Point Zero (_.1)

Point Zero (_.1)

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Commissioned by: cjdavis

Wordcount: 2016

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Sector 3 is where the dregs live. 

The lights are bright, the air filled with transports, and the music loud, but the people remain dregs nonetheless.

Power is in flux in the 3rd. 

Gangs, militias, and heavyweights rule the outermost ring of Point Zero. No one lives within Point Zero without purpose. All are talented, most abnormally so, but not are all equally talented. Here in this city of dreams, only the finest sit in the clouds, while those who are merely gifted cling to what little scraps are left.

There is plenty, but that plenty is fought over, and those who fight over it are intelligent, powerful, or cunning… and sometimes all three.

Attempts to police the area have failed. Time and time again, precints will arise. They will be staffed by veteran police officers… or soldiers. However, the strategic layer… no, the human nature of the 3rd is different. Intimidation and mythology have no place in it. Black-clad men and weapon armed with guns and shields, walking in unison, are looked upon by predators instead of prey.

Most are hungry for top-of-the-line police equipment easily turned lethal.

Others want top-of-the-line police flesh.

No authority claiming jurisdiction over the third lasts.

Maybe, not even mine.

But, it won’t end tonight.

Tonight, I hunt instead of being hunted.

A string of victims bear similarities to one another. All in the same borough of the 3rd. All powerful and outspoken. All threats to the common individual. To the cursory eye, one sees a deluge of sudden corruption spikes by individuals with violent pasts. Violent lives ending violently. But, violence is cruel, capricious, and unorthodox. A dozen possible threats meeting the same demise reeks of overt machinations.

And, of the five possible individuals who can provide information to such machinations, four are already dead due to four different crimes.

Someone wants to hide something.

And, they’ll succeed if Grace O’Hara dies.

…

I reform around the smoking barrel of O’Hara’s gun after she shoots me on sight. She has good instincts, or suspects imminent foul play, both are decent reasons why she’s saved for last. Pinned to the wall, I feel that she’s armored beneath her labcoat. Military grade chest piece. Electric-field augmented. Possibly with active camouflage. I pry her gun out of my head whilst subsuming what I can of my charred flesh.

I bid her a good evening.

“Y-yeah? I-is that all, you bastard? That’s it before you strangle the life out of me against the walls of mine own home!?” Panic and fear wage in her mind. Not good. Panic leads to bad decisions. Fear is preferable. Fear makes people remember and listen. I increase the pressure of my hold, just a little. “F-f-fuck!”

With my free hand, still fully formed instead of a mass of unwound muscle and bone, I search her. Two pistols. High-caliber, high explosive loadouts. Five knives. Monomolecular. 

I tell her it’s all illegal and is grounds for arrest.

Confusion fills her eyes. Panic slightly fades. She sees the badge on my lapel for the first time. Fear becomes tinged with anger.

Good enough.

I tell her that she is going to be impressed into Sector 3’s newest branch of police as community service. 

“Do… do I have a b-bloody choice!?”

Not if she wants to legally defend herself against the assassination attempt coming… now.

The walls of the modified apartment structure withstand the attack. Grace O’Hara is not an individual normally associated with Section 3. Holding two Masters-degrees and a distinguished service medal in the British army, along with information classified to me, she has resources to spare. She has spent those resources reinforcing her position. A good tactic. However, defensive posturing merely grants opponents initiative. The advantage is to her would be attackers, their siege weapons, and their dedication to a frontal assault to culminate their string of clandestine victories. 

Grace O’Hara is the hard target that will be the jewel of this new gang’s mythos, while tall the others are the soft targets that form the band of their true strength and influence. 

I will render that crown to dust here and now.

Recruiting a woman of O’Hara’s caliber into my precint would be beneficial for me, however.

“Dammit to hell, what the fuck is going on!?” I let her go. She checks the situation on her monitors in the corner of the room. I prefer another tactic. I call upon the autonomous drones I have at my command. The rockets cease. Screaming begins. Chaingun suppressive fire ought to buy both time and blood. A little blood. They were for riots. Very, very hazardous riots. “Mary’s bleeding tits, there’s a fucking war going on out there! Who are these cunts!?”

A forming gang interested in staking their claim on Sector 3 connected to a string of a nearly twenty clandestine killings. I explain the situation simple, but concisely. She is their hard target. Their grand statement. The last one they need to kill, before their crimes are nearly untraceable. 

“And, they fucking intend to mount me on a cross and parade me down the street to show off their fucking cocks!” I’d intended my summary to be apt and to the point, but hers impressed me more. But, more so than her summary, her sudden calm and focus was more impressive. She’ll do well on the streets, if this was how she reacted to homemade siege weaponry. “Damn it. God fucking dammit. Fine! Fine. Deputize me, you heavy-handed bastard. Help me live through this, and I’ll bloody work my fingers to the damn bone for ya.”

That was all I needed to here.

I gave her permission to utilize her weapons, before making use of the weakened structural integrity of the nearest, armored wall.

I engaged my prey in combat immediately. 

…

On the street, there were four dozen individuals armed with illegal, low-grade laser weaponry and homemade explosives. Most were pinned down due to the riot cannons. Sticky, rubberized munitions holding electric charges subdued a dozen, whilst most took cover and fired upon my assets. Their utilization of illegal weaponry, ownership of several kilograms of plastic explosives, and damage of public property warranted non-lethal measures taken against them.

Forming seventeen cords of muscle and bone with scythed heads composed of monomolecular edges of my left arm, I non-lethally decapitated them. 

Basic infected human anatomy will allow for their brains to continue functioning for thirty minutes. Reattachment to their bodies is possible, and will be granted upon parole. Until then, their containment will be served in statsis, and they will be awakened for their trial and speak vie neural interface. 

Until further notice, howver, their privileges to utilize their bodies have been revoked.

Modified transports, seven in number, fill the airspace. They are hovering above buildings, too near to other buildings, and not on mandated flight paths. Also, they sport rocket-based, homemade weapon systems on them in an underslung, dangerous style. Extremely illegal, I am mandated to ground them with all necessary force in a deceive manner to protect civilian lives and property.

Raising my right hand towards them, I increase each one’s density tenfold for an instant, and they all crash into the ground. Vulnerable electric systems and other mechanisms crushed beneath their own weight, each vehicle becomes non-viable. The homemade weapons systems are crushed. Inactivated rockets have the inner mechanisms destroyed. Lack of secondary explosions speak of advanced explosive designs. I will have to interrogate pilots after their insides are successfully reconstituted. 

Thus, I deal with the majority of the enemy, but not with the majority of the enemy force.

“Holy fuck. What the hell are you? The Grim Reaper made manifest?” Utilizing civilian-grade, legal jet boots, O’Hara arrives by my side. I finish my first round of arrests by moving bodies and heads together. Checking on my assets, I find that most are no longer operational and will require repairs. They require upgrades. “What the bloody hell did you need me for, if you can do all this—oh.”

Oh.

Again, it is a concise, simple statement that I can envy.

It is a statement that successfully and completely introduces the main threat of the fledgling gang.

A trio of individuals who were my main suspects for serial murder, rampant theft, and intent to do harm to a government employee were ex-military. All from armored divisions and suspected of smuggling. They have been sent to Point Zero for the purpose of being tried in international court. They never appeared for their hearing, killed all pursuers, and disappeared into the 3rd. Each one is in mechanized, urban armor. Military grade quadrupedal walkers. Their main weapons are autocannons. Onboard weapon systems are high-caliber machineguns, flamethrowers, and two sets of mortars. Defensive abilities are plasma and interdiction shields, as well as active defense systems.

I forget their names.

I don’t bother with negotiations. 

I hadn’t needed them.

I pull O’Hara out of the way before they fire, mulching most of their incapacitated their troops in the process, and setting off the explosives in the modified transports. 

Those are very illegal and they are doing very illegal things.

“Do you have any other words of wisdom!?” Decreased density and utilization of tendrils fashioned from my own flesh permit me rapid movements. Good eyesight and processing allows me to stay clear of firing vectors. I do not move faster than bullets, but faster than what can point the bullets. Still, soon enough, I will be caught in an overlapping field of fire supplemented by mortars, while I remain incapable of utilizing the majority of my abilities due to energy shielding. Melee is out of the question, as well. “Am I supposed to assume that those rust buckets are my problem, because you’re not doing anything about them, you bastard!?”

That assessment was correct. 

I am an individual whose Infection permits me an incredible and vast array of skills. However, that means I am weak to humanity’s equally vast and incredible methods to dealing with those who utilize, or have been subsumed by, the Infection. Years of warfare, research, development, and polish have made even “rust buckets,” surplus military weaponry made to combat Infection, deadly to me. However, they are not nearly as deadly to individuals with more mundane sets of skills.

I’ve killed those who would’ve ended Grace O’Hara’s life in my initial attack.

It is her turn to save her life, now. 

I inform her of that, then throw her behind the enemy.

To my senses, she is easily detectable. However, her active camouflage and other systems make her invisible to the trio of mechanized, quadrupedal tanks. Their fire remains on me, which I evade, as she arcs through the night sky unseen and without shadow. She a formless mass to mere sight, unheard by ears, and emits no heat as she lands atop the armored, back engine of the middlemost, piloted machine. The active defenses do not notice her. She is a ghost settling on the machine.

A very well-armed ghost.

I am buffeted my heat, pressure, and shrapnel, but I withstand the assault and watch O’Hara’s plan.

Again, her plan is simple.

Explosives on the engine, as near as possible to ammunition storage, then a leap to the next armored unit to do the same.

Less than fifteen seconds from my throwing of her, and each of the metal giants roaring flame and fury are smoldering wreckages.

Grace O’Hara, as her portfolio implied, is a skilled, able-bodied individual with a penchant for military technologies, thorough understanding of military tactics, and with the experience necessary to thrive in sudden, extremely dangerous situations. 

She will make a capable officer in my precinct, an individual who can tackle problems that I cannot, and together we will be a very effective. 

Of course, I make sure to capture her when she turns on her heel and attempts to flee. 

Her community service will begin forthwith, and it will do so with a reprimand for killing suspects outright instead of attempting to incapacitate them for capture. 

“Oh, give me a bloody break…”