7 Juniper Court

20 minutes South of Raymond, Maine

August 17, 2053 – 10 years, 10 months before Seed Drop

Jim Johnson snapped up from a dead sleep, sheets nearly flying from his upper body.

Mind clinging to a fading memory of noise, his ears strained to catch it again. He leaned forward, pulling the bedding aside, turning his legs out, and settling toes on cool wood flooring.

His left hand quested for and found glasses sitting aside the smooth black beetle stone on his nightstand. Palming the stone, then slipping the glasses on, his left hand went to the three tiny dimples on the arm curve above his ear. His fingers swept across them, then tapped on the first and third.

Before him the dark of his bedroom was cast in clear amber light.

In the corner, a bright green shape lifted its head. Jim pulled back the corners of his mouth and exhaled sharply, “Pffft.” Kaw instantly jumped from her bed and crept rapidly to Jim’s side where she spun to face the bedroom door, ears high and alert.

The house was in silence.

Complete silence.

Dread brought forth a primal alertness, sharpening Jim’s mind and senses. Then, he noticed another absence. There was no air movement. His head rotated back and up just enough to view the large fan above his bed. It wasn’t turning. That was wrong. He always slept with it on.

The silence, the dead air… the darkness. Looking toward the bathroom door and tapping a different pattern on the dimples, heat vision became night vision. Eyes narrowing, Jim’s suspicion was confirmed.

The charging LED from his razor was dark–the power was out. Run off an active fuel-cell in the basement, and backed up by solar powered battery, it was literally impossible for Jim’s home to lose power.

Finally, he thought, returning his sight to thermal with a tap.

From the open balcony door, the nocturnal chorus filtered in. Jim glanced at it, then to his bedroom door, then back to the balcony. A gentle breeze ruffled the linen curtain hanging from the door’s back.

Moving to the foot of his bed, Kaw followed him. Jim hissed like a snake–Kaw looked up. He clucked his tongue and pointed at the closed door to the hall. Kaw dropped to her belly and froze, attention riveted on it.

With a long slow exhale, Jim Johnson raised his beetle stone and squeezed twice. Its apparent solidity dissolved to nothing. Black spread rapidly over his hand even as he pressed palm to his breastbone. The opaque film immediately wrapped his torso, and, in seconds, Jim’s entire form was pitch black.

Around his feet, the kinetic nanites formed like socks, and his midnight figure slunk noiselessly to the patio door. He re-activated heat vision, verifying no warm bodies hid beyond the doors, and slipped onto the balcony.

He rapidly cleared to his left and back around to his right, then drifted across the patio’s considerable depth to the rail. With each step, he was scanning the woods, covered BBQ area, detached workshop, and open space of his backyard for heat signatures.

Several pint-sized spots glowed at and just beyond the tree line. Another slightly larger hot spot waddled across the far lawn trailed by four smaller ones. None presented as human.

At the deck edge, his attention tipped down, searching. What he could see of the back patio was dark, no hot spots. Slowly, Jim leaned out, eyes sweeping side-to-side, questing for what he knew must be present.

Beside the rear door, a figure blazed bright green in his amber sight.

One, he thought and slipped back from the rail. Turning and angling to his right he made for the far corner where the roof pitch was level with the deck surface and accessible by climbing over the railing.

Passing the door to his bedroom, he glanced in. Kaw had elevated onto her front elbows, she’d heard something.

Jim hurried to the opening, ducked just inside, and quietly hissed again. Kaw’s ears twitched outward in recognition. Jim clicked his tongue three times. Kaw rose into a low, tight crouch and padded left, eyes fixed on the door.

He bit his lower lip, making a “Ffft.” She went right, toward the wall between hallway and bedroom. Arriving, she froze, attention still fixed on the door. He clucked a single time, met Kaw’s gaze, and pointed back at the bedroom door. She dropped back to her belly, positioned to ambush anyone that entered.

Jim was back on the patio and to the corner in seconds. The 3rd generation kinetic-graphene armor was a wearable weapon with sound absorption, and he made not a whisper.

Over the rail, the armor gripped the slick solar shingles as if they were sandpaper. He ghosted up to the ridge, taking a long moment to scan the front yard. Beyond the entry gate, in the woods to the right, three large heat signatures were grouped in row. He recognized them instantly. Stealth bikes.

Many animals, their forms indicated in green, also peppered the area, but nothing more. Jim crossed the ridge, moved to the small front balcony into the guest bedroom, slipped over the rail, scanned the room for heat signatures, found none, then gripped the door handle. A haptic buzz tickled his palm and the door unlocked.

Cracking it, he slipped inside, and pulled it shut.

Anatolli Vekorov was a wraith. A new moon horror. A devilish folktale made flesh and bone. He was death delivered with a whisper, unknowable and, more importantly, untraceable. In the night, no being living stalked its prey as he.

Beneath his helmet, Anatolli wore a sneer. He always wore a sneer, it was his mark of membership, his ever-living graduation gift from Bepa. The ancient master had deemed Anatolli’s fatal flaw to be vanity. He knew this because Bepa had told him so while pouring battery acid over his face.

Bepa had been careful not to damage his eyes, nose, or ears, as they were a wraith’s tools. But the sides of the face were not needed for a wraith to serve its purpose. And, so with Anatolli’s head clamped tight in a rotating vice, Bepa had shown him each of yellow vials before slowly pouring them over his flesh.

Deep tissue acid burns were only agonizing for the first several seconds, until all the pain receptors were eaten away. When all the nerve endings were dead, pain vanished leaving only the smell and sizzling of melting flesh. Which only caused mental anguish to the week of mind, and Anatolli certainly was not that.

It was when the liquid burned through the cheek, then dribbled into the mouth, that was when the real pain began.

And so Anatolli, having nearly no muscles left to hold his spittle in, had tendons transplanted to replace them and keep his lips up, forever in a sneer.

Tonight though, his burnt visage managed a leering expression that was deeper still. Anatolli was smiling–he had new toys.

From his vest, six smoky tendrils snaked to the ground, lifting, and carrying him with effortless grace. And so, clad in wispy grey, Anatolli drifted, without a sound, up the stairs toward the target’s bed chamber. Just as his mythical namesake would.

Cresting the top stair with serpentine grace, the tendrils carried him promptly to the door where, wrapping one about his wrist, he directed it into the knob. Seconds later the metal began to collapse on itself. Then Anatolli pulled free the lump of its remains and, with a gentle nudge, swung the door open.

He slid through the door and suddenly his right-side tendrils shot out, the left compensating to hold him steady. All he heard was the scruff of paws on the hardwood, then a whimper. Glancing right, Anatolli’s unseen eyes wrinkled in pleasure. The target's highly-trained hound hung there, mid lunge, one tendril speared its chest and another through its mouth, extending messily out the back of its head.

His mirth, however, was short as a shadow twitched in his HUD, indicating movement behind Anatolli. He spun, lashing out with his tendrils of smoke. The canine corpse hit the cherry wood floor with a meaty thud.

The man was more clever than he’d known, but joy surged in Anatolli at the realization. A challenge was a rare treat, and it must be savored.

Half spun back, Anatolli’s body slammed to stop. It was as if his torso had been gripped in the Bepa’s head vice, which made no sense, nothing could hold Anatolli since that day, he was the wraith. Still, a sharp pinch in his side informed his brain that not all was well, the target had managed the first strike.

Glee flashed through his mind, this would make his inevitable victory so much the sweeter.

The hall shadow moved, leaning closer. Dark eyes bore into his from behind golden lenses. “You fucking bastard,” it growled. “You killed my dog.”

Anatolli the wraith was no fool, the target was talking, distracted, when it should be finishing him off, so he struck. Smoky tendrils blasted into the form skewering it and Anatolli knew he’d won again.

Then the shadow stepped closer, Anatolli’s tendrils dismissed as if they were nothing but wind and wishes. Raising a hand, the target pointed two fingers at Anatolli’s visor.

He did not understand, and he did not care, he had apparently not won yet. So much the better, the challenge still stood and Anatolli did not know how to back down. Hands, trained by ten thousand hours of lethal combat, found graphene infused blades, and thrust into the target’s kidney and lung.

They skidded off the shadow, but Anatolli didn’t stop, instead he stabbed toward the golden eyes, the eyes were always a critical weakness. Anatolli’s knives never found their target as an opaque web snared them, stopping them cold.

He activated the tendrils again, targeting those cold eyes. But there was no response. Confusion gripped him. His tendrils were just gone.

“How?” Came Anatolli’s contemptuous growl, acid burnt vocal cords causing him to sound as a rusty meat grinder.

The shadow, unknowably black and expressionless, seemed to manage a sneer even more disdainful than Anatolli’s own. “Fuck you.” It replied.

Then the unbreakable polymer of his visor shattered and Anatolli Vekoror, the wraith, the nightmare made flesh, quivered and spasmed. His body hung suspended from a spike of darkness that passed into his eye and out the back of his head.

From within the shattered helmet, a mangled and scarred face sneered at Jim Johnson for a long second. He withdrew his head armor, and hawked a great glob of spit into it, then retracted the spikes from both torso and eye.

The assassin’s body tumbled to the ground, landing with a satisfying thud.

Jim glanced at Kaw’s still form and sighed painfully. She’d been a wonderful dog, so loyal and smart, his only companion in his lonely task.

He silently wished to kill the vile man again for taking her from him. The desire to destroy every person ever connected to this piece of trash burned in him. Jim wanted to incinerate their very existence from time itself.

He let the emotions run, coursing through him as they seared his nervous system with waves of adrenaline. As he let the emotion roil, unhindered and with free reign, Jim trusted his deeper knowing–just because he held a devil within did not mean Jim Johnson was the devil. Even this force of destruction could serve a greater purpose, even it could serve Jim’s task.

And so, in little time, the unfettered wail within spent its chaotic desires as Jim waited in the deeper below, patiently and knowing it would pass. When it did, Jim reformed his midnight helm and moved like lighting.

Through the open patio door, across the patio, and vaulting the rail without slowing a hair. Before him, two shadows fled, muzzle flashes flared in his vision, rounds impacting with the fierce snap of frozen paintballs. He’d have bruises, but that was irrelevant, tonight had been months in the crafting. Months in slowly luring out the hidden enemy, and Jim had no mind for small issues like bruises.

His enhanced strides consumed chunks of ground, closing on the trailing assassin impossibly fast. As the lithe figure planted one foot to dodge away, Jim’s fingers reforged into a spike that he drove through its spine. The figure screamed but Jim had not care for his pain.

Spike dissolving back into his armor Jim Johnson barreled forward. His target, the smallest of the group, glanced back and he saw acceptance in her expression. His sense of danger flared; a foe ready to die was not to be taken lightly.

Both of her hands ceased the rhythmic pumping of running and disappeared for a moment. Jim directed all of his armor’s reserve shielding into his right hand, unknowing exactly what she would pull, but wanting to be prepared to contain whatever it was.

Barely a few yards away, the woman spun backward, still running but slowed, and threw an orb at him.

Jim snatched it in his prepared hand, strode twice more, thrust his left hand into her face, engulfing it in obsidian, then dropped to his knees, skidding across the lawn as he drove the assailant down headfirst while slamming his right arm shoulder deep into the ground.

He funneled all the armor he dared into his right hand, pressing the orb deeper and deeper into the ground. Two hundred feet, that’s the depth he needed. There, it almost didn’t matter what explosive the thing held, the dispersion net should be able to handle the power.

The woman flailed under his left hand, her arms hammering on his, working desperately to free herself. He ignored her, focused on driving the sphere down. Her flailing stopped. Then the sputter of a suppressed large caliber pistol unleashed on full auto split the night. His ribs, hip, and left thigh were riddled with pain as the rounds rebounded off his armor.

Then the earth erupted.

Jim tumbled through the air, landed on his side, and slid to a stop. His left arm prevented him from rolling. Dirt and grass rained down. Sitting up, Jim shook his head, clearing his vision of soil and glanced at the unwilling human extension attached to his left hand.

His grip still held her head as if she faced him, but her shoulder was pressed into his fingers with the rest of her body trailing 90 degrees to the right. She was, beyond a doubt, dead. “Damn it all.”

As earth continued to fall, Jim made a call.

It rang twice, and a gruff voice answered. “Jim. Talk to me.”

“They took the bait.”

“I’m on my way.”

The rustle of clothing or sheets came through the connection. “It’s already over Olli.” The sounds stopped. “Still get out here though.” He sighed deeply. “They’re all dead, we need to clean this up.”

“What the hell Jim, we needed a captive!”

“I know! Godammit Olli, you think I don’t know.” His voice trailed off; disappointment evident. “I had the last one, but she threw some kind of high explosive. I buried it, but the blast threw us both and I had her head trapped in graphene.” Jim grimaced. “Her body went a different direction.”

“Shit.” A heavy sigh came through the line. “Doesn’t matter now. Vehicles?” Olli quired, the rustling resuming.

“Three bikes. That’s all I’ve seen.”

“Okay, I’ll handle it. Call End. I’ll be there in 5.”

The line disconnected.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Jim Johnson retracted his graphene from the assassin’s head, stood, and walked to the crater’s edge. Surveying the damage, he grimaced. “My yard, Gaud-dammit all.”

A wisp of graphene floated from the smoking crater, rejoining his suit. The explosive had been potent indeed to have separated even that small bit.

Fifty feet across and nearly as deep, the hole appeared as if taken from a war zone. In a dozen or more locations, plastic irrigation lines poked from the edges like the abused legs of a freakish spider. The main water line to his home bridged the far side, cracked and spraying high pressure water into the bottom.

“Fuck. How the hell are we gonna explain this?”

“Unnnghhh. My legs,” came a piteous whine from behind him.

Jim’s head snapped up, wrecked yard forgotten, and he was moving. “Where. Where are you?” He whispered.

“Hellllp. Please. I don’t want to die.” The voice came from the bushes beside his walk.

Dirt clods and rock littered the entire yard, and the front of his sprawling two story home was splattered with them. He ignored the mess, gliding through the chaos to the still breathing man. As he bent to inspect him, Jim triggered another call.

“Yeah,” Olli answered.

“One’s still breathing, bring a transport kit,” said Jim, pinning the man’s hands to his chest with a graphene manacle.

“Hell yeah.” Olli’s baritone rumbled. “Don’t you dare let him die, Jim.”

“I know. But I bisected his spine, probably has an internal gut wound, maybe a punctured lung.”

A metal cage clanged through the line followed by the sound of Olli’s pounding feet. “Can you see the wound?”

“No. I got him through the back, and he’s face up. Can I roll him?”

“Fuck yeah. Just take any weapons first, then cover his mouth to keep him from screaming.”

Jim ignored the disarming advice, opting instead to pin the man’s hands to his mouth, encasing his jaw in graphene but careful not to block his nose. Suffocating their last prisoner would not be well received.

The man blew frantically, snot spurting, eyes wide and terrified.

Extending a line of graphene from the muzzle, Jim freed his left hand then shifted the anchor line to his chest, binding it there to maintain the restraint.

His captive barely struggled when he was rolled onto his front, emitting only a muffled moan.

Darkness stained a hand sized spot of armor around the puncture in the center of his lower back. It was only slowly seeping blood. “The wound isn’t bleeding badly. I should be able to stabilize him.”

Jim ripped the cut in the armor wider. He sent a tendril of kinetic nanites into the wound, activating the field triage function.

“Fan-fuckin-tastic. Looks like you didn’t screw up. I’ll be there in three,” said Olli, tone touched with glee, his words punctuated by tire squeal before the connection cut off.

On the ground, his captive whimpered, but Jim Johnson only smiled. He need only be kept alive, not comfortable.