense of his own neural hardware so to speak."
Raewon nodded and scribbled a note on his pad.
"To sum it, the subject has adjusted to the Omega. The subject has suffered brain damage as a consequence of the trials. The subject needs to be physically removed from his own failing body with more brain damage to follow. Gentlemen, these options are not very good but I see no alarm bells ringing, I see no reason to stop. Alfred, see if we can get a Serco cyborg body in working condition, the medical crew will clone a number of bodies and prepare a brain swap. The test pilot flies again in three days. Dismissed."
###
Vaso entered the plain grey Atlas, nodding to the fat human norm that had escorted him out to it.
"Commander, I'll make sure my superiors get the information. On behalf of the Lady, I thank you."
"Well Vaso, if it wasn't for that permanent look of distaste on your face at looking at me I would almost believe that you could be counted for a human."
Fletholm nodded in return and turned to walk into the station. Inside his head there was a small voice that shouted for the extraction of the Serco's spleen by the most unpleasant means possible, that is if he even had a spleen, but the harsh realities of life dictated otherwise. He needed to get the information to the Serco and he needed them to get it fast. Extradition of the agent with a small extra package from himself to the head of the Diplomatic Service could cover the trails from leading back to UIT and maybe to a restoring of the MAD doctrine. Back to making dollops of money, back to him having time to sleep and see his wife now and again. Now he only had one particular nasty piece of work left before letting the ball roll and lean back to see others do the dirty work.
