Enigma Glitch

Chapter 39: More Equal Than Others IV

The young man's hand shook as he raised his pistol. He growled when he failed to aim it and instead slashed it through the air in defiance.

"Drop your weapon." Langley marched forth with her chest puffed. The cadence of her steps around the large fountain and toward the suspect were regular and quick without interruption. "I don't want to have to kill you."

The young man backed across the lobby and into a large hallway which led to a hotel lounge. His hand shook but he tried his best to aim at his pursuer.

"You already know my comms are down," Langley said as she paced faster than the suspect would shuffle away. "What you don't know is the signal blackout you caused has saved your life. I haven't received my supervisor's order to neutralize you. That means I'll let you live until you give me a reason to believe you're a threat to anyone's life. So put down that gun before I make that determination."

The suspect scooted aside to a decorative marble statue of a man riding a horse. He used the cover to steady himself and aim.

"Please have more appreciation of your life." Langley bent her right hand down to reveal a ballistic barrel from under her wrist plating. "Because even though I've seen that outfit before, I still want you to live more than you do."

The android stood out in the open and braced her firing arm with the other. She then fired a single .45 ACP round.

The suspect shrieked and spun sideways in a misty cloud of his own blood. He flopped to the ground with a mangled wrist and a limp hand as his pistol clattered on the floor a few yards away. He convulsed from the pain and his legs alternated between going rigid and thrashing. His spasms worsened and he never gripped at his destroyed limb.

"You missed," Murphy said, running up behind Langley with a beat up revolver in his grip. The tall, chubby man with a shaved head moved with enough speed to cause his brown duster to flow behind him. "You can't miss."

"I spared his life." Langley crouched over the young man and pulled the bandana from his face to create an instant tourniquet under the man's armpit.

"What did you?" Murphy stepped around a growing pool of blood and crouched to get a better look at the man. "Is he dying?"

"I think he's going into shock," Langley said as she tied off the tourniquet with her precision finger movements.

"You think?" Murphy dipped his nervous hands into his pockets. "Shouldn't you know anatomy to be a great soldier?"

"I was built to put holes in people, not deal with the consequences." Langley examined the timing of spasms. "He needs immediate emergency support, so that leaves me little choice."

"Maybe a first aid kit at the hotel front desk has adrenaline." Murphy turned toward the long hallway. "I could sprint over and get something."

"Not enough time," Langley said. "Besides, I think this will work."

Langley opened the man's jacket and ripped a hole in his underlying shirt.

"This is familiar." Langley placed a small coil of exposed wire on the side of her palm directly on the man's chest.

An electronic hiss accompanied the man's entire body hopping up for a brief moment. A thin trail of smoke arose through Langley's fingers and the smell of burned flesh drifted through the hallway.

The man's head slid sideways and he was perfectly still.

"Just as expected, this worked." Langley held up her hands to display pulses of electricity along the coils on her palms. "These are supposed to be for hand-to-hand fights. But with a short burst, they can save lives rather than end them."

"Remind me never to arm wrestle you." Murphy took a step back.

Faye walked up with cautious steps and stared at the unconscious man on the floor.

"You're the only person I've seen moving around here." Murphy tilted his head as he examined the girl. "Besides this criminal, of course." The bald man cast an inquisitive look through his green visor. "How did you escape the big freeze?"

Faye stared at Murphy's revolver.

"Faye, this is Murphy, a member of my team." Langley pulled the tablet from the man's hoodie pocket. "Murphy, the freeze is caused by a mass hack. Someone must have used a weakness in the latest Dujour chip security patch. Everyone who wants to flaunt their wealth has one, which is why everyone froze." She looked up to Murphy and said, "Except for the poor." She touched her chest and said, "Or the nearly obsolete." She tilted her head to Faye, "Or those with family objections to cybernetics."

"What'll happen to this hacker?" Faye backed away from the bloody scene.

"He's alive, for now." Langley unlocked the man's tablet and went through the mess of open apps. "I performed a type of defibrillation to calm his heart, but he'll need a blood transfusion and a lot of medical attention." She knocked the man's visor off with the back of her hand. "What I thought. There's only one thing missing until he looks exactly the way I saw him before." She tapped a metal finger on the man's forehead, right between the eyebrows. "Small caliber hole, right here."

Murphy holstered his weapon and retrieved the pistol from the open floor.

"Looks like a little .22 handgun." Murphy turned the weapon over in his hands.

"You've seen his death?" Faye took a few steps back. "Is that what you mean? You know what people look like when they die?" She rubbed the bruises on her face. "That's why you told me you were sorry, wasn't it?"

"I know there's nothing I can do to protect you," Langley said. "I recommend you stick with Murphy for protection. He's a nice guy who will do everything he can to keep you safe."

"Did you really tell this girl she was going to die?" Murphy scowled at his android companion.

"Can I please have that gun?" Faye extended her open hand toward Murphy.

***

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