Chapter 49: Ray Dawn

Ray Dawn’s helmet mechanically lowered revealing his middle aged face, skewed eyes with heavy bags underneath.

“I finally found you,” he said.

Carrasco had an abnormal expression on his face. “The master sent you?”

Despite the question he didn’t seem interested in an answer. His eyes were covertly darting around trying to find a path of escape.

Ray Dawn sighed and answered anyways. He wouldn’t have for anyone else but for a former agent, even a traitorous one he owed him this much.

“Sort of.”

Carrasco chuckled to himself in realization. “To think the master was able to plant an agent within the data guilds.”

“Not exactly but yeah.” Ray Dawn shrugged with no intention to further explain.

“That’s why you’re alone?”

“Hmm.”

“A duel then.” Carrasco raised a provocative eyebrow.

“I’m afraid not.” Ray Dawn grabbed his shoulder and wore a thin smile. “Bloody work that and I suffered enough from my last duel.”

“Would you at least give me your name clansman, best to know one’s killer, the clan is a close knit one and although I don’t recognize you I will surely recognize your family name.”

‘He’s stalling.’ Ray Dawn shook his head. ‘To think he still hasn’t given up.’

Ray Dawn considered the backpack Carrasco had on.

“Give it,” Ray Dawn said. His tone dark and eyes filled with violence.

Carrasco frowned. “Listen friend the value of this here item is worth more than you can imagine. Help me get away and we can share the profits. You can have enough credits to be free of the master. Travel to any of the other free cities and live in luxury.”

‘If only you knew who you were talking.’

Guardian and Lancer marched toward the former agent.

“Okay, okay.” Carrasco raised his arms. “I know when to give up. Just promise me I won’t get the furnace.”

Ray Dawn nodded and the droids stopped.

Carrasco unstrapped the backpack from one shoulder, motioned a hand behind his back to unstrap the other shoulder.

“Don’t!” Ray Dawn shouted.

Carrasco retrieved and tossed out a puck like device. Ray Dawn jumped back and Guardian stepped forward to intercept the device.

Guardian swatted the puck to the ground. The puck crashed open and electricity crackled then sucked the droid toward it. Guardian planted his feet but that only slowed its skid toward the puck.

‘Field grenade.’

Other miscellaneous pieces of metals were pulled in as well. Guardian didn’t struggle long and was eventually sucked into the core of the magnetic field.

Ray Dawn had thrusted himself into the sky, high enough that he was safe from the magnetic pull.

The makeshift shacks nearest the field grenade collapsed in a soul wrenching screech and flew into the growing heap of metal.

Carrasco was sprinting toward Lancer with another field grenade within his grasp.

Ray Dawn sighed. Noting Carrasco’s fighting spirit. He couldn’t help but give the traitor a pitiful look.

There was a whizzing in the air and by the time Carrasco noticed, a bullet was ripping through his ankle. Carrasco limped a few more steps, but eventually crashed into the dirt face first and dropped his trump card.

“Carrasco you can’t see beyond your own greed,” Ray Dawn said. “So you don’t realize how cruel the world we live in can be.”

“Fuck you,” Carrasco growled, clutching his gaping ankle, oozing blood like it was synthetic gel.

Ray Dawn landed again and furrowed his brows after an inspection of the former agent. He noticed Carrasco’s backpack was nowhere in sight.

“Where is it?” Ray Dawn snapped.

No response came as Carrasco writhed in pain balling his eyes out.

Ray Dawn hadn’t been frustrated long when Shenko approached. A Msholozi-Z4 rail rifle resting on his shoulder.

“It got pulled into the field grenade,” Shenko said, standing over the heap of metal gathered by the magnetic field. The grenade’s effects having worn off.

Ray Dawn exhaled long and hard.

“Let’s quickly search for it.”

They had caused quite the commotion. So they needed to move before surveillance drones arrived.

‘But then again were in Newtown so we should have a bit of time.’

Shenko found the backpack ending their search. He emptied the backpack and the astra dropped out. Shenko retrieved it and held it to the moonlight.

It was a football sized silver chunk of metal layered with nano-circuits imperceptible to the naked eye.

Ray Dawn eyed Shenko. He trusted him just about as much as he trusted the other reliable tools in his toolbox.

‘Would greed tempt him as well?’

He anxiously watched Shenko approach, large orb in hand. Ray Dawn licked his dry lips. Eyes glued to the astra.

The mechanical hum of an F9 engine drew Ray Dawn’s attention to the sky. A floatcar had parked mid-air over their location.

A reckless figure plunged from the car. Slammed into earth and the whole of Newtown quaked in awe.

A shockwave followed lifted dust into the air.

Shenko and Ray Dawn were pushed back but managed to stay on their feet. Through the thin layer of dust they were able to make out the figure. He was in an exquisite mech suit. The armour glittered gold, crested with precious jade gems around the neckline.

“Fuck,” Ray Dawn said softly. There was only one person who’d where such ostentatious armour into battle.

‘Murakami.’

“Mu-Mu-Murakami,” Shenko stuttered belatedly.

The Lord Protector swept his gaze across them both. A simple look but to Ray Dawn it was as if he’d peered into their souls, as if they couldn’t hide anything from his gaze.

“Seems I arrived just in time.”

His deep voice seemed to reverberate throughout the entire slums. He pulled the constellation spangled shield hanging from his back.

The shock hadn’t sunk in when Murakami muttered those magical words.

“Flame on.”

Blackflame was engulfed in incorporeal flames that sucked the moisture from the air. Making it even harder to breath,

Shenko shuddered, his trembling hands threatened to drop the astra at any moment. He tried to turn toward Ray Dawn. They were only a few meters apart but with Murakami in their presence. The distance between them felt unreachable.

Neither of them had any thoughts of trying to fight him or running away. They could only fight fire with fire but Shenko didn’t have the means to unlock the astra.

At some point Murakami had raised Blackflame and aimed at Shenko.

‘Shen!’

“Incinerate.”

Condensed flames burst from the shield in a beam of brilliant white light. Shenko could only watch fear stricken and frozen. His subconscious mind taking him prisoner in his own body.

As the flash of light neared Shenko. The youth smiled in relief. He must’ve noticed Ray Dawn from the corner of his eye, thrusting toward him. Ray Dawn tried to push him out of the way but he was a fraction too late. The attack blasted through Shenko’s armour, cremated a large chunk of his shoulder and torso as he was sent tumbling away thanks to Ray Dawn’s shove.

Murakami shook his head.

“And here I thought you were too awestruck to move.” Murakami stared down his nose at Ray Dawn who crumpled to his knees. “Was it worth it?” Murakami said with an expression of genuine curiosity.

Tap! Tap! Tap! The rhythmic patter of blood dripped down from the scorched stump where Ray Dawn’s arm had once been. His mouth hung open. He had the urge to scream but he couldn’t find his voice.

“Why not simply wait your turn instead of getting yourself mortally wounded as well.”

Ray Dawn’s glanced at his half-arm. From his elbow down, his arm had been incinerated. Blood splattered, soaking red into the dirt, he grit his teeth as the throbbing grew wild in intensity.

“All to get your hands on that but you can’t even use it?” Murakami pointed at Ray Dawn’s remaining hand which rested over the large orb.

Ray Dawn remained silent.

“You thought you could use it against me.” Murakami sneered. “Do you know how long it took the federation to figure out Blackflame’s operation?”

Ray Dawn ignored him, glanced at Shenko. The young man was motionless enveloped in a pool of his own blood, a grin on his face as if he had no regrets.

Ray Dawn had his retinal upgrade scan for vitals.

‘Dead. Dead? Dead! Dead…’

He repeated in his head but his brain was unable to process the thought. His mind shook suddenly and he malfunctioned for the briefest of moments. When he came too, his body was heavier for some reason.

‘The blood loss?’

Moreover his natural eye was blurry. Tears were flowing down his sharp edged cheeks and rolling down his hollow cheeks.

‘Pain?’

Sure, pain pulsed up his half-arm and he remained immersed in it. And true the trauma was enough to bring him to tears.

But that wasn’t why he was crying.

His heart ached just like when Ma would sell the toys Pa gifted him for a little extra cash.

‘Is this what it feels like to lose a valuable tool?’

Ray Dawn exhaled a slobbered breath, throat clogged full of phlegm.

‘Now isn’t the time to mourn,’ he thought but his body remained heavy.

Some combination of the unbearable throbbing of what remained of his arm and the ache in his soul were greatly hindering his movements.

Ray Dawn acted anyways, sent out a distress signal.

“Time to end th—” Murakami paused. Stared hard at what remained of his arm. The nanites were working hard at closing the wound.

‘Seems they can’t regenerate whole limbs, only treat wounds. I’ll be needing another upgrade then,’ he thought unworried.

If it wasn’t because he didn’t want to lose his sense of touch altogether he might’ve already replaced his entire body with a mechanical one. He recalled a verse from the scriptures that had become his mantra of sorts.

Fusing the organic and with the inorganic, the digital construct and with the consciousness mind. That is the true embodiment of a cybermage – The Encrypted Scripts, Volume 1 extract.

Hence he strived to become a symbiotic fusion between human and machine, perfectly balanced with the strengths of both jammed into one. The only logical step into the evolution of humankind.

Murakami’s gaze shifted to Ray Dawn’s whole arm. Nanites were crawling out the pores of his hand, spreading over the chunk of metal and being absorbed into it.

“Flame on,” Murakami growled with the greatest of urgency.

The ball melted into a liquid alloy, engulfed Ray Dawn’s hand and continued up his arm, covering him in silver.

“Incinerate.”

A blinding light erupted on Ray Dawn.