Enemy : Butcher of Panama Canal, Leilani Blake

Contract Holder : Unknown

Iris whipped out both of her micro-blades. They weren’t as strong as Leilani’s, but they were all she had. She couldn’t even call in backup. The kind of backup Silvy could offer was too dangerous next to so much thermite. “Well, I guess that takes out any ambiguity about why you’re here,” she said, edging away.

Leilani rolled her eyes and twirled her blade. Then she stabbed it at Iris and said, “You know, ain’t that just the kick in the teeth? I took this job because I’m trying to make a life for myself outside of war. But it ain’t free to make myself a celebrity, now is it? What can I say? A girl’s gotta work to put food on the table, and how many people are interested in hiring robots like us?”

Iris’ jaw clenched. “We’re not robots.”

Leilani smirked. “Tell that to the people in HR.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t killed all those–”

“They were terrorists!” the woman screamed at her. “I don’t care what you heard. Summer Lee and Jack Fucker? Those corporate drones? They say whatever they’re paid to say. I was a fucking war hero. That’s the truth of the matter.”

Leilani had been a hero. An inspiration even. Then Iris had seen that even heroes were human. “You crossed the line, Leilani. And now what are you doing? Going to destroy the sea bridge or something? Going to kill everyone on this train while you’re at it? Not doing your reputation any favors, are you?”

Leilani laughed and her scowl softened. Her shoulders relaxed. “All about playing the long game. Now then, I think we’ve given our respective bosses enough time to talk, don’t you? If neither of us have been called off, that means Blumhagen is too bullheaded to know what's good for them.”

Iris turned her head slightly, gave her attention to Silvy and asked, “Did someone just try to bribe us?”

“Iris.” Silvy’s voice was strong, clear. “Can you beat her?”

She glanced back over at the older woman. In her head, she thought over the advantages and disadvantages. The scales tipped decidedly and she shook her head. “What choice do I have?”

“Commander Mendel has ordered you to escape. Abandon the mission and preserve your life.”

Iris laughed and pointed one of her blades back at Leilani, making a line with the sword pointed back at her. “I guess I’m going rogue then. I’m not in the business of letting civilians die for politics.”

Leilani cackled. “I love to hear it, girl, but next time you should save people worth saving, don’t you think?”

“Quit yapping. I only have a few minutes to deal with you before I have to dump this bomb.”

“Come on then bitch, try to make it entertaining.”

Both of them cranked their reflexes to the max. They juiced their brains with drugs way better than adrenaline and handed their limbs over to their computers. Electromagnets crackled in both of their as they clamped onto the steel floor and kicked off. Leilani swung first. Iris caught the longer blade with the only thing a micro-blade couldn’t cut, her own sword. The heavier weapon pushed through, hard. She twisted and vaulted, arcing her back over the swipe and only losing a scrap of her sportcoat. Then it was her turn; with her offhand she lashed out only to catch Leilani’s crossguard.

The moment she landed, their swordfight became a frenzy. Fertilizer spewed out from ruptured barrels. Engine lubricant showered the walls. Peat moss exploded over the floor. At the same time, cut by cut they ripped into one another’s arms and legs. Leilani’s synth skin oozed red, but everywhere Iris was cut cauterized black. Their blades scraped against one another’s plating, begging to catch into the other’s armor without success until–

Electric current jumped into Iris’ arm. It surged her motors and blasted pain through her. She screamed. Then the older woman’s foot slammed into her gut hard enough to break the magnetic hold. She flew back and smashed through the door to the next cargo hold.

Iris coughed and gasped. Her senses reeled as her heart lurched from the shock and impact. Pain seeped through her until her suit shocked the arrhythmia back out of her. Before she could push herself back up again, Leilani casually swiped her blade through the mess of chemicals around her feet.

The electricity flashed and parked the vapors. Fire raced out from around her, engulfing the entire compartment in the blaze.

“Are you insane?” Iris screamed.

Leilani laughed, striding through the burning slick towards her. “What? Afraid of a little chemical explosion? Haven’t you been a HAB girl for years now? What the hell do you have to fear?”

Iris gritted her teeth. The woman was right. Even if everything went up at once, it wouldn’t be enough to break their suits, and it wouldn’t be hot enough to ignite the thermite. She doubted there was even enough oxygen for it to all explode, so long as the train car stayed sealed.

“You’re addicted to this, aren’t you? Just like they said.”

That gave Leilani pause. She stopped. Her grin vanished. She held her sword limply at her side. “Of course I am. It’s the only thing I have left. What kind of stupid question is that? I can’t eat. I can’t drink. I can’t have sex. Not really. It’s all just simulated! It’s all a digital lie. I tried the civilian life. I really, really did. And you know what? It was fucking sand in my mouth.”

“At least you had food! Do you know how many people go hungry? How many kids? If you blow up this bridge, Korea will starve this winter.”

“Korea will do nothing but start importing from America. Prices will go up. So what? This time next year, you’ll be able to sit in New Orleans eating imported tuna. The only thing that will change is UAAF’s military power.”

Iris’ arm was still resetting, still flushing the surge from her motors. Everything felt sticky inside her, like the oil had burned. She needed time. “Are you saying you’re doing this for America’s benefit?”

Leilani laughed. “Not quite. Now come on, make me feel alive.”

Iris lunged the moment she could squeeze the grip of her blade again. Not for Leilani, but for the rubber. The older woman had been right. What did they have to fear from a little explosion?

Oxygen sucked into the train car as Iris threw herself to the ground. Smoldering, guttering flames leapt out. “You crazy bi–” Leilani’s screams vanished beneath the roar of the pressure wave. Fire blasted out through the hole and sprayed into the night. The whole train thumped.

As soon as her hearing recalibrated, Iris leapt back up. Both she and Leilani had lost most of their clothes and skin. Bare graphene armor plating glistened in the lingering firelight. “What the hell was the point of that?” Leilani shouted.

Iris smirked and shook out her frazzled hair. “A warning.”

“Warning?”

The conductor slammed the breaks. For a maglev train, there was no screeching or grinding, but everything lurched towards the front. The two fighters only kept their footing by virtue of magnetic force, but all the debris and the thermite piled up to the front of the train car as warning sirens began to blare. Panic spread like a virus.

The train wouldn’t make it to the bridge. Leilani’s plan, and whoever had actually planned it, wouldn’t work. All Iris had to do was stall.

The butcher of Panama Canal darted to the back of the train car and leapt out from the torn tunnel, up onto the train as wind still howled past. Iris did the same, clambering up and gripping her feet to the steel roof. They were four car lengths from the engine, where the main control computer was.

Amid the artificial savannah, the sand dunes long ago baked in nuclear fire with a lost metropolis beneath, Iris lifted her blades against Leilani once more.

With no walls or boxes to constrain them, they pulled out every trick they knew. Iris gave ground when she had to, retreating closer and closer to the nose of the train. Over her shoulder, she could see the expanse of water, the flat horizon of sea. The bridge was in sight, but the train was coming to a stop for emergency inspection.

Leilani had a better view of it than Iris, and every swing of her sword made her more frantic and angry. “Just die!” Leilani’s micro-blade caught a chip in Iris’s. The two edges couldn’t slide. They locked up, all force concentrated to razer lines. Iris swore. She buckled. Her knee hit the roof of the final train car. Her blade shattered.

Leilani’s heavier weapon cleaved through like an ax. It bit into Iris’ shoulder and broke her armor plating. Her body felt cold as Leilani’s micro-blade bit through the steel beneath her. She grunted, tried to force her body to keep going. That was the strength of HAB units, to keep–

Leilani stabbed straight through Iris’s belly, ripping through the main processor. At once, the illusion of connection vanished. The steel and plastic that imitated her body went inert and cold, useless. Iris became nothing more than a trapped, impotent mind in a jar.

The butcher of Panama Canal stood up and wiped the grime from her face. “I think you’ll be a great scapegoat at least. You can feel good about that as you die,” she said, and started for the front of the train. She hopped the final connection and stuffed her micro-blade in through the roof to cut herself an entrance.

An object the size of fist traveling at Mach 3 impacted the woman in the side and detonated. The outer layer of the explosive fragmented against the woman’s armor plating, turning the uranium pellets inside into superheated slugs. They ripped through Leilani’s body like paper. When they hit her battery system, nothing survived that explosion.

“Worked like a charm, Silvy. Just as planned,” Iris thought, but she didn’t have a radio connection anymore. She had nothing but a view of the night sky overhead as Silvy brought in the plane to rescue her.